The senators and congressmen who voted for impeachment or conviction of President Trump do not belong in the U.S. Congress. They broke their oaths of office in atrocious behavior.

In a normally functioning republic, as opposed to a place parastized by political hacks and power-hungry freaks, they would have been impeached themselves and removed from Congress.

I do hope that one day we will reach such point when they will be tried for their misdeeds, and that when it happens we will not forget their brazen betrayals of the Constitution.

The Constitution of the U.S. clearly states that "Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech" (quotation from Amendment I that is integral part of the U.S. Constitution).

Since impeaching the president by the House and convicting him by the Senate are legislative acts that are made into laws by means of voting, both impeachment and subsequent conviction are subject to the mentioned above Constitutional restriction. In particular, if the act of impeachment or the act of subsequent conviction abridges the freedom of speech, then the members of Congress do violate (if the respective act passes), or attempt to violate (if the respective act fails), the Constitution by voting in favor of any of these, regardless whether the impeachment or conviction passes by receiving enough of the votes or else it fails.

All members of Congress swore at the beginning of their service to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the U.S."

Clearly, violating of the Constitution, or an attempt thereof, is a neglect of the duty to "preserve, protect, and defend" and a breaking of, or an attempt to break, the Constitution. Therefore, any member of Congress who votes in favor of a legislative act that violates the Constitution when passed, or attempts to violate it when failed, violates his/her oath of office. No fallacious reasoning or otherwise deceitful rhetoric can change that proven fact.

Taking all the above into account, the only detail that at this point is still missing in this proof that impeachment and an attempt to convict President Trump in his second impeachment and trial amounts to breaking of the oath of office by all those members of Congress who voted in favor of any of these is to show the following:

1. That the said impeachment by the House was abridging President Trump's freedom of speech, and

2. That the said attempt by the Senate of conviction was attempting to abridge President Trump's freedom of speech.

The House impeachment managers failed to prove during the Senate trial that President Trump incited insurrection. They failed to prove that there was any causal relation between the speech that the president gave on Jan. 6, 2021 and the breaking-in of a few hundreds of unarmed individuals to the Capitol building that followed peaceful protest on that day. They failed to prove that the said breaking-in was actually an insurrection -- unlike other insurrections, this one wasn't armed. They failed to prove that the president's speech was an incitement of violence or otherwise illegal act. The only thing that they actually proved was that the president did engage in speech that they considered highly controversial but nevertheless engaged in themselves. Since in a trial, the burden of proof of all the accusations rests with the accusers, the said failures create a valid legal presumption that there was no causal relation between the speech and the breaking-in, and that the breaking-in was not an insurrection.

In other words, the said failures create a valid legal presumption that the president did not incite insurrection, not even a riot. The House impeachment managers have not rebutted that presumption. Therefore, the only accusation left of all the Articles of Impeachment that is legally valid at this point is that the president said things that were deemed controversial by some.

Since the subject of protection by the free speech clause of First Amendment is the controversial speech, their demand that the president be punished for making controversial statements was an attempt to abridge his freedom of speech.

This completes the proof of the statement in the title of this article that all those members of Congress who voted in favor of impeachment or conviction did break their oath of office. By virtue of the remark at the beginning of this article, they do not belong in the U.S. Congress. As a result, all those who voted against any of the two were simply upholding their oath of office, and all those, like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who criticized the latter for their votes, just exposed their disdain for the Constitution of the U.S.


Mark Andrew Dwyer's recent columns are posted at the Federal Observer and the Canada Free Press. Links to his other commentaries can be found here.

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