Texas senators Cruz, Cornyn vote that Trump impeachment trial is unconstitutional

Texas Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn voted Tuesday that the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump is unconstitutional.

The Senate voted 56-44 to proceed with the trial after House impeachment managers and the former president’s counsel presented arguments on the trial’s constitutionality.

Six Republican senators sided with Democrats in voting for the trial to proceed.

The Democratic-run House impeached Trump in January for “inciting an insurrection.” A conviction requires two-thirds vote of the Senate.

Cornyn agreed that Trump contributed to the deadly Jan. 6 riots.

“The president’s actions were reckless,” he said on the Senate floor Monday. “He should have known better than to stoke a flame he could not and did not control.”

However, Cornyn justified his vote against the trial’s constitutionality saying it lacks “due process” and “an impartial arbiter.”

He said it is not a “full scale investigation,” noting, “some of our Democratic friends claim that no evidence needs to be presented, saying that we were all witnesses to what happened on Jan. 6 and that we can be jurors, witnesses, and, in the words of at least one Democratic senator, victims all at the same time,” he said.

Cornyn also said the trial is unconstitutional because “the constitution requires the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court to preside over the impeachment trial of a president.”

As the former president, Trump is now a private citizen and therefore Chief Justice John Roberts won’t be presiding. Senate President Pro Tem Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, is presiding instead.

“I respect Sen. Leahy, but the fact of the matter is, he cannot be an impartial arbiter. He has a conflict of interest,” Cornyn said Monday.

Conryn then referenced Leahy calling Trump “the greatest threat to the Constitution and American democracy in a generation,” after the House impeachment vote in January.

Though Cruz didn’t speak on the Senate floor Monday about why he believes the trial is unconstitutional he has spoken out against the trial several times, saying it will divide the nation.

“I think that just shows that what they’re looking for is a show trial. This is all about partisanship,” he said Thursday. “For four years the Democratic Party has been defined by hatred for Donald J. Trump.”