After all the drama over the last few days over the vote on witnesses, the Senate finally got down to the vote Thursday afternoon.
The people who had been in question all weighed in with how they were going to vote between last night and today.
It went as expected, with Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) voting yes and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) voting no, against witnesses.
That left the final vote at 51-49, so no tie.
NEW: The U.S. Senate just REJECTED a motion to consider witnesses and documents in President Trump's impeachment trial.
The vote was 49-51.
Susan Collins and Mitt Romney were the only Republicans who voted yes.
— Laura Litvan (@LauraLitvan) January 31, 2020
McConnell: "A majority of the U.S. Senate has determined that the numerous witnesses and 28,000-plus pages of documents already in evidence are sufficient to judge the House Managers’ accusations and end this impeachment trial."
— Doug Andres (@DougAndres) January 31, 2020
Here’s Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s full statement:
A majority of the U.S. Senate has determined that the numerous witnesses and 28,000-plus pages of documents already in evidence are sufficient to judge the House Managers’ accusations and end this impeachment trial.
There is no need for the Senate to re-open the investigation which the House Democratic majority chose to conclude and which the Managers themselves continue to describe as “overwhelming” and “beyond any doubt.” Never in Senate history has this body paused an impeachment trial to pursue additional witnesses with unresolved questions of executive privilege that would require protracted litigation. We have no interest in establishing such a new precedent, particularly for individuals whom the House expressly chose not to pursue.
Senators will now confer among ourselves, with the House Managers, and with the President’s counsel to determine next steps as we prepare to conclude the trial in the coming days.
Concerned they’re not closing today because we know they can try to drop multiple things between now and when they take the vote on what appears to be Wednesday after everyone gets to make their little speeches. But it sounds like Cocaine Mitch thinks he has it well in hand at this point and the only thing happening after this is the speeches and vote.
But here’s the greatest reaction so far, by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in a troll “clapback” of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s infamous clap at President Donald Trump to Mitch McConnell.
.@tedcruz bringing the 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/yUg5l3mBCD
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) January 31, 2020
Can anyone forget when Pelosi tried to dunk on Trump at the SOTU last year? Looks like turnabout clapback is fair play.
A suggestion:
Cruz just did the Pelosi Clap…something tells me trump pulls this one at his state of the nation address. Return to sender address unknown. pic.twitter.com/9Q9oXvb0ga
— JC (@123physicsfreak) January 31, 2020
And they’re finally found it to be somber:
Judging by CNN and MSNBC's coverage, we finally got the "somber" tone on impeachment 🤣
— Elizabeth Harrington (@LizRNC) January 31, 2020
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