The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Impeachment trial view from the press gallery
We knew it was coming. The historic acquittal of President Donald Trump was a known outcome for months during the impeachment inquiry, but that didn’t make the momentous vote any less dramatic inside the chamber on Wednesday.
I sat in the upper level press gallery of the Senate for much of the impeachment trial. I could look down at the action below, live, with a great view of the bald spots of the House managers and president’s lawyers who often stood at the podium in front of me.
Seated at their desks, the senators fanned out in front me in a half-moon, each determined to deliver their version of justice — with a dash of political expediency.
If you’re not a hermit, you know the big headline moments: the witness vote. The Romney vote. The Trump victory speech. But there were also so many cool, smaller moments that never made the newspapers.
Here’s one: Did you know the Senate gave Chief Justice John Roberts a golden gavel?
At the close of the trial, literally minutes after the Roberts announced that Trump was acquitted, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced the Senate would give Roberts one of the special gavels that the Senate usually awards to new members after they spend 100 hours presiding over the Senate.
A Senate page delivered the gavel to Roberts in a blue box. Roberts thanked the Senate and its staff for making him feel welcome during his “period of required residency” while he presided over the trial. He reminded the Senate that the U.S. Supreme Court saves a row in the front just for lawmakers and invited the senators to visit “to see an argument — or escape one.” That won laughs from both sides of the aisle.
Roberts said he hoped to see the senators again “under happier circumstances.”
Both before and after the auspicious votes on the two articles of impeachment, there was a lot of hugging and handshaking among the senators.
Before the votes, Sen. Krysten Sinema, D-Ariz., wearing a black dress with a cape, glided up to Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and folded him into a hug. For both Democrats from red states, the impeachment vote was expected to be a tough one that could affect their reelection campaigns. Sinema whispered in Manchin’s ear and they spoke for a minute or so, prompting all of us in the press gallery to wonder what they were saying.
After the votes, Sinema hugged Manchin again and so did Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., shook Manchin’s hand.
In fact, there was generally a fair bit of hugging and handshaking around the chamber, even between Democrats and Republicans in some cases. Some senators lingered on the floor to huddle, like Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Susan Collins, RMaine. Others zoomed off to give press interviews, hop a flight out of Washington, or eat an apple and check their phone, like Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.
Let it also not be lost how powerful it was to see each senator stand one by one and declare their judgment on each article of impeachment: “guilty” or “not guilty.” I observed senators
— female and male, on both sides of the aisle — buttoning their suit jackets before rising to vote and unbuttoning them again after sitting.
Both Gillibrand and Blumenthal described the experience of casting this historic vote — pronouncing Trump “guilty” in their cases — to me as “weighty.”
“I’ve never said that word in that kind of way, publicly, to pronounce judgment on anyone,” Blumenthal recounted.
After each vote was completed by the Senate, there was a beat of silence. Then,
Roberts announced the tally. After days of arguments and months of investigations, the whole affair was over in under two hours.