All eyes are on Sen. Bill Cassidy, one of the likeliest Republican senators to join with Democrats and vote in favor of convicting former President Donald Trump on the “incitement of insurrection” impeachment charge.
The Louisiana senator, who easily won a second, six-year term in 2020, has said that he has not yet decided how he is going to vote and wanted to wait to hear arguments from both sides. But he signaled that Trump’s impeachment defense has a tough task ahead to sway him to acquit.
On the way to the Senate floor for the fourth day of the impeachment trial on Friday, Cassidy said that Democratic House impeachment managers raised “very intriguing questions,” such as, “If this is not impeachable, what is?”
“Ted Lieu’s comment [that] we have to worry about somebody coming back and losing if this is what they did when they lost this time — those are questions the defense team must answer,” Cassidy said about the California Democratic congressman and impeachment manager. “I hope they don’t rest entirely upon process because that, you know, the constitutionality has been settled.”
Cassidy on Tuesday surprised political observers when he joined Democrats and five other Republicans and voted that proceeding with the impeachment trial was constitutional, even though Trump is no longer in office. In a previous vote before the trial started, Cassidy had joined the bulk of Republicans in a vote raising objections to proceeding with the trial on constitutional grounds.
Trump lawyer Bruce Castor’s meandering argument on Tuesday, Cassidy said at the time, contributed to his decision to vote that the trial was constitutional.
The Louisiana Republican has been diligently taking notes during the trial, unlike some of his Republican colleagues.
Cassidy told the Washington Examiner that the reaction from his constituents has been “mixed.”
“Many respect the fact that I’m trying to approach it objectively,” he said.
Cassidy noted as convincing evidence the fact that Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s admitted that when Trump called him, Tuberville told him that Vice President Mike Pence had been evacuated, but then Trump later sent out a tweet that accused Pence of lacking “courage.”
“The president clearly had knowledge at that point. And then the tweet went out,” Cassidy said. “The president knew that people had invaded. They were approaching the Senate chamber. … About 30 minutes later, he tweeted out another tweet negatively toward the vice president, if I remember that correctly.”
