Utah's U.S. senators cast different votes in the impeachment trial Friday.
Utah's junior senator, Mitt Romney, broke party ranks and was one of only two Republicans in the U.S. Senate who voted to allow witnesses in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. Senator Susan Collins from Maine was the second Republican. The final vote was 49-51. Fifty-one votes were needed to approve witnesses.
Senator Mike Lee was one of those votes. He issued the following statement after the votes were tallied:
“We have heard from 13 witnesses via video during this trial. We have heard hours of argument. We have received hundreds of pages of legal briefs and thousands of pages of supporting documents. We know what happened: President Trump directed his staff to ask President Zelensky to issue a statement announcing an investigation into ‘Burisma and the 2016 elections.’ President Zelensky declined. Ukraine received its aid anyway, and President Zelensky met with President Trump. That’s it. That’s what happened. No new witness would change or contradict these facts. That is why I voted to move on without hearing from additional witnesses. Like any other trial court, the Senate – here sitting as a court of impeachment – has both the authority and the obligation to decline to hold a full trial where the material facts of the case are not in dispute.”