Retired Senate Dem leader tells Glenn Beck: If I were still in office, I'd vote to acquit President Trump

Retired Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) was once one of the most influential Democrats in the country, but he has grown increasingly independent and wary of his party's growing radicalism.

 

Now Lieberman, who was nearly elected as the country's vice president in 2000, says that House Democrats have taken their impeachment power too far and if he were still in the Senate, he would vote to acquit President Donald Trump.

In a radio interview with Glenn Beck on Friday, the former senator says that while he believes Trump's dealings with Ukraine were "inappropriate," they do not rise to the level of an impeachable offense.

"The call that President Trump made with President Zelensky of Ukraine was inappropriate, was wrong, it shouldn't have been done," Lieberman told Beck, "but did it reach the point where we can say nine months before an election (...) that, if we keep him in office, he represents a danger to the country? I don't think so."

It's what the founders intended

Lieberman continued by noting that voters should ultimately decide Trump's fate.

"Leave it to the people in November. In other words, impeachment, as our framers intended, I believe was not meant to be punitive, to punish you either criminally or by taking you out of office," the retired senator said.

"It was meant," he added, "to protect the country until the next election—and the closer it is to an election, the higher the threshold to convicting somebody, a president, and removing him from office."

The former running-mate of Al Gore added that Trump's now inevitable acquittal in the Senate is a "fair conclusion" to his trial. Lieberman also added that if founders James Madison and Alexander Hamilton were alive today, they would look at Trump's acquittal in the Senate and say: "This is what we intended."

He would have voted for witnesses though

Lieberman also told Beck that while he believes Trump should be acquitted, he would have supported allowing testimony from additional witnesses if he were still in the Senate.

"I'd probably vote for witnesses," he said, adding that during the "good ol' days" of the Clinton impeachment, Senators were able to work across party lines and set a limit to the number of witnesses and conclude the trial within a reasonable time frame.

Ultimately, with or without witnesses, Lieberman believes this matter will be decided in voting booths come November.

"The people will decide," he concluded.