Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) blasted his Republican colleagues for acquiting President Donald Trump in the Senate’s impeachment trial, which featured no new witnesses.
“Now that our Republican colleagues have rejected a fair trial — truth — there’s a giant asterisk next to the president’s acquittal,” Schumer said at a press conference on Wednesday.
“The asterisk says he was acquitted without facts. He was acquitted without a fair trial. And it means his acquittal is virtually valueless,” he added.
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“While Leader McConnell and the president may be cheering this as a win, history will view this as a Pyrrhic victory for Senate Republicans, and the Senate Republican Party, and the Republican Party, and for President Trump,” Schumer added.
Additionally, Schumer slammed Senate Republicans for voting to acquit Trump:
“It was a day, a week, two weeks, where the crucible of the nation was tested. A lot of people, including a Republican, passed the test. A lot of Republicans, Leader McConnell, failed that test. Failed to live up what this country is all about. Failed to live up to getting the truth.”
Finally, Schumer admitted that “no one had illusions” that Trump would be convicted and removed from office.
However, Schumer added, “We made the fight for truth, and we made the fight for facts, and it created a bipartisan impeachment that can never be erased from history — never.”
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) was the lone Republican senator to break with his party and vote to convict Trump on the abuse of the power charge.
However, Democrats still fell shy of the required 67-votes, or two-thirds majority, to convict Trump. The Senate voted to acquit Trump on two articles of impeachment on Wednesday.