Trump impeachment: Politics of preservation will prevail over principle
Video report by ITV News US Correspondent Emma Murphy
January 6 is the date which every senator in the impeachment trial has been asked to focus on. Over and over the events of that day have been replayed.
It is a dateline which will be forever etched on the minds of those caught on Capitol Hill that day. The footage played in court highlighting to every senator just how much danger they had been in.
And yet when it comes to casting a vote, it’s not what has happened in 2021 that will weigh heavy, it is what might happen in 2022. That is when the midterms are and when a third of the Senate and all of the Congress are up for re-election.
For all the horror, expressed or hidden, Republican senators have a toss up to make. Do they take a big breath, risk his wrath and vote to impeach or do they take that big breath, stay in the fold and vote against impeachment.
The reality is, that however shaken most Republicans were on January 6, however repulsed they are by what happened, they are not going to vote on the past.
They are going to vote on the future and hope that by helping to deliver a vote for the former President he will deliver the votes for them. The politics of preservation over the politics of principle.