Thom Tillis: Why I voted to acquit President Trump

Last fall, Nancy Pelosi finally lost control of the radicals in her conference and reluctantly imposed upon the American people a bitter impeachment process that threatened to inflict irreversible damage upon our country. Congressional Democrats have spent the last five months working for themselves and trying to quench their three-year thirst to reverse the results of the 2016 election, when they should have been working for you.

In the end, the Democrats produced a weak case with weak evidence, all while denying the President basic due process rights.

I voted to acquit the President, and I’m glad it’s over so our country can move on and I can get back to work to deliver more results for the people of North Carolina.

Unfortunately, some Democrats and members of the liberal media are not ready to move on and will spend the months leading up to the election in November still trying to convince you that a “cover-up” took place and argue that the President should be impeached again and again until he is removed from office.

How did we get to this point? It started when Nancy Pelosi commenced the impeachment process without even seeing the transcript of President Trump’s phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart. Instead of affording President Trump the due process that he deserved and conducting a transparent investigation, Democrats used secret, closed-door hearings, coordinated selective leaks to the press that they believed advanced their own narrative, and denied the President access to hearings for 71 of the 78 days of the impeachment process.

The Senate trial that I witnessed first-hand proved the weakness and inherent contradictions of their case. While House managers repeatedly declared what a strong and indisputable case they had, they also curiously said that the Senate needed to subpoena witnesses, something the House refused to do themselves. Given the presumption of innocence in America, one can wonder how Democrats could justify a vote to convict President Trump without hearing from witnesses who they claimed were essential to the case.

Professor Alan Dershowitz, representing the President, ripped their argument to shreds in a matter of minutes, pointing out that even if President Trump did everything the Democrats claimed he did, none of those things were crimes and none of them were impeachable offenses warranting his removal.

Of course, the constant Democratic demands for witnesses and a “fair trial” had nothing to do with sincerity and everything to do with hypocritical, partisan politics. That reality was underscored when Politico uncovered a 1999 memorandum that then-Sen. Joe Biden wrote during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial, passionately arguing against calling witnesses, declaring, “the Senate need not hold a full-blown trial.”

After living through the last few months, I know that North Carolinians are sick of impeachment and wanted Congress to get back to work on the issues that matter, like growing the economy, creating jobs, funding our military, and providing health care for our veterans. That’s what I’ve focused on as North Carolina’s senator, and I’ll continue to work on solutions.

The Charlotte Observer and Raleigh News & Observer Editorial Board last week seemed to take issue with my consistent, vocalized opposition to impeachment. It’s possible the editorial board prefers the position of one of my Democratic opponents, Cal Cunningham, who called for impeachment the day that he announced his candidacy, only to take a vow of silence on the president’s removal in the months that followed.

Regardless of what the editorial board wants, I will always let you know where I stand on the issues. And now that my Democratic opponents Cal Cunningham and Erica Smith have finally stated that they would have voted to remove the President from office, you now know where they stand as well.

Like those on the left, my opponents prefer political gamesmanship over allowing the people a vote on the Trump Presidency. I am confident that the vote I cast to acquit was the right one and I am confident that hundreds of thousands of Americans who are now working as a result of the President’s economic policies will agree.

This story was originally published February 6, 2020 at 7:45 AM.