Former President Donald Trump was acquitted Saturday in a 57-43 vote by the U.S. Senate on a charge of incitement of insurrection related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Democrats needed 17 Republicans to join them to convict Trump and hold a separate vote to bar him from running for office again, but only seven Republicans voted “guilty,” including Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.
The other six GOP senators voting to find Trump guilty were: Richard Burr of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, and Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania.
The seven senators were praised by some New England lawmakers, including Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, who thanked them for “having the courage to do what was right,” and Massachusetts’ Congressman Seth Moulton, who said they were the “few brave exceptions” to the Republican Party that cowered “in fear for their political futures.”
Rep. Moulton, who represents Massachusetts’s 6th congressional district, said it sadly came as no surprise that so many GOP senators “once again capitulated to Trump.”
“History will be the final judge of their moral weakness,” Moulton said in a tweet.
Reaction from New England lawmakers was both swift and damning for the Republican senators who did not vote to convict the former president. And many stated that, despite the acquittal, they believe Trump is guilty.
Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, of Maine, called it “tragic” that many Republican senators “chose their party over our democracy today.”
Massachusetts’ Rep. Lori Trahan, who represents the state’s third congressional district, said those Republican senators “didn’t have the courage to vote their conscience.”
Trahan said they will have to explain their “not guilty” vote to the “American people, who, unlike them, don’t live their lives in fear of losing re-election.”
“Donald Trump is guilty. Every person who watched the trial over the past week knows that to be the case,” Trahan wrote on Twitter. “Yet, 43 senators betrayed their oaths to the Constitution. They did it to show fealty to a man that would have watched them hang if it meant he got to stay in power.”
Fellow Massachusetts’ Rep. Jim McGovern agreed with Trahan, writing, “Donald Trump is guilty as all hell.”
“We all know it. They all know it,” he said on Twitter. “Senators who would rather throw away their conscience than stand up to a man who incited a violent attack on us at the Capitol will go down as cowards who betrayed their oath and disgraced their office.”
Maine’s Sen. Angus King, one of the 53 senators who voted to convict Trump, said on Twitter shortly after the verdict that the insurrection at the Capitol would not have happened “‘but for’ Donald Trump’s lies about the election’s legitimacy and his repeated calls for supporters to gather in Washington on January 6.”
While the vote did not achieve the two thirds of the Senate, or 67 votes, that was needed for conviction, it was still the most bipartisan vote in the history of presidential impeachments.
Read More: New England Lawmakers React to Senate’s Final Vote on Donald Trump Impeachment – NBC Boston