WASHINGTON
Updated: Here’s how North Carolina Sens. Burr and Tillis voted Feb. 13, 2021, on the impeachment vote for President Donald Trump.
The second Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump begins in earnest on Feb. 8.
But North Carolina’s two Republican U.S. senators said they do not believe the Senate should be holding a trial.
Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis both voted to acquit Trump in his first impeachment trial in early 2020. Both voted to certify the election results Jan. 6, recognizing Trump’s defeat by Joe Biden. On Tuesday, both were supportive of a Republican motion calling the impeachment trial unconstitutional.
Sen. Rand Paul forced a procedural vote in the Senate on the trial’s constitutionality. It was killed by Democrats and five Republicans, but Burr, Tillis and 43 other Republicans backed his view.
Some of them could still vote for conviction.
“This is a civilian now. A charge like this would go to the Justice Department and be referred for prosecution. Unfortunately, that’s not what they’re doing,” Burr told reporters at the Capitol on Monday.
Tillis told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday that “on the broader issue of impeaching a private citizen, I think, is an issue where the Senate needs to create a record that the majority of us are against it.”
Trump was president when he was impeached on Jan. 13 in the House of Representatives for his role in the deadly Capitol attack. Pro-Trump extremists breached the U.S. Capitol, damaging the building and killing a police officer as they sought out Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress who were in the process of certifying Biden’s electoral victory.
The elected officials were rushed out of the House and Senate chambers to escape the mob. They returned about six hours later and voted to certify the results.
For months leading up to the event, Trump called the election fraudulent and rigged. He pressured state officials to overturn their election results and his campaign filed dozens of unsuccessful legal challenges. He then turned to Jan. 6 and the certification process — typically a routine event — as a final stand, pushing Pence to not certify the results and inviting supporters to Washington.
He spoke to the group before many ventured to the Capitol to protest and some mobbed the building.
Biden was inaugurated on Jan. 20.
Tillis compares Trump trial to impeaching Hillary Clinton
It would require 67 votes to convict Trump, meaning it would likely take 17 Republicans to vote for conviction in the 50-50 Senate. Just one Republican, Utah’s Mitt Romney, voted to convict Trump during his first impeachment trial.
When asked if Trump was guilty of incitement, Burr said: “I haven’t heard the case yet.”
Tillis called conviction unwise.
“On January 6, I said voting to reject the states’ electors was a dangerous precedent we should not set. Likewise, impeaching a former President who is now a private citizen would be equally unwise,” said Tillis, who won a second term in November, in a statement.
If the Senate were to convict Trump, it could then vote on stopping him from ever pursuing federal office again. Tillis opposes that effort, too.
“The great hallmark of our Democratic Republic is self-government, and I have faith in the American people to assess the qualifications of presidential candidates and make an informed decision themselves, just as they have done every four years since George Washington was elected as our first president,” he said in a statement. “Congress should not dictate to the American people who they can and cannot vote for.”
“The impeachment power can be turned into a political weapon, especially if it is primarily used to disqualify an individual citizen from running for public office. My Democratic colleagues would have rightfully objected to Republicans – when they controlled Congress – using the impeachment power to disqualify former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from running for president in 2016 because of her email controversy.”
Trump defeated Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, winning the Electoral College.
Ten Republicans in the U.S. House voted for Trump’s second impeachment. None of North Carolina’s eight Republican members were among them.
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Domecast politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it on Megaphone, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published January 26, 2021 6:51 PM.
