Senator Lisa Murkowski said it would be ‘appropriate’ to bar Trump from running in 2024

JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) - U. S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski believes that President Donald Trump has committed an impeachable offense by inciting an attack against the U.S. Capitol and said that it would be “appropriate” to bar him from holding office again.

As Murkowski spoke from Washington D. C., the U.S. House of Representatives was debating and preparing to vote on an article of impeachment that charged the president with “inciting violence against the government” on Jan. 6.

Comparing this impeachment process to Trump’s first impeachment over withholding military aid to Ukraine, Murkowski said that was “a highly, highly, highly, highly partisan process, this is different.”

She said support for impeachment from Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the third most senior Republican in the House, showed that this impeachment was not wholly partisan and that it is appropriate to consider.

Murkowski stopped short of definitively saying that she would vote to convict the president after a Senate trial, but only because she would need to listen to the president’s defense team. If this was a criminal trial, she said that she would not be seated as a juror because she has shown her bias.

“I will do what I am required and entrusted to do as a senator, as effectively listening to that trial and that proceeding, and I will make that determination at that time,” Murkowski said. “But what I will tell you is that what I believe is that this president has committed an impeachable offense through his words on the sixth of January, and leading up to the sixth of January, when he was not honest to the American people about the election and the election results.”

It’s unclear when a trial might begin in the Senate. The Senate is due to convene on Jan 19., one day before President-elect Joe Biden takes office. It would require all 100 senators to vote for the Senate to meet before then, which Murkowski said wouldn’t happen, meaning a trial would likely begin during a Biden administration.

But regardless, she said that Congress must pass a measure to condemn the president’s actions whether that be through impeachment or the censure process. “There must be a consequence for this action,” Murkowski added.

If the Senate did convict the president, another unprecedented action it could then take is barring Trump from holding office again.

“I think that is one of the most consequential actions that we could take, and I think tha... (Read more)

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