华盛顿——当参议员理查德·伯尔站起来说“有罪”时，参议院大厅里鸦雀无声。但是北卡罗来纳共和党人投票给前总统定罪唐纳德·特朗普不应该感到震惊。

从某种程度上来说，几年来，他一直在暗示自己愿意让特朗普负责。

几个月前，特朗普开始错误地声称11月选举由伯尔领导的参议院情报委员会警告说，现任公职人员应该“绝对最大限度地克制和谨慎，如果他们正在考虑公开宣布一个即将到来的选举质疑。该委员会在2020年2月表示，如此严重的指控可能对国家安全产生“重大”后果。

1月6日，伯尔在解释他投票判定特朗普煽动国会大厦叛乱时，回到了这个主题。他说特朗普“宣扬毫无根据的阴谋论，对自由公平选举的完整性提出质疑。”

选举中没有广泛的欺诈行为，因为特朗普在几个月前以及就在暴乱发生前再次向他的支持者虚假地声称，这一事实得到了全国各地选举官员甚至特朗普当时的司法部长威廉·巴尔的证实。

伯尔在声明中说，当国会大厦遭到袭击时，特朗普“首先利用他的办公室煽动局势，而不是立即呼吁停止袭击。”

对伯尔来说，这是在多年来对特朗普进行认真评论后发表的一份强调声明，其中大部分是在他调查特朗普与俄罗斯的关系时发表的。“有罪”投票使他成为参议院7名共和党人和众议院10名共和党人中的一员，这使得特朗普的第二次弹劾成为历史上最两党合作的一次。

随着伯尔在2022年任期结束时退休，这一投票可能最终决定他的职业生涯。

它也是有价格的。

在2月13日投票后的几天里，北卡罗来纳州共和党一致投票谴责伯尔，因为该州和全国的共和党人明确表示，他们继续忠于特朗普。

“错误的投票，伯尔参议员，”前共和党众议员马克·沃克在推特上说，他已经宣布了他的参议院候选人资格。"我正在竞选理查德·伯尔的职位，因为北卡罗来纳州需要一位真正的保守派支持者作为他们的下一任参议员。"

伯尔拒绝就此事接受采访。但是他的许多共和党同事在投票后称赞了他。

投票宣判特朗普无罪的共和党人北卡罗来纳州参议员托姆·提利斯(Thom Tillis)在州责难投票后表示，伯尔是一个“伟大的朋友和伟大的参议员”，他投了自己的良心票。内布拉斯加州参议员本·萨斯(Ben Sasse)是七名投票定罪的共和党人之一，也是情报委员会的成员。他说，伯尔“是一名领导人，而不是一个大嘴巴”，他在该委员会的两党工作中表现突出。

“理查德不会因为做了功课并且知道事实而回避做出艰难的决定——他不会浪费时间去冒险，”萨斯说。

伯尔是一位古怪、沉默寡言的政治家，以其枯燥的幽默感、对穿袜子和驾驶贴满保险杠贴纸的20世纪70年代敞篷大众汽车的厌恶而闻名，他在国会任职近30年。他曾是威克森林足球运动员和草坪设备推销员，在1994年共和党浪潮中当选为众议院议员，并在共和党人登上议长宝座之前，与俄亥俄州共和党众议员约翰·博纳(John Boehner)成为亲密朋友。

伯尔于2004年首次当选参议员，他在2016年再次当选后表示，他的第三个任期将是他的最后一个任期——先发制人地退出政坛，这证明了他的重要性。

特朗普当选后，参议院多数党领袖米奇·麦康奈尔(Mitch McConnell)，R-Ky。如何应对特朗普刚刚赢得的俄罗斯干涉总统选举的指控。由于伯尔没有寻求连任，他是领导政治爆炸性调查的理想人选。

作为委员会主席，伯尔在三年的调查中逐渐成为特朗普权力的秘密制衡者。他与委员会中的最高民主党人弗吉尼亚·参议员马克·华纳密切合作，筛选高度机密的信息，其中一些是关于特朗普和他的同事的。

伯尔一直保持着这种伙伴关系，直到最后，尽管共和党人尖锐地反对俄罗斯的调查，并效仿特朗普，将这一切都称为“骗局”。

华纳在一次采访中说，他认为指导伯尔的主要事情之一是确保情报机构得到“他们应该得到的尊重”。这意味着要反击特朗普，特朗普批评调查俄罗斯的机构，并暗示他们通过破坏2016年的选举与他合谋。伯尔赞同这些机构2017年的结论，即俄罗斯干预了选举，并支持特朗普，尽管这位前总统拒绝这样做。

华纳说，伯尔“一次又一次地表明，他将做他认为正确的事情”。

国会大厦对面的华纳对应方、加州众议院情报委员会主席亚当·希夫(Adam Schiff)表示，伯尔与民主党人真诚合作，致力于确保这些机构“能够在不怕政治化的情况下开展工作”。

但伯尔在政治上也很谨慎。

由于该委员会披露了俄罗斯在2016年选举前后的黑客和错误信息努力，并警告未来的攻击，伯尔这样做大多没有直接批评特朗普。伯尔一再表示，他没有看到与俄罗斯合作的迹象，这使他受到共和党人和白宫的青睐。

但与其他调查选举干扰的人不同，伯尔很少谈论他的工作。他还表示，在调查进行期间，他将停止访问白宫。

在2018年夏天接受美联社(Associated Press)罕见的采访时，伯尔表示，俄罗斯的调查“令人沮丧透顶”。但他也表示，调查的完整性——及其对参议院的重要性——是值得保护的。“这个镇上没有什么是永远保密的，”伯尔说，并补充说人们将在未来仔细检查他的努力。

但是随着调查的继续，他的共和党同事们越来越没有耐心了。调查进行了两年多，2019年5月，伯尔发出传票唐纳德·特朗普小，总统的儿子，他在竞选期间会见了一名俄罗斯律师。来自他自己政党的强烈反对很快。

伯尔坚持这个决定。他在共和党的一次私人午餐上向持怀疑态度的同事解释了他的理由，赢得了麦康奈尔的支持。

整整一年后，随着俄罗斯调查的结束，伯尔领导委员会的时间戛然而止。

联邦特工到达伯尔在华盛顿的家，没收了他的手机。在冠状病毒爆发导致市场暴跌的前几天，他抛售了高达170万美元的股票，司法部正在调查他是否利用了预先信息。伯尔否认交易私人信息，但在一片哗然中退出了他在委员会中的角色。

直到将近一年后——1月19日，特朗普上任的最后一天，他才被无罪释放。国务院发言人证实不会对伯尔提出指控，但拒绝进一步置评。

道格·叶禾是共和党战略家，也是伯尔的前助手，与他相识20多年。他说，尽管华盛顿的政治格局在过去五年发生了变化，伯尔从未动摇过。他说，对伯尔来说，像众议院那样进行高度党派性的俄罗斯调查在政治上更容易。

“我不知道他会被定罪，但我并不感到非常惊讶，”叶禾说。

随着一月份弹劾程序的展开，伯尔说得很少。不像他的一些同事公开为他们的投票而苦恼，他拒绝与国会大厦周围的记者交谈。在驳回审判的投票中，他与大多数共和党人站在一起，创造了一个他也会投票宣判无罪的预期。

因此，当伯尔站起来为特朗普的定罪投票时，会议厅里的许多人都想知道是否会有其他惊喜。有足够的共和党“有罪”票让特朗普成为第一位在弹劾审判中被定罪的总统吗？伯尔是领头羊吗？

他不是。投票结果是57票对43票，离所需的三分之二多数还差10票。最终，七名共和党人投票决定定罪——但只有伯尔没有警告。

“我不会轻易做出这个决定，”伯尔在投票后的一份声明中说，“但我认为这是必要的。”​

Impeachment vote becomes defining moment for GOP senator

WASHINGTON -- When Sen. Richard Burr stood and said “guilty” there were hushed gasps in the Senate chamber. But the North Carolina Republican’s vote to convict former President Donald Trump should not have come as a shock.

In a way, he had been telegraphing his willingness to hold Trump accountable for several years.

Months before Trump would begin falsely claiming that the November election had been stolen from him, the Senate Intelligence Committee led by Burr warned that sitting public officials should use the “absolute greatest amount of restraint and caution if they are considering publicly calling the validity of an upcoming election into question.” Such grave allegations, the committee said in February 2020, can have “significant” consequences for national security.

Explaining his vote to convict Trump of inciting an insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, Burr returned to that theme. He said Trump “promoted unfounded conspiracy theories to cast doubt on the integrity of a free and fair election.”

There was no widespread fraud in the election, as Trump claimed falsely over several months and again to his supporters just before the riot, a fact confirmed by election officials across the country and even Trump's then-attorney general, William Barr.

When the Capitol was attacked, Burr said in the statement, Trump “used his office to first inflame the situation instead of immediately calling for an end to the assault.”

For Burr, it was an emphatic statement after years of careful commentary about Trump, much of it made as he investigated Trump's ties to Russia. The “guilty” vote placed him among a group of seven Republicans in the Senate -- and 10 Republicans in the House -- who made Trump’s second impeachment the most bipartisan in history.

With Burr retiring at the end of his term in 2022, it’s a vote that could end up defining his career.

It also came with price.

The North Carolina Republican Party unanimously voted to censure Burr in the days after the Feb. 13 vote as Republicans in the state and across the country made clear their continued loyalty to Trump.

“Wrong vote, Sen. Burr,” tweeted former Republican Rep. Mark Walker, who has already declared his Senate candidacy. “I am running to replace Richard Burr because North Carolina needs a true conservative champion as their next senator.”

Burr declined to be interviewed for this story. But many of his GOP colleagues praised him after the vote.

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican who voted to acquit Trump, said after the state censure vote that Burr is a “great friend and a great senator” who had voted his conscience. Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, one of the seven Republicans who voted to convict and a member of the Intelligence Committee, said Burr "is a leader, not a motormouth" who distinguished himself with bipartisan work on the committee.

“Richard doesn’t shy away from making tough calls because he does his homework and knows the facts — he doesn’t waste time sticking his finger in the wind,” Sasse said.

A quirky, quiet politician known for his dry sense of humor, his distaste for wearing socks and for driving a 1970s-era convertible Volkswagen plastered with bumper stickers, Burr has served in Congress for almost three decades. A former Wake Forest football player and lawn equipment salesman, he was elected to the House during the Republican wave of 1994 and became close friends with Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, before Boehner ascended to speaker.

First elected to the Senate in 2004, Burr said after his reelection in 2016 that his third term would be his last —- a preemptive retirement from politics that proved consequential.

After Trump’s election, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., wrestled with how to respond to allegations of Russia’s interference in the presidential election that Trump had just won. With Burr not seeking another term, he was an ideal candidate to lead the politically explosive investigation.

Empowered as committee chairman, Burr gradually became a quiet check on Trump’s powers during the three-year investigation. He worked closely with the top Democrat on the committee, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, as they sifted through highly classified information, some of it about Trump and his associates.

Burr kept up the partnership until the end, even as Republicans turned sharply against the Russia investigation and followed Trump’s lead in labeling it all a “hoax.”

Warner said in an interview that he thinks that one of the main things that guided Burr was to ensure that intelligence agencies got “the respect they deserve.” That meant pushing back on Trump, who criticized the agencies for investigating Russia and suggested they had conspired against him by undermining the 2016 election. Burr endorsed the agencies’ 2017 conclusion that Russia had interfered in the election and had favored Trump, even as the former president declined to do so.

Burr has “shown time and again he’s going to do what he thinks is right,” Warner said.

Warner’s counterpart across the Capitol, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Burr worked with Democrats in good faith and was committed to ensuring that the agencies “could do their jobs without fear of politicization.”

But Burr was also politically careful.

As the committee revealed Russia’s hacking and misinformation efforts around the 2016 election, and warned of future attacks, Burr did so mostly without directly criticizing Trump. Repeatedly, Burr said he saw no evidence of coordination with Russia, keeping him in the good graces of his fellow Republicans and the White House.

But unlike others investigating election interference, Burr rarely talked about his work. He also said he would stop visiting the White House while the investigation was underway.

In a rare interview with The Associated Press in the summer of 2018, Burr said the Russia investigation had been “frustrating as hell.” But he also said that the integrity of the inquiry — and its importance to the Senate — was something worth protecting. “Nothing in this town stays classified or secret forever,” Burr said, adding that people would scrutinize his efforts in the future.

But as the investigation dragged on, patience wore thin among his GOP colleagues. More than two years into the investigation, in May 2019, Burr subpoenaed Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son who had met with a Russian lawyer during the campaign. The backlash from his own party was swift.

Burr stood by the decision. He explained his rationale in a private GOP lunch to his skeptical colleagues, winning the support of McConnell.

Exactly a year later, as the Russia investigation was wrapping up, Burr’s time leading the committee came to an abrupt end.

Federal agents arrived at Burr’s Washington-area home and seized his cellphone. The Justice Department was investigating whether he had exploited advance information when he unloaded as much as $1.7 million in stocks in the days before the coronavirus outbreak caused markets to plummet. Burr denied trading on private information but stepped aside from his role on the committee amid the uproar.

He wasn’t cleared until almost a year later — on Jan. 19, Trump’s last full day in office. A department spokesman confirmed it would not bring charges against Burr but declined further comment.

Doug Heye, a Republican strategist and a former Burr aide who has known him for more than 20 years, said Burr never wavered even as the political landscape in Washington changed over the past five years. He said it would have been politically easier for Burr to run a Russia investigation like the one in the House, which was highly partisan.

“I didn’t know he was going to convict, but I wasn’t terribly surprised,” Heye said.

As the impeachment process unfolded in January, Burr said very little. Unlike some of his colleagues who were agonizing publicly over their votes, he declined to talk to reporters around the Capitol. He sided with most Republicans in a vote to dismiss the trial, creating an expectation he’d also vote to acquit.

So when Burr stood up to vote for Trump's conviction, many in the chamber wondered if there would be other surprises. Could there be enough Republican “guilty” votes to make Trump the first president even convicted at an impeachment trial? Was Burr a bellwether?

He was not. The vote was 57-43, 10 votes short of the needed two-thirds majority. In the end, seven Republicans had voted to convict — but only Burr’s came with no warning.

“I do not make this decision lightly,” Burr said in a statement after the vote, “but I believe it is necessary.”

​