Senate Republicans disgraced themselves so badly on Friday when they voted to ban witnesses from testifying during the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump that longtime Republican attorney Sophia Nelson has decided to leave the party.

Republican senators, especially so-called moderates, failed the United States and the Constitution this week by giving Trump a pass for abusing his power and obstructing Congress. They rigged the impeachment trial in his favor by barring witness testimony, bringing shame to the institution of the Senate and prostituting themselves to Trump instead of being patriots.

And that was enough for House Republican Congressional Committee Investigative Counsel Sophia Nelson to announce her decision to leave the party in a column for The Daily Beast.

“I have been a Republican my whole life,” she wrote. “No more. Not while Donald Trump remains the head of the party, and the Senate’s Republicans have stood nearly united behind him, rejecting patriotism to protect him.”

“As an attorney admitted before the illustrious Bar of the U.S. Supreme Court, I cannot associate myself with conduct so cowardly, craven, and unpatriotic, so brazenly partisan and so disrespectful of the Constitution’s impeachment powers,” Nelson continued. “The arguments made by the president’s defense team require us to suspend reality.”

“This new Republican Party is beholden to a lawless, immoral, godless man. I have watched people I have known for decades twist themselves into human pretzels to defend him, excuse him, exalt him,” she concluded. ”The current state of the GOP is not good for anyone in our two-party system that breaks down without lawmakers who can work together, and move legislation forward.”

Make no mistake, it’s likely Nelson isn’t alone. Many Republicans are likely too embarrassed to remain in the party today. The exodus will result in a smaller party that has even less chance of winning national elections in 2020 and beyond. And any Republican senator who voted to ban witnesses now face the wrath of voters in their home states and across the country.

Republicans could even lose more major donors, depriving the party of campaign dollars they desperately need to defend vulnerable seats. They may have saved Trump from impeachment, but they neutered themselves and the party in the process.

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