WASHINGTON, D.C. — When senators were sworn in as jurors in President Trump’s impeachment trial on January 16, it was the one point throughout this entire process that Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown and Republican Senator Rob Portman were on the same page.
- Brown, a Democrat voted to convict Trump
- Portman, a Republican voted to acquit
- Their divide represents a bigger debate in Washington
But after that, the two were on opposing ends. It culminated in Brown voting to convict and remove Trump from office on Wednesday, while Portman voted to acquit him.
They both took to the Senate floor before the vote — which ended in Trump being acquitted on both articles of impeachment — to make their very different cases.
“The great journalist Bill Moyers summed up the past three weeks,” Brown said, then reading this quote: “‘What we’ve just seen is the dictator of the Senate manipulating the impeachment process to save the demagogue in the White House whose political party has become the gravedigger of democracy.’”
Earlier on the Senate floor, Portman said, “While I don’t condone [Trump’s] behavior, these actions do not rise to the level of removing President Trump from office and taking him off the ballot in a presidential election season that is already well underway.”
Their verdicts are not a surprise, as both Ohio lawmakers ended up siding with their own political party.
But the divide between the two men represents the bigger debate that has consumed Washington in recent months:
1) Whether Trump withholding congressionally-approved military aid from Ukraine while asking its leader to investigate his political opponent (Joe Biden and his son Hunter) warranted removal from office.
2) Whether the impeachment process that first played out in the U.S. House of Representatives — and then finished in the Senate — was fair.
“Rushing an impeachment case through the House without due process and giving the Senate a half-baked case to finish sets a very dangerous precedent,” Portman said. "If the Senate were to convict, it would send a wrong message and risk making this kind of quick, partisan impeachment in the House a regular occurrence moving forward. That would be terrible for the country.”
Brown addressed his Republican colleagues during his remarks.
“Some of you have admitted to me that you’re troubled by the president’s behavior,” Brown said. “You know he’s reckless. You know he lies. You know what he did was wrong. And I have heard Republican after Republican after Republican senator tell me that privately. If you acknowledge that, if you’ve said it to me, if you’re said it to your family, if you’re said it to your staff, if you’ve just said it to yourself, I implore you – we have no choice but to vote to convict.”
Brown insisted in his speech that the Senate trial was a “sham” because it did not include witnesses, and he said acquittal paves the way for future presidents to abuse their office and know there won’t be consequences.
Portman, in his remarks, said that it was important to remember that Ukraine eventually got the military aid without investigating the Bidens, and he hoped Congress could surprise voters by moving on from this and getting back to legislative work.