#second impeachment

Milestone Monday

Impeachment Redux

On this day, January 13, 2021, Donald Trump was impeached for a second time, facing a charge of incitement of insurrection in connection with the attack on the United States Capitol that occurred just a week earlier on January 6. Trump’s second impeachment was unprecedented in U.S. history. He became the first president to be impeached twice. While the event was historically significant, it also became the subject of pointed commentary and criticism. 

Following the impeachment, the House of Representatives gathered to discuss and vote on the articles of impeachment, which saw a significant number of bipartisan votes. A group of ten Republicans broke ranks to support the impeachment, highlighting a rift within the GOP over Trump's behavior and influence. The Senate trial that followed included intense debates and emotional testimonies, focusing on the implications of the Capitol riot and the dangers of political violence. Ultimately, Trump was acquitted by the Senate, not reaching the two-thirds majority required for a conviction. The aftermath of the impeachment led to widespread discussions about accountability, the state of democracy in the United States, and the responsibility of leaders to uphold the Constitution.

To observe this occasion, we included images from:

Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese’s (University of Nebraska Press, 2019) by Tiffany Midge, a Native American poet, editor, and author. The book includes a foreword by Geary Hobson, a scholar, editor, and writer of fiction and poetry. The featured poem is titled Ars Poetica by Donald Trump.

Twitter FEED (Grand Climacteric Publishing, 2017) by Barbara Ciurej and Lindsay Lochman. The work is “a compilation of Tweets excerpted from the Twitter account of a rogue White House Senior Advisor (@RogueSNRadvisor) chronicling Donald Trump’s fast-food binges in response to the stresses of his first presidency.” 

Masquerades & Misdemeanors [Hartford Avenue Poets] (Pebblebrook Press), 2013, a collection of poems by Milwaukee area poets. The poem featured is Donald Trump Sr. by Mark Zimmermann. He serves on the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission and is a member of the Hartford Avenue Poets.

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They put the party over the country yet again. Just like good nazis. Not guilty my ass.

Mitch fucking McConnell is quite possibly the single greatest current threat to American democracy.

To slightly misquote Noting Sacred (1937):

Treason wins again

The Senate on Saturday voted to acquit former President Donald Trump on a charge of incitement of insurrection despite significant Republican support for conviction, bringing an end to the fourth impeachment trial in U.S. history and the second for Trump.

Seven Republicans voted to convict Trump for allegedly inciting the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, when a mob of pro-Trump supporters tried to disrupt the electoral vote count formalizing Joe Biden's election win before a joint session of Congress. That is by far the most bipartisan support for conviction in impeachment history. The final vote was 57 to 43, 10 short of the 67 votes needed to secure a conviction.

Republican Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania all voted guilty.

The vote means the Senate cannot bar Trump from holding future federal offices.

Moments after the vote concluded, the former president issued a statement praising his legal team and thanking the senators and other members of Congress "who stood proudly for the Constitution we all revere and for the sacred legal principles at the heart of our country."

"This has been yet another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our Country. No president has ever gone through anything like it," Trump said.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called the vote “the largest and most bipartisan vote in any impeachment trial in history," but noted it wasn't enough to secure a conviction.

The trial "was about choosing country over Donald Trump, and 43 Republican members chose Trump. They chose Trump. It should be a weight on their conscience today, and it shall be a weight on their conscience in the future," he said in a speech on the Senate floor.

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Thank you, Senate Republicans, co-conspirators and craven cowards alike, for reminding us that Brian Sicknick died in vain, on behalf of ingrates who would let him die again if given the chance. 

Thank you for making it clear that the terrorists won.

Thank you for reminding us yet again that some men really are above the law, and that the punishments of those in high offices are most often toothless shams.

But most of all, thank you for reminding us that the unindicted criminal who lives at Mar-A-Lago owns you now, owns your souls forever. It’ll make it that much easier the next time we punch a ballot. And the time after that. And for the rest of our lives.

Of course, now that the penalty phase isn’t going to happen, it’s a given that the only President who led a revolt against his own government is going to attempt a comeback. Maybe next time he mobilizes his terrorists, they’ll burn the Capitol down. Maybe next time his angry mob will kill someone that career politicians actually give enough of a shit about to do something meaningful as a response.