President Donald Trump’s acquittal on abuse of power and obstruction charges Wednesday launched Pennsylvania Republicans into a full-scale victory lap, while Democrats stayed mostly silent.
Vocal critics of impeachment from the beginning of the House’s inquiry, like U.S. Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Peters, joined in prodding Democrats for undertaking a failed effort to remove Mr. Trump from office, while the Republican senator from Pennsylvania who voted to acquit the president — Pat Toomey — called on Congress to work to heal its partisan divide and get back to work.
Mr. Toomey, who joined his Republican colleagues in voting to clear the president of the two charges, had previously indicated that the president’s actions were not “perfect” — as Mr. Trump had claimed about his phone call with the Ukrainian president — but that the question facing the Senate was whether they constituted “impeachable offenses that justify removing a sitting president from office for the first time and forbidding him from seeking office again.”
In a statement after the vote, Mr. Toomey said the American people will rightfully decide in November whether the president should remain in office — echoing his previous sentiment that the Senate should not be allowed to overrule the judgment of millions of Americans.
“While some of President Trump’s actions were inappropriate, they did not come close to meeting the very high bar required to justify overturning the last election, removing him from office, and kicking him off the ballot in an election that has already begun,” Mr. Toomey wrote, adding that he hopes Congress can “get back to work” on important issues and “move past this extremely partisan and divisive episode.”
The Pennsylvania Democratic Party blasted Mr. Toomey in a statement of its own after the vote, accusing the senator of setting a “dangerous precedent” for the country by condoning the president’s behavior.
“Rather than put country over party like Mitt Romney, Pat Toomey has once again proved that he is just another partisan hack who will always put politics over justice,” party spokeswoman Beth Melena said. Mr. Romney, R-Utah, voted guilty on one of the two counts against Mr. Trump, the only senator to break ranks with his party.
But beyond the party’s response, Democrats in Pennsylvania largely stuck by their prior statements, and stayed off of social media as the president and his re-election campaign flooded Twitter to claim victory.
Sen. Bob Casey spoke out before the vote, writing in a statement that there was “no doubt” that the accusations against Mr. Trump — that he withheld military aid and a White House meeting from Ukraine in exchange for an investigation into his political rival — were true.
“It has also been established that he solicited foreign interference in the 2020 election and then further abused his power by covering it up and obstructing Congress’ well-predicated investigation,” Mr. Casey said. “I will vote guilty on Article I and Article II.”
Mr. Reschenthaler, who has criticized the House’s impeachment inquiry since its start, deemed the proceedings a “charade” that was undertaken by Democrats because they doubted they could beat Mr. Trump in the election this November.
Echoing his words from after Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, Mr. Reschenthaler said that Democrats have focused on ousting a duly-elected president who has “fueled a red-hot economic boom.”
“It’s time to put this failed political hit job behind us and get back to work for the American people,” Mr. Reschenthaler said.
On Twitter, Mr. Reschenthaler re-posted a video of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tearing up papers with the message, “Acquitted for life,” likely parodying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s tearing up of the president’s speech Tuesday night.
Asked how he’d work to heal the partisan divide in Congress himself, Mr. Reschenthaler told the Post-Gazette that he believes both sides can find common ground on bipartisan measures he introduced on criminal justice reform, child exploitation and the opioid crisis.
But, Mr. Reschenthaler said, history will show that Democrats “did grave damage to the founders’ vision of impeachment” during this process, which he fears will set a “dangerous precedent that ... will undermine our democracy for decades to come.”
Constitutional scholars, too, considered the impact that Mr. Trump’s impeachment and acquittal will have on the branches of government.
Ken Gormley, president of Duquesne University and one of Western Pennsylvania’s foremost scholars on constitutional law, had previously advocated for both sides to suspend the trial and agree to legislation that would set boundaries on future presidents and their dealings with foreign governments in relation to elections.
Mr. Gormley repeated that prospect Wednesday, and said he was encouraged by senators — like Tennessee Republican Lamar Alexander — who stepped forward to acknowledge that “this was not good or appropriate behavior” by the president, but who took varying positions about whether the conduct warranted removal from office.
“Just because you want to protect a president from removal doesn’t mean you can’t also acknowledge that the conduct wasn’t appropriate and we should take steps to prevent it in the future so it doesn’t happen again,” Mr. Gormley said.
Julian Routh: jrouth@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1952, Twitter @julianrouth.
First Published: February 6, 2020, 2:02 a.m.
