Senator Doug Jones (D-AL), after voting Wednesday to convict President Donald Trump on both articles of impeachment, on Friday admitted that fellow Democrats have wanted to remove Trump from office since he was inaugurated in 2017.
Trump, of course, was acquitted by a wide margin this week and remains in office.
Explaining his decision to speak at length Friday to students at Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law, Jones’ alma mater, Alabama’s junior senator said, “I wanted to do this because this is, for me, kind of where everything started.”
“I am not here to try to convince anyone that I made the right decision,” Jones added. “I am not here to try to convince anyone that I made the wrong decision. Only time will tell how history will judge this.”
Senators must make difficult decisions – and explain how they vote without regard to politics. Today, I’m addressing my alma mater @CumberlandLaw to discuss my vote on impeachment. https://t.co/ywIFeW6V9r
— Doug Jones (@SenDougJones) February 7, 2020
“They wanted him impeached from the time he took his hand off the Bible,” Jones said of Trump.
He admitted that this fervor against the president continued through the Mueller investigation and even after the Mueller Report was released, when Democrats once again were plotting “what can we do [now]?”
“It was just not good,” Jones remarked about that mindset of being set on impeaching Trump.
The senator continued to compare Trump to President Richard Nixon, saying the divergence in results can be explained by different news media and partisan climates then and now.
Jones subsequently commented it is “stupid” to call him “a puppet” or “a leftist.”
Ironically, Cumberland really does seem to be “where everything started” for Jones in this context.
Of course, at the core of Trump’s impeachment was the president’s request for Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, for potential corruption in the country. Jones has endorsed Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.
However, Jones also shared on Friday that he has been personally close to Biden since 1978 — when Biden spoke at Cumberland.
“I’ve been friends with him ever since,” Jones added.
It should be noted that Jones — long before the impeachment process began — pledged to support whomever the Democrats ultimately nominate against Trump in November, no matter how radical that individual is. Jones also has publicly vowed to do “everything” in his power to stop a hypothetical future Supreme Court pick nominated by Trump, again no matter who that individual is.
Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
