In a floor speech on Monday, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) announced she would vote to acquit Trump even though he had acted improperly. "It was wrong for President Trump to mention former Vice President Biden on that phone call, and it was wrong for him to ask a foreign country to investigate a political rival," she said. [...]

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) called Trump's behavior "shameful and wrong," but said she would not vote to convict a man whose name is already on printed 2020 ballots.

In a New York Times opinion piece on Wednesday, Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) noted that for four months he has "consistently said that Mr. Trump's request for an investigation of Joe Biden and any effort to tie the release of military aid to investigations were improper and shouldn't have happened," but that he did not believe it warranted removal from office.

"It was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent and to withhold United States aid to encourage that investigation," Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) said in a statement last Thursday. "When elected officials inappropriately interfere with such investigations, it undermines the principle of equal justice under the law."

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) endorsed Alexander's criticisms, saying, "Let me be clear: Lamar speaks for lots and lots of us." On Tuesday, he wrote that Trump's call with Ukraine's president was "was certainly not 'perfect'" and his delay of security aid "was wrong."

Even Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a loyal Trump defender who has fiercely opposed impeachment, endorsed Alexander's remarks.

"Long story short, @SenatorAlexander most likely expressed the sentiments of the country as a whole as well as any single Senator possibly could," Graham tweeted last Friday, adding in another tweet, "To those who believe that all was 'perfect,' Senator Alexander made reasoned observations and conclusions based on the evidence before him. He called it as he saw it to be."