Further to that, the reason given by the Republicans is that, as one Senator commented, "My vote today to dismiss the article of impeachment is based on the fact that impeachment was designed to remove an officeholder from public office," Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia said in a statement released after the vote. "The Constitution does not give Congress the power to impeach a private citizen."

If that's the widely-held view among the 45, with only five demurring (way short of seventeen, even if those five were all going to vote with the Democratic Party), the impeachment is now dead in the water. I wonder whether the Democratic Party Senators might consider that it's best to accept that, butt out and save face. After all, that could be better than being trashed in a Senate trial that many would now see as being pointlessly symbolic only, and a distraction from the rebuilding job that Joe Biden is trying to do. That seems quite important to me, and I didn't read it on the back of a fag packet...