Impeachment Is Over. What Comes Next?

Nancy Pelosi proposes a commission to investigate and report on the facts of the January 6 assault on the Capitol.

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Good morning. The House and Senate are out this week. You may have noticed we missed an issue of Uphill on Friday—I was feeling under the weather, and we thought we’d just wait until the impeachment trial concluded to send this edition. We won’t send Uphill this Friday, either: Congress is out and it’s my anniversary later this week. I’ll be logging off for some peace and quiet. 

What Next?

Seven Republicans voted on Saturday to convict Donald Trump on an incitement of insurrection charge, making it the most bipartisan vote in an impeachment trial in U.S. history. But not bipartisan enough: A two-thirds supermajority of 67 votes was required for conviction, and the final tally was 57-43. One year ago, Utah Republican Mitt Romney became the first senator to vote to convict a president of his own party during Trump’s first impeachment. This time he was joined by Sens. Richard Burr, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Ben Sasse, and Pat Toomey. 

Cassidy offered the most straightforward reasoning for his vote: “Our Constitution and our country is more important than any one person. I voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty.” And that was it—that’s his whole statement (delivered first in text and later on video in front of a red alligator).

Many Republican senators refused to consider the case on its merits, hiding behind the widely disputed notion that trying a former president is unconstitutional. Shortly after voting to acquit Trump on those grounds, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell pinned the blame for the attack on the Capitol on Trump.

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Comments (35)
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  1. Mary Stine

    I want to know how much QAnon supporters in congress, like MJT and Lauren Boebert, and opportunist like Josh Hawley and Rand Paul were involved in aiding and abetting the terrorists?
    I want to know how many others in congress were involved with any other white supremacy groups. This investigation has to deal with both of these, or it will be another sham whitewash.

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  2. John C. Gardner

    Is there information that Officer Sicknick did not die as the result of a fire extinguisher blow during the insurrection? Does it matter if this was true?

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    Dave

    I'm all for a bipartisan select committee -- keep it out of Congress, where people like Gaetz will preen and grandstand, and instead let serious people conduct a serious investigation. Then let the chips fall where they may. My guess is that there will be some blame to spread around, some out of just honest mistakes, others out of malice.

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    kate sprouls

    i was stuck, whilst reading the analysis on AUMF in this informative and interesting newsletter, that congress would rather nearly always abdicate it’s authority than risk any action that jeopardises re-election. how the bloody hell did we get to this?

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    Jen

    Yesterday Ben Shapiro said we should have had this commission before impeachment. Considering how long it will take to get this off the ground and do the proper investigation I think that’s crazy. If Republicans wouldn’t support convicting a president just a few weeks out of office they’d never convict one who’s been out of office for months or a year. We don’t need a commission to know Donald Trump lied about the election for 2 months and did nothing when the crowd he assembled on Jan 6 stormed the Capitol.

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      Pat Riot

      Ben Shapiro will say any random sequence of English words that will help Republicans in Congress escape blame for their vote to exonerate Trump.

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    KAM

    Prediction: The Capitol Police will never let something like this happen again. They now have every reason not to worry about "optics."

    Who knows, they might even use their half-billion dollar budget to prepare their 2,300-officer force to repel armed invasion.

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      Pat Riot

      Like 9/11, I doubt we'll ever see an attack exactly like *this* again.

      But the terrorists will surely try other things. They have to stop the steal after all.

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        KAM

        I'd like to think we'll never see another President anything like *that* again.

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    Paul Britton

    “An investigation should establish a single narrative and set of facts . . . .”

    This has worked well in the past. One remembers, for instance, how the definitive report of the Warren Commission put an emphatic end to speculative, alternative theories about who shot President Kennedy and why. The conspiracy theorists just crawled back into their holes and didn’t dare come out again.

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  8. learnin4life

    In the spirit of moving beyond the former president and the impeachment and trial, I would be interested in having a better understanding of the obstacles to and potential solutions for Congressional receptivity to election finance reform, criminal justice reform, and other matters of broad national interest. I appreciate there must be time, attention, and space dedicated to addressing questions about current news, but sprinkling in anticipatory articles about issues such as those above would also be useful toward promoting greater understanding of the political calculus.

    Is this request feasible within the bounds of a newsletter format?


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    1. learnin4life

      I meant to reference "campaign" finance reform, not voter finance reform in my previous comment.

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  9. Diane Francis

    A welcome development. My take on Impeachment result https://dianefrancis.substack.com/

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      Anne W (Raw5254)

      Thanks for the link. I just read it, and very good.

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    Billy.Faires

    Honestly, is there a more potentially powerful entity so eager to abdicate its power than Congress? They want all of the TV time to backseat drive and none of the responsibility for or burden of actually making decisions.

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