Washington: The US Senate on Tuesday upheld that the impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump is constitutional.
The Senate voted 56-44 to proceed with the impeachment trial, which will resume Wednesday noon.
Six Republican Senators voted to continue the impeachment trial, including Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, Pat Toomey, Ben Sasse and Bill Cassidy, Sputnik reported.
Cassidy is the only Republican to change his stance on the issue following oral arguments earlier. He previously voted to support Senator Rand Paul’s motion two weeks ago to dismiss the impeachment trial that failed in a 55-45 vote.
At least 17 Republican Senators need to side with Democrats to have the required two-third majority to convict Trump.
Several Republicans, including the defendant himself, were disappointed with the legal defense team’s performance on the first day of the erstwhile president’s impeachment trial.
“Mr Trump’s team was disorganized, they did everything they could but to talk about the question at hand and when they talked about it, they kind of glided over it, almost as if they were embarrassed of their arguments,” Sputnik quoted Senator Cassidy as saying.
Cassidy was one of six Republican Senators who sided with Democrats on Tuesday in a vote to declare the Trump impeachment trial constitutional. He had previously voted two weeks ago to dismiss the impeachment trial that failed with a 55-45 vote.
Democrats and some Republicans seek to use the sole Article of Impeachment – the incitement of insurrection – to disqualify Trump from holding public office, including running for president in 2024. The Article of Impeachment alleges that in the months preceding the January 6 incident at the US Capitol, Trump repeatedly issued false statements asserting that the election results were the product of widespread fraud and should not be accepted by the American people.
