Hillary Clinton: 'Follow Mitt Romney's lead' and vote Trump out of office
Hillary Clinton says she wasn’t surprised that the Senate voted to acquit President Trump in his impeachment trial — but was nonetheless disappointed more Republicans didn’t vote to remove him from office.
“I wasn’t surprised because it’s hard to get 67 votes to convict and remove somebody,” the 2016 Democratic nominee told Ellen DeGeneres in an interview that will air Thursday. “But I was still disappointed that not more of the Republicans were willing to take the stand that Mitt Romney took.”
The Utah Republican joined Senate Democrats in voting to convict Trump for abuse of power, one of two articles of impeachment endorsed by House Democrats against the president.
“Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one’s oath of office that I can imagine,” Romney said in a speech on the Senate floor before the vote, adding: “I swore an oath before God to exercise impartial justice. I am profoundly religious. My faith is at the heart of who I am.”
Clinton said the evidence against the president was “clear.”
“There was no doubt by the time it was all presented that the president had done what he was accused of. In fact, he’d admitted he’d done what he was accused of. He just didn’t think that anybody would hold him accountable,” she said. “So we’re now moving on, but I hope that voters and Americans from all political stripes actually pay attention and say to themselves, ‘Hey, you know, he has to be held accountable.’ And now the way to do that is in the election.”
“There’s no doubt what the president did was wrong,” Clinton continued. “It was to promote his own personal interests, not the interests of our country. It did put our national security at risk. Everything that was said was proven. So now it’s voters who are going to have to say, ’OK, I have to take responsibility for this and follow Mitt Romney’s lead.’”
Clinton, who recently stirred controversy by openly criticizing her former rival and 2020 hopeful Bernie Sanders, said she isn’t ready to endorse any of the current Democratic candidates.
But she had a message for the party’s primary voters.
“Vote for the person that you believe can actually win in November and the person you think can govern our country,” Clinton said. “Because somebody has to get in there and try to bring our country together and try to put us on the right track into the future and restore our democracy and our standing in the world.”
“Remember, it’s not the popular vote, it’s the Electoral College,” she added. “Because I got 3 million more votes but lost.”
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