Maine’s Republican Senator has stayed mum on the impeachment proceedings for former president Donald Trump until this week.
The Portland Press Herald writes that Senator Susan Collins told the media Wednesday she would support censuring Trump, in lieu of an impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate which appears unlikely to result in a conviction.
On Tuesday, 45 Republicans voted against moving forward to a trial. Collins was one of only five Republicans who voted to proceed.
A censure would essentially be an official condemnation of the president’s actions, but on it’s own wouldn’t prevent Trump from running for office again the same way an impeachment conviction would.
Collins told reporters that she and Democratic Senator Tim Kaine have been privately discussing the idea of censuring Trump ever since it became clear that Senate Republicans were unlikely to support impeachment.
She still has not explicitly stated whether she believes Trump should be impeached in connection with the riot at the U.S. Capitol that took place two weeks before Joe Biden’s inauguration.
The only time a president was censured was Andrew Jackson in 1834.