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During the first trial of Donald J. Trump, 13 months ago, the former president commanded near-total fealty from his party. His conservative defenders were ardent and numerous, and Republican votes to convict him for pressuring Ukraine to help him smear Joseph R. Biden Jr. were virtually nonexistent.

In his second trial, Mr. Trump, no longer president, received less ferocious Republican support. His apologists were sparser in number and seemed to lack enthusiasm. Far fewer conservatives defended the substance of his actions, instead dwelling on technical complaints while skirting the issue of his guilt on the charge of inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

And this time, seven Republican senators voted with Democrats to convict Mr. Trump the most bipartisan rebuke ever delivered in an impeachment process. Several others, including Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, intimated that Mr. Trump might deserve to face criminal prosecution.

Mr. McConnell, speaking from the Senate floor after the vote, denounced Mr. Trumps unconscionable behavior and held him responsible for having given inspiration to lawlessness and violence.

Yet Mr. McConnell had joined with the great majority of Republicans just minutes earlier to find Mr. Trump not guilty, leaving the chamber well short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict the former president.

The vote stands as a pivotal moment for the party Mr. Trump molded into a cult of personality, one likely to leave a deep blemish in the historical record. Now that Republicans have passed up an opportunity to banish him through impeachment, it is not clear when or how they might go about transforming their party into something other than a vessel for a semiretired demagogue who was repudiated by a majority of voters.

Defeated by President Biden, stripped of his social-media megaphone, impeached again by the House of Representatives and accused of betraying his oath by a handful of Republican dissenters, Mr. Trump nonetheless remains the dominant force in right-wing politics. Even offline and off camera at his Palm Beach estate, and offering only a feeble impeachment defense through his legal team in Washington, the former president continues to command unmatched admiration from conservative voters.

Indeed, in a statement celebrating the Senate vote on Saturday, Mr. Trump declared that his political movement has only just begun.

The determination of so many Republican lawmakers to discard the mountain of evidence against Mr. Trump including the revelation that he had sided with the rioters in a heated conversation with the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy reflects how thoroughly the party has come to be defined by one man, and how divorced it now appears to be from any deeper set of policy aspirations and ethical or social principles.

After campaigning last year on a message of law and order, most Republican lawmakers decided not to apply those standards to a former commander in chief who made common cause with an organized mob. A party that often proclaimed that Blue lives matter balked at punishing a politician whose enraged supporters had assaulted the Capitol Police. A generations worth of rhetoric about personal responsibility appeared to founder against the perceived imperative of accommodating Mr. Trump.

Lanhee Chen, a Hoover Institution scholar and policy adviser to a number of prominent Republican officials, said the G.O.P. would need to redefine itself as a governing party with ambitions beyond fealty to a single leader.

When the conservative movement, when the Republican Party, have been successful, its been as a party of ideas, Mr. Chen said, lamenting that much of the party was still taking a Trump-first approach.

Many Republicans are more focused on talking about him than about whats next, he said. And thats a very dangerous place to be.

In recent weeks, the party has been so submerged in internal conflict, and so captive to its fear of Mr. Trump, that it has delivered only a halting and partial critique of Mr. Bidens signature initiatives, including his request that Congress spend $1.9 trillion to fight the coronavirus pandemic and revive the economy.

Mr. Trumps tenure as an agent of political chaos is almost certainly not over. The former president and his advisers have already made it plain that they intend to use the 2022 midterm elections as an opportunity to reward allies and mete out revenge to those who crossed Mr. Trump. And hanging over the party is the possibility of another run for the White House in three years.

It remains to be seen how aggressively the partys leadership will seek to counter him. Mr. McConnell has told associates that he intends to wage a national battle in 2022 against far-right candidates and to defend incumbents targeted by Mr. Trump.

But by declining to convict Mr. Trump on Saturday, Mr. McConnell invited skepticism about how willing he might be to wage open war against Mr. Trump on the campaign trail.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ridiculed Mr. McConnell for his ambivalent position after his floor speech, calling his remarks disingenuous and speculating that he had delivered them for the benefit of his financial backers who dislike Mr. Trump.

The vote by Republicans to acquit Mr. Trump, she said in a statement, was among the most dishonorable acts in our nations history.

Only a few senior Republicans have gone so far as to say that it is time for Mr. Trump to lose his lordly status in the party altogether. Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the highest-ranking House Republican to support impeachment, said in a recent television interview that Mr. Trump does not have a role as a leader of our party going forward.

Several of the Republican senators who voted for conviction on Saturday thundered against Mr. Trump after he was acquitted, in terms that echoed Ms. Cheneys explanation last month of her own vote to impeach him.

By what he did and did not do, President Trump violated his oath of office to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, said Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, a senior lawmaker who is close to Mr. McConnell.

But the lineup of Republicans who voted for conviction was, on its own, a statement on Mr. Trumps political grip on the G.O.P. Only Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is up for re-election next year, and she has survived grueling attacks from the right before.

The remainder of the group included two lawmakers who are retiring Mr. Burr and Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and three more who just won new terms in November and will not face voters again until the second half of the decade.

More typical of the Republican response was that of Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, a Trump loyalist serving his first term. The trial, he said on Saturday, was merely a political performance aimed at undermining a successful chief executive.

In Washington, a quiet majority of Republican officials appears to be embracing the kind of wishful thinking that guided them throughout Mr. Trumps first campaign in 2016, and then through much of his presidency, insisting that he would soon be marginalized by his own outrageous conduct or that he would lack the discipline to make himself a durable political leader.

Several seemed to be looking to the criminal justice system as a means of sidelining Mr. Trump. Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who voted for acquittal, noted in a statement, No president is above the law or immune from criminal prosecution, and that includes former President Trump.

Prosecution may not be a far-fetched scenario, given that Mr. Trump is facing multiple investigations by the local authorities in Georgia and New York into his political and business dealings.

But passing the buck has seldom paid off for Mr. Trumps adversaries, who learned repeatedly that the only sure way to rein him in was to beat him and his legislative proxies at the ballot box. That task has fallen almost entirely to Democrats, who captured the House in 2018 to put a check on Mr. Trump and then ejected him from the White House in November.

Still, Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, a longtime Trump ally who has been critical of the former president since the November election, told reporters in the Capitol on Friday that he believed Mr. Trump would be weakened by the impeachment trial, even if the Senate opted not to convict him. (Mr. Cramer, who also called the trial the stupidest week in the Senate, voted for acquittal.)

Hes made it pretty difficult to gain a lot of support, Mr. Cramer said of Mr. Trump. Now, as you can tell, theres some support that will never leave, but I think that is a shrinking population and probably shrinks a little bit after this week.

An even more categorical prognosis came from Ms. Murkowski.

I just dont see how Donald Trump will be re-elected to the presidency again, Ms. Murkowski said.

If that projection seems anchored more in hope than in experience, there are good reasons for Republicans to root for Mr. Trumps exit from the political stage. He is intensely unpopular with a majority of the electorate, and polls consistently found that most Americans wanted to see him convicted.

Even in places where Mr. Trump retains a powerful following, there is a growing recognition that the partys loss of the White House and the Senate in 2020, and the House two years before that, did not come about by accident.

In Georgia, the site of some of the partys most stinging defeats of the 2020 campaign, Jason Shepherd, a candidate for state party chair, said he saw the G.O.P. as grappling with the kind of identity crisis that comes periodically with a loss after youve had a big personality leading the party, likening Mr. Trumps place in the party to that of Ronald Reagan.

Republicans, Mr. Shepherd said, had to find a way to appeal to the voters Mr. Trump brought into their coalition while communicating a message that the G.O.P. is bigger than Donald Trump. But he acknowledged that the next wave of candidates was already looking to the former president as a model.

Republicans are trying to position themselves as the next Donald Trump, he said. Maybe, in terms of personality, a kinder and gentler Donald Trump, but someone who will stand up to the left and fight for conservative principles that do unite Republicans.

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Republican Acquittal of Trump Is a Pivotal Moment for the Party - The New York Times

Tom Nichols, Opinion columnist Published 5:00 a.m. ET Feb. 14, 2021 | Updated 9:17 a.m. ET Feb. 15, 2021

Presidents have been impeached, but none have been removed from office due to impeachment. Confusing? Here's how. USA TODAY

Trump's acquittal proved with final certainty that Republicans are driven only by ambition, comfort and self-interest and the Constitution be damned.

The second Senatetrial of Donald Trump is over. Trump has been acquitted of betraying his oath and his country. He was guilty of these charges, and so is the Republican Party, despite a handful of exceptions in a 57-43 vote that allowed Trump to escape conviction and a permanent ban on holding federal office.

The Democratic House managers did a magnificent job, marshaling elegant rhetoric and ironclad logic far beyond what Trumps obvious guilt required. Their case will stand for years as an example of civic virtue.

Trumps defense team, composed of a personal injury lawyer and a few other nonentities, was incompetent andwhined like Trump himself about Democrat managers and cancel culture. They managed to make ambulance chasing seem noble by comparison.

And none of it mattered. The outcome was foreordained. On a weekend we once reserved for honoring the births of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, so-called constitutionalistslike Sen. Mike Lee of Utah gleefully betrayed everything for which Lincoln lived and for which he was murdered in cold blood. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, barely able to contain his smirking, made the case within minutes of Trumps acquittal that the former president was probably guilty anyway, but hey, maybe someone else can take him to court just somewhere other than the Senate.

It is long past time to put aside rationalizations about ideology and party loyalty and tribalism. The voters back home in these Republican states and districts might be drunk on the vile moonshine brewed by Fox News,One America News Network and other right-wing outfits, but McConnell and the Republican members of Congress are with the obvious exception of kooks like Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado or Marjorie Taylor Greeneof Georgia educated men and women who know better. They know exactly what they are doing and why.

The acquittal of Donald Trump proved, with final certainty, that the Republicans are driven only by ambition,comfort and self-interest and the Constitution be damned.

For all of their complaints about The Swamp, these GOP careerists are creatures of Washington. No matter where they were born, they are now the squires of Northern Virginia and Georgetown and they are not going back. For all their populist bravado about how the elites hate the Real Americans, no one is more elitist and hates Real America including their own constituents as much as the Republicans who will do anything rather than risk being sent home to live among them.

Sens. Ted Cruz, left, and Josh Hawley on Jan. 6, 2021, in the Senate in Washington, D.C.(Photo: OLIVIER DOULIERY, AFP via Getty Images)

Arkansas Sen.Tom Cotton and the Houses dreadfulElise Stefanik, from New York's Adirondacks,did not both go to Harvard just to end up as the mayor of Fayetteville or relegated to a city council in Plattsburgh. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley didnt make it to Stanford and Yale just to hang out a shingle probating wills and handling divorces in Sedalia.

These opportunists will never do anything that might incur even so much as the remote risk of a primary challenge. They have made it and they are staying where they are. Exile from the District of Columbia is not for them. If bending the knee yet one more time to the cult of Trump keeps them motoring along the Rock Creek Parkway while taking in the vista of the Potomac River, it is a price they will gladly pay. And so will all of us pay, too, as democracy settles into trench warfare between a shrinking but powerful claque of ruthless frauds and the rest of America.

Violating their oaths: In Donald Trump v. democracy, acquittal shows depth and danger of Trumpism pandemic

There are a few noble exceptions among the Republicans, but not enough to matter. Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, for one, has said point-blank that he is willing to lose his job if that is the price of telling the truth, and that if it happens, he will be at peace.

But others, such as Sens. Rand Paul (himself the son of a long-serving congressman) or Ted Cruz a man known for his legendary and insufferable ambition since college, and who probably ran for class leader in his newborn ward in the hospital will risk no such sacrifice. They, you see, were bred for better things far from Kentucky and Texas, and if that means allying themselves with the worst and most partisan elements in America rather than with the Constitution, so be it.

The Republicans have repeatedly betrayed both Lincoln and the Union. The party whose first president died as a martyr at the hands of an insurrectionistis now controlled by empty, hollow people who rolled their eyes and lazed their way through the trial of a president who was manifestly guilty of inciting an insurrection.

If nothing else, perhaps this disgusting dishonoring of the memory of our 16th president should persuade the rest of us to bring back the actual Feb. 12 and Feb. 22 birthdays of Presidents Lincoln and Washington as national holidays, so that we do not confuse their heroism and nobility with the cult of personality practiced by modern Republicans.

Acquitted: Shared identity and fear of Trump kept most Republicans in line

Presidents Daywas always a sham.Americans once knew that we should not worship an abstract office we honor the best among us who have sat in that office. It was never sensible to allow, say, both Warren Harding and Franklin Roosevelt to be feted on the same day. But this final obscenity, this last rebuke to the memory of Lincoln, should inspire us never to allow the chance that Trump is remembered on the same day as the man who saved the Union.

The Republicans who voted to acquit Trump acted with selfishness, cynicismand even malice. They have smeared their betrayal of the Constitution all over their careers the same way the January insurrectionists smeared excrement on the walls of the Congress itself.

At least human waste can be washed away. What the Republicans did on Feb.13, 2021, will never be expunged from the history of the United States.

Tom Nichols,a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors,is the author of Our Own Worst Enemy, coming in August. Follow him on Twitter:@RadioFreeTom

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Republicans who acquitted Trump put their careers over duty, honor and the Constitution - USA TODAY

Amy Walter:

Right, and where is the Republican Party, right?

And this seems to be the question that we continue to grapple with or have been grappling with really since 2015, Judy, when it seemed that so many times during Trump's first campaign, during his time as president, that the party was going to break up over Donald Trump.

And yet, when all is said and done, the party continues to rally around him. In this case, on the vote over the weekend to convict, the president was no different.

In some ways, as you said, this was a historic moment. This was the most bipartisan impeachment ever in American history. So that's quite remarkable. And yet, at the same time, it doesn't tell us anything about Trump's inability to keep a hold of the party. In fact, what it tells us is that he still has a pretty good hold on the party.

As you pointed out, a number of those senators who voted for conviction have since been censured. We know members of the House who voted for impeachment have also been censured, and they have been threatened with primary races. We know that, even in a bipartisan vote, it was still 10 votes short of a conviction.

And we also know that the seven Republicans who voted these are not who voted for conviction these are not the rising stars in the party. These aren't folks who you're going to see on the ballot in 2024 running for president. Only one of them is up for reelection in 2022. That's Lisa Murkowski from Alaska. Two of them are retiring, Senator Burr and Senator Toomey, Burr from North Carolina, Toomey that you pointed out from Pennsylvania, also been censured.

The rest are either up in 2026, so they were just recently elected, reelected, or one of them, Mitt Romney, up in 2024. So, there is no immediate repercussions for these most of these senators like, there is for members of the House.

But, at the end of the day, I think what's been made very clear is that this is still the party of Donald Trump, the local grassroots activists who are censuring these members making it very clear where their loyalties lie and what they're expecting from other elected officials down the road in 2022 and beyond.

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Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on Trump's control of the GOP - PBS NewsHour

National Review

Appearing at a friendly CNN town-hall event yesterday, President Joe Biden dropped a string of untruths on issues both large and small. One of the presidents most egregious falsehoods was the claim that we didnt have [the vaccine] when we came into office. The first shot was administered back on December 14, 2020. Glenn Kessler, lead fact-checker for the Washington Post, quickly jumped into action on Twitter, explaining that this was merely a verbal stumble, a typical Biden gaffe, as he had already mentioned 50 million doses being available when he took office. Ex Trump officials should especially cool the outrage meter, as it just looks silly. Castigating those who pointed out the lie is a weird thing for someone charged with verifying factual information to do. It was a strange coincidence, indeed, that Bidens verbal stumble corresponded perfectly with the concerted administration-wide effort to mislead Americans regarding the presidents new vaccination plan. Last week, Vice President Kamala Harris had herself accidentally stumbled into numerous similar gaffes, saying there had been no national strategy or plan for vaccinations, that the new administration was starting from scratch on something thats been raging for almost an entire year, and that there there was no stockpile . . . of vaccines. When a Twitter follower asked him how he determines what constitutes a verbal stumble or a lie, Kessler explained: People screw up on live television. Biden with his stutter especially does so. Ah, the stutter. How quickly the media has taken to the Bidens stutter excuse. The Democratic presidential candidates gaffes may be rooted in a little-understood disability, The Hill theorized when Biden first shared the story of his early struggles with stuttering. Do those who similarly struggle usually steal entire speeches nay, life stories from others? Do they coherently say things that are provable lies? I suspect not. It is odd, as well, that a fact-checker would contend that Biden must have had a verbal stumble because he had previously admitted the truth on the issue. For one thing, it seems unlikely this was the standard used for Donald Trumps contradictory ramblings. And though Im not a professionally trained fact-checker myself, Im relatively certain that most politicians have the skill set to tell the truth on a topic in one instance and then lie in another. All of these defenses of Biden rely on the notion that the president wouldnt intentionally mislead us. Which is also weird, considering he is a notorious fabulist and fabricator. Now, many Americans might be unaware of the history of Bidens untruths. Because, while fact-checkers may sporadically, if tepidly, correct falsehoods uttered by Democrats, or retroactively admit to them, they also regularly offer rationalizations, excuses, justifications rich layers of contextual detail to safeguard them from criticism, which is a complete abdication of the job they ostensibly claim to do. Perhaps the most mendacious fact-checker is CNNs Daniel Dale, who produces prodigious amounts of disingenuous partisan clickbait. Yesterday, Dale also bored into soul of Biden to discern exactly what the president meant, which, it conveniently turned out, was the opposite of what he said. Then again, Dale noted back in September that Biden makes some false and misleading claims but assertions of fact have been largely factual. Tautology aside, a quick fact-check of this claim earns a gaggle of Pinocchios. Then again, Dale is just a left-wing columnist. Nothing wrong with it. But no one needs to pretend otherwise. The fact is if youll pardon the expression this kind of partisan gruel would never have existed in a reputable newsroom 30 or 20 years ago. Yet it thrives in an age in which the number of Twitter followers and hits are valued over fact-gathering. There has been no price to pay for this destruction of political journalism only high ratings. Perhaps it will change post-Trump. Its not only that the fact-checkers are objectionable but also that the idea of fact-checking is un-journalistic. There is something more insidious about fact-checks than the average hackery. Listening to PBS NewsHours Yamiche Alcindor, for instance, regurgitate the administrations talking points is sad but inoffensive. Fact-checkers circumvent debate by making pronouncements about highly disputable contentions. One might be able to look past the five-year abandonment of journalistic ethics and professionalism if reporters and fact-checkers were equal-opportunity sticklers. The problem wasnt the adversarial relationship journalists had with those in power though the self-aggrandizement and navel-gazing were insufferable its the selective deployment of these ethics as now displayed with a different administration. And no one exemplifies the problem better than the self-anointed fact-checkers.

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The Texas power grid failed mostly due to natural gas. Republicans are blaming wind turbines. - Yahoo News

(Reuters) - Dozens of former Republican officials, who view the party as unwilling to stand up to former President Donald Trump and his attempts to undermine U.S. democracy, are in talks to form a center-right breakaway party, four people involved in the discussions told Reuters.

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump waves as he arrives at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., January 20, 2021. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

The early stage discussions include former elected Republicans, former officials in the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Trump, ex-Republican ambassadors and Republican strategists, the people involved say.

More than 120 of them held a Zoom call last Friday to discuss the breakaway group, which would run on a platform of principled conservatism, including adherence to the Constitution and the rule of law - ideas those involved say have been trashed by Trump.

The plan would be to run candidates in some races but also to endorse center-right candidates in others, be they Republicans, independents or Democrats, the people say.

Evan McMullin, who was chief policy director for the House Republican Conference and ran as an independent in the 2016 presidential election, told Reuters that he co-hosted the Zoom call with former officials concerned about Trumps grip on Republicans and the nativist turn the party has taken.

Three other people confirmed to Reuters the call and the discussions for a potential splinter party, but asked not to be identified.

Among the call participants were John Mitnick, general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security under Trump; former Republican congressman Charlie Dent; Elizabeth Neumann, deputy chief of staff in the Homeland Security Department under Trump; and Miles Taylor, another former Trump homeland security official.

The talks highlight the wide intraparty rift over Trumps false claims of election fraud and the deadly Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol. Most Republicans remain fiercely loyal to the former president, but others seek a new direction for the party.

The House of Representatives impeached Trump on Jan. 13 on a charge of inciting an insurrection by exhorting thousands of supporters to march on the Capitol on the day Congress was gathered to certify Democrat Joe Bidens election victory.

Call participants said they were particularly dismayed by the fact that more than half of the Republicans in Congress - eight senators and 139 House representatives - voted to block certification of Bidens election victory just hours after the Capitol siege.

Most Republican senators have also indicated they will not support the conviction of Trump in this weeks Senate impeachment trial.

Large portions of the Republican Party are radicalizing and threatening American democracy, McMullin told Reuters. The party needs to recommit to truth, reason and founding ideals or there clearly needs to be something new.

THESE LOSERS

Asked about the discussions for a third party, Jason Miller, a Trump spokesman, said: These losers left the Republican Party when they voted for Joe Biden.

A representative for the Republican National Committee referred to a recent statement from Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.

If we continue to attack each other and focus on attacking on fellow Republicans, if we have disagreements within our party, then we are losing sight of 2022 (elections), McDaniel said on Fox News last month.

The only way were going to win is if we come together, she said.

The Biden White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

McMullin said just over 40% of those on last weeks Zoom call backed the idea of a breakaway, national third party. Another option under discussion is to form a faction that would operate either inside the current Republican Party or outside it.

Names under consideration for a new party include the Integrity Party and the Center Right Party. If it is decided instead to form a faction, one name under discussion is the Center Right Republicans.

Members are aware that the U.S. political landscape is littered with the remains of previous failed attempts at national third parties.

But there is a far greater hunger for a new political party out there than I have ever experienced in my lifetime, one participant said.

Reporting by Tim Reid; Additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Soyoung Kim and Peter Cooney

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Exclusive: Dozens of former Republican officials in talks to form anti-Trump third party - Reuters