DENVER — Congresswoman Diana DeGette, one of nine House impeachment managers, said despite losing a conviction in the Senate impeachment trial, the case against former President Donald Trump will be decided by the American public.
“Our goal in pursuing a conviction against Donald Trump for his conduct was not to punish him, but to prevent the type of violence that took place that day from ever happening again. While we didn’t get the conviction we ultimately sought, I believe we made our case to the American people. And that’s just as important because, at the end of the day, they are now the ones who will ultimately decide whether Donald Trump is ever allowed to hold public office again,” DeGette said in a statement Saturday.
During the five-day trial, DeGette and other House impeachment managers pushed their case that the former president had incited his supporters to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6. But that push failed to win support among the vast majority of Republicans.
On Saturday, Trump was acquitted in a 57-43 vote. Seven Republicans joined all 50 Democrats, but it was short of the two-thirds majority required to get a conviction.
In a the same statement, DeGette said the case was strong and even Mitch McConnell agreed. She said it was “shameful that so many Senate Republicans chose to hide behind a faulty technicality instead of considering the facts as we had laid them out.”
McConnell delivered a scalding denunciation of Donald Trump in a speech Saturday from the Senate floor, calling the former president “morally responsible” for the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. But in his vote on Trump’s impeachment, McConnell voted “not guilty” because he said a former president could not face trial in the Senate.
Both of Colorado’s Democratic Senators, Michael Bennett and John Hickenlooper, voted Saturday to convict Trump.
DeGette’s full statement is posted below:
“Our case was strong, the facts were clear and the evidence we presented was overwhelming. This was the largest bipartisan vote to impeach a president ever, and even Mitch McConnell agreed that we proved our case. It’s shameful that so many Senate Republicans chose to hide behind a faulty technicality instead of considering the facts as we had laid them out.
“President Trump incited a violent insurrection against our government. He used his platform as the president of the United States to launch a deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol building to try to stop Congress from certifying the election for his opponent. It was the highest of high crimes. It was the greatest betrayal of office. And it was the most brazen attack on our own government by a sitting U.S. president that our nation has ever seen.
“Our goal in pursuing a conviction against Donald Trump for his conduct was not to punish him, but to prevent the type of violence that took place that day from ever happening again. While we didn’t get the conviction we ultimately sought, I believe we made our case to the American people. And that’s just as important because, at the end of the day, they are now the ones who will ultimately decide whether Donald Trump is ever allowed to hold public office again.”
