The Senate voted on Friday nearly along party lines to block additional witnesses and evidence in President Trump’s impeachment trial, effectively accelerating the proceedings toward a final vote, which is expected to be held Wednesday.

But even before votes were cast Friday, a number of top Republicans came forward with statements rejecting the notion that the president should be convicted and removed, despite the evidence laid out in recent weeks by House impeachment managers.

While some lamented the partisan tenor of the proceeding, which they said threw the fairness of the trial into doubt, others said their decisions were based on a stronger conviction: Even if the president did everything the House managers described, his actions and alleged wrongdoing still did not justify his removal from office.

This is what they said:

Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee: “The question then is not whether the president did it, but whether the United States Senate or the American people should decide what to do about what he did. I believe that the Constitution provides that the people should make that decision in the presidential election that begins in Iowa on Monday.”