President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney talk in the Oval Office following their lunch, Nov. 29, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
At The Wall Street Journal, Rebecca Ballhaus and Natalie Andrews report on the Senate vote to acquit President Trump. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) was the sole Republican to vote to convict the president, continuing a personal vendetta against Trump, a man whom Romney begged for an endorsement, and then subsequently has stabbed in the back at every opportunity. They write (abridged):
The Republican-led Senate acquitted President Trump of charges stemming from his efforts to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations that would benefit him in this year’s election.
On the first article of impeachment, abuse of power, all 47 Democrats and one Republican voted to convict the president
On the second article of impeachment, obstruction of Congress, the vote also failed, with all Democrats and no Republicans finding the president guilty.
Mr. Trump was also denied a unanimous verdict from Republican senators, with Mitt Romney of Utah voting to convict Mr. Trump on abuse of power.
“The president is guilty of an appalling abuse of public trust,” Mr. Romney said on the Senate floor before the vote.
The action by Mr. Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, made him the first senator in U.S. history to vote to convict a president of his own party. In the impeachment trials of Democratic presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, no Democratic senators voted to convict.
Read more here.
