CNN anchor Jake Tapper said Tuesday on CNN that Republican Senators who voted that former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial was unconstitutional because he was no longer in office had a “different standard” for former President Bill Clinton.
Tapper said, “It is just so strange because, look, I’m not a constitutional scholar. I don’t have an opinion on this, but a lot of people who are voting to not have any consequences for Donald Trump are doing so not because of constitutionality but because they don’t want to hold Donald Trump to any sort of standard, and they never have. Some of these are the same people who are like vote to deny government assistance to somebody because they test positive for drugs. They believe in consequences for everybody else but the president. The outgoing president, former president, can literally incite an insurrection on the Capitol to hold on to power, to subvert democracy, and they don’t think there should be consequences.”
He continued, “So if they don’t believe that an impeachment trial is constitutional, you know, that’s obviously a legal position and legal argument, but if you don’t believe that, then what consequence? What consequence should there be? Or do you think that some people are just above the law? I mean, should there be a criminal trial? I mean, Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, for that matter, have said that Donald Trump played a role in the terrorist attack. He played a role.”
He added, “I mean, Bill Clinton lied under oath, and they thought that there needed to be— he needed to be removed from office for lying under oath. Donald Trump incites a terrorist attack, and they have a different standard.”
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