Sen. Susan Collins said she'll vote to acquit Trump. Impeachment trial resumes Wednesday

Senator Susan Collins, one of only two Republicans to join Democrats in seeking testimony in the Senate trial of President Donald Trump, said Tuesday she would vote to acquit the president in a final vote on Wednesday.

Collins said key facts in the case were undisputed, including the July 25, 2019, call when Trump urged Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, which she considered “improper and in very poor judgment.”

“It was wrong for him to ask a foreign government to investigate a political rival,” Collins said. “I do not believe that the House has met its burden of showing that the president’s conduct, however flawed, warrants the extreme step of immediate removal from office.”

Collins had been considered a possible swing vote on the verdict. But no House Republicans voted to impeach Trump on Dec. 18. and no Senate Republicans have yet said they would vote to convict him.

A two-thirds majority of the Senate is necessary to convict and remove Trump from office, which is unlikely Wednesday because the chamber has 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats.

The Senate voted 51 to 49 to reject any witnesses in the trial. Collins of Maine and Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, joined 47 Democrats in voting to subpoena former national security adviser John Bolton.

Collins noted that there was only one impeachment trial during the country’s first 200 years. But she was concerned about two trials in the last 21 years, for Trump and former President Bill Clinton.