Photo via @CNNSotu/Twitter
February 8, 2021, 2:59 pm
In a reminder that not all Republican legislators are completely terrible all the time, Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania went on CNN to firmly reject the idea that the Senate trial for Donald Trump’s second impeachment is unconstitutional.
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Toomey was one of only five Republicans to vote against Rand Paul’s call to declare the trial unconstitutional, noting that the impeachment itself happened before Trump left office.
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Toomey also spoke out against the rise of conspiracy theories including those of “QAnon,” saying that there “should be no place in the Republican Party” for that kind of nonsense.
“I think it’s clearly constitutional to conduct a Senate trial with respect to an impeachment,” Toomey said on CNN Sunday. “In this case, the impeachment occurred prior to the President leaving office.”
Toomey, who has announced he won’t seek another term as Pennsylvania’s senator, previously criticized Trump for his incitement of the January 6 coup attempt at the Capitol, going as far as calling on him to resign before he was to leave office on Biden’s Inauguration Day. Still, he vowed to be an “objective” juror for the impeachment trial, in which senators serve as the jury.
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He further acknowledged how unlikely it would be for the Senate to convict due to the fact that a supermajority is needed for this, and 45 Republicans voted to call the trial itself unconstitutional. Democrats would need 17 Republican defectors to vote to convict in the current 50-50 split Senate.
Following this, Toomey took some time to drag QAnon, calling the collection of conspiracy theories “insane” and “madness” after the CNN host brought up the expulsion of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from multiple committee assignments.
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“There should be no place in the Republican Party for people who believe in insane conspiracy theories like QAnon,” said Toomey. “That is madness, that has nothing to do with conservatism and has nothing to do with the Republican party.”
Toomey went on to praise his party for voting in a secret ballot to keep Rep. Liz Cheney in her leadership position after some in the party challenged her for voting in favor of impeaching Donald Trump a second time.
“That’s how you begin to keep this party united and together and think about how we move on in the post-Trump era.”
Of course, only 11 Republicans voted with Democrats to strip Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments following reports that she encouraged death threats against Democrats on social media.
Greene also promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories, including a belief that a Rothschilds-linked “space laser” started the California wildfires in 2018.
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“What would that look like anyway? A laser beam or light beam coming down to Earth I guess,” she wrote that summer. “Could that cause a fire? Hmmm, I don’t know. I hope not! That wouldn’t look so good for PG&E, Rothschild Inc, Solaren or Jerry Brown who sure does seem fond of PG&E.”
*First Published: February 8, 2021, 2:59 pm
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