Alabama’s Doug Jones May Vote to Acquit Trump in Senate Impeachment Trial
Richard Moorhead
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In the latest sign of the futility of a Democratic impeachment attempt, Alabama Senator Doug Jones said that he may vote to acquit President Donald Trump in a Senate impeachment trial.
Jones spoke on ABC’s ‘This Week’ on Sunday. He was asked about Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s statement claiming that he knew of “one or two Democrats” who would vote against impeachment in a Senate trial.
When asked of his thought process related to impeachment, Jones said the following:
“What I’m trying to do, because quite frankly I didn’t sit in front of the TV set the entire time the last two or three months, I have been trying to read this. I have been trying to see if the dots get connected. If that is the case, I think it’s a serious matter, I think it’s an impeachable matter. But if those dots aren’t connected and there are other explanations that I think are consistent with innocence, I will go that way too.”
Democrats are already the minority party in the senate, and losing votes within their own caucus in impeachment proceedings essentially ensures they’d have no chance to convict the President after ramming an impeachment resolution through the House of Representatives.
Jones is a Democrat in a heavily red state who faces an uphill battle to win reelection in 2020. A vote to impeach the President on spurious accusations revolving around withholding foreign aid from Ukraine would all but ensure he’d lose in a landslide to a Republican, especially considering Alabama political heavyweight and former Senator Jeff Sessions has announced a campaign to win back his old seat.
At this point it seems doubtful if a Senate trial will even occur, considering Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has refused to actually send articles of impeachment to the Senate until she’s guaranteed a “fair trial,” providing Democrats an excuse to avoid politically embarrassing impeachment proceedings in a legislative chamber where they can’t dictate the agenda.
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