Washington, D.C. In a shocking development nobody had anticipated, every Republican Senator joined their Democratic colleagues in voting to convict and remove President Trump from office. Many of the senators, who indicated previously that they would vote for acquittal, said they had experienced an overnight epiphany in which they suddenly recognized President Trump as an existential threat to the republic and had to be removed from office.
Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who only yesterday insisted in an interview that President Trump “would learn from this case,” said after her vote for conviction that she had no idea what she was thinking when she said that. “President Trump is literally the most obtuse human being I have ever known, and the notion that impeachment would somehow chastise him while he was still insisting his phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky was ‘perfect’ and making threatening statements about Adam Schiff reflects a breathtaking blindness or stupidity on my part that would be more appropriate for a cult follower than a U.S. Senator. And the idea that judgement of the President’s conduct should be left up to the voters after the Russian interference of the 2016 election and Trump’s clear attempt to corrupt the 2020 election is beyond ludicrous.”
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who last week claimed that “Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean that it is in the best interest of the country to remove the president from office,” repudiated that statement after his vote for conviction. “Obviously what I said earlier was piffle designed for cognitively-challenged Trump supporters. I guess I was just trying to maintain my viability for 2024 and not wanting to enrage the base. But last night, I looked myself in the mirror and I saw a man bereft of integrity, honor, and loyalty to his country and the Constitution. That will never happen again.”