Maybe. All the GOP reps who wanted an impeachment could have just made sure there were enough votes for it
This was the house impeachment vote. There only needed to be a simple majority, which would have been carried with just Democrats.
then voted "no" to save face with their constituents or whoever they're trying to impress.
If you are a republican trying to impress a group of MAGAchuds who are trying to violently overthrow an election, then maybe they should re-think their life choices.
Yes, a politician should represent the views of his constituents. But not every voter in their district would have supported terrorist activity. And a politician should not govern only by opinion polls (otherwise why have representatives? just use opinion polls) but instead should be willing to take actions that
benefit their constituents, even those actions are not popular immediately.
Or maybe they don't want to get Trump PO'd in case the impeachment fails, which it could, and then they're in his dog house if Trump runs in 2024 and by some miracle wins.
If that was why republican voted against Trump's impeachment, then their vote was based only on greed and self-service.
I actually think there will be problems proving he incited violence, because he didn't directly call for violence. Giuliani did though. But for Trump they could try to prove "aiding or providing comfort to" insurrectionists. I think the most egregious thing Trump did was pressure Pence to sabotage the vote confirmation, so maybe they could accuse him of failing to uphold his oath to defend the constitution.
There was an episode of the youtube channel LegalEagle that talked about that issue. (The host of the channel is a practicing lawyer who talks about various current events, historical legal cases, or the accuracy of courtroom scenes in TV.)
His analysis: In a
legal sense, Trump would
probably not be found guilty for inciting a riot. (Courts generally err on the side of caution when dealing with free speech issues, and Trump's statements were vague enough.)
See:
However, Impeachment is a political process, not a criminal one, and something can be considered impeachable even if it is not a violation of the law. After all, political leaders do need to be held to a different standard than average citizens.
For the past 2 months Trump repeated falsehoods about a 'stolen election'. He spoke at a rally in which there was the possibility of violence (there were arrests BEFORE the rally of people with illegal weapons, yet Trump persisted). Trump may have used the word 'peaceful' during the rally, but he also used the word 'fight' multiple times. (Although 'fight' could be taken metaphorically, its still a rather loaded word.) And during and immediately after the riot, Trump was slow to act, and his first response was to express 'love' for the terrorists.