Gov. Phil Scott said Thursday that he believes President Donald Trump abused his power when he withheld military aid to Ukraine last year, and that the Senate did not conduct a fair impeachment trial of the president.
Scott also said that he admired U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who was the only Republican senator who voted to convict Trump this week.
The Republican-controlled Senate moved to acquit the president on Wednesday.
“I believe he abused his position of power,” Scott said of Trump. “Withholding some of those funds is inappropriate and I believe, as Sen. Romney did, that he shouldn’t be in office.”
The governor, who has been critical of Trump and was one of the first prominent Republicans in the country to back the House’s impeachment inquiry in September, stopped short of saying that the Senate should have convicted Trump.
“I think at this point in time he’s been acquitted. I think it’s for the voters to decide in November whether he should continue in that role,” Scott said.
Last month, the governor said he had faith in the Senate to conduct a fair impeachment trial and that he trusted the “integrity of the process to prevail.”
But on Thursday, Scott said the Senate trial wasn’t fair or thorough enough, and the leaders of the upper chamber should have included testimony from additional witnesses.
“I think they did harm to the process by not allowing more witnesses,” Scott said.
“I would hope that most Americans would believe that that you need all the information you can possibly get to arrive at a decision like this that is so imperative to our country and our democracy.”
The impeachment trial centered around allegations that Trump pressured Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in July to investigate potential 2020 opponent Joe Biden by withholding military aid.
Democratic Rep. Peter Welch, Vermont’s lone House member, voted in December to impeach President Trump. Sens. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, and Bernie Sanders, an independent, voted Wednesday to convict him on both articles of impeachment.
On Wednesday, Leahy called Trump’s actions a “brazen abuse of executive power.”
“The only lesson the president has learned from this trial is how easily he can get away with egregious, illegal misconduct,” Leahy said. “This is a dark day.”
Trump and the White House declared victory after the president’s acquittal.
“The sham impeachment attempt concocted by Democrats ended in the full vindication and exoneration of President Donald J. Trump,” said Stephanie Grisham, the White House’s press secretary.
“Only the president’s political opponents — all Democrats, and one failed Republican presidential candidate — voted for the manufactured impeachment articles,” she said.
