By Mateo Gomez
Americans knew that President Donald Trump was not going to mention the impeachment trials in his State of the Union address on Feb. 4. Yet, the outcome of the impeachment trial was fast approaching, and it was on everyone’s mind.
The next day, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi started trending on Twitter after she ripped up the transcript of the president’s speech and because President Trump did not shake her hand at the State of the Union address event.
As a result, people were ready to see the impeachment outcome and finalize this political process.
The President was impeached by the House of Representatives on Dec. 18, 2019 under two articles of impeachment. The first one was abuse of power and the second article was obstruction of congress.
He allegedly was trying to get the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden. Biden is a major potential rival for Trump in the 2020 general election slated for November of this year.
The articles were taken to the Senate on January 16, 2020. However, for the Senate to remove someone from office, two-thirds of the Senate must vote against that person. There are 100 Senators, so the motion required 67 votes.
On Feb. 5, Trump was saved by his Republican fellows in the Senate and was acquitted, that is, he was found not guilty of the charges.
For Article 1, a whopping 230 representatives voted in the House to impeach him. Conversely, 48 Senators voted to convict President Trump.
For Article 2, 229 representatives voted in the House to impeach him while only 47 senators voted for the conviction.
Mitt Romney was the only Republican that voted to remove the president from power.
Romney is a U.S. Senator from Utah. He was the Republican nominee for the 2012 election against President Barack Obama.
He made history with this vote because he became the first U.S. Senator to vote against a president from his own political party during an impeachment trial.
Romney stated on the Senate floor that he promised to God that he must apply impartial justice. He commented that he had voted with Trump “80 percent of the time” but, in this case, had to put “personal feelings and biases aside.”
Dr. Jacob Ausderan, professor in the political science department, explained how shocking Romney’s decision was by stating that “politicians really don’t want to go out of party lines.”
“If Nixon was in office today, maybe he wouldn’t have been removed if he was impeached,” he said.
President Trump was not happy with Romney’s decision to vote against him and posted a video on Feb. 5 on Twitter that described Romney as a “Democrat secret asset.”
Donald Trump Jr., Trump’s son, even made a vulgar statement about Romney on Twitter on that same day due to his vote.
Barry University students were not surprised by the impeachment trial results.
Priscilla Olivera, senior pre-law major, was one of those students.
“His impeachment trial didn’t go as most people would have hoped for; however, many would agree that they were not surprised about the outcome,” she said.
Naomi Garcia, a biology major senior, also said she was not surprised.
“It was known that the Republicans were going to get their way in a Republican Senate,” she said.
The Democrats lost this battle in the Senate because of the majority of Republicans in the Senate. There were no testimonies that could have led to a conviction against the president.