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Democrats in the United States House of Representatives handed over the impeachment case against Donald Trump to the Senate on Monday night (local time) for the start of his historic trial, but Republican senators were softening their criticism of the former president. and rejecting calls to condemn him for the deadly siege on the United States Capitol.
It’s an early sign of Trump’s lasting influence over the party.
Susan Walsh / AP
House Secretary Cheryl Johnson along with Acting Sgt at Arms Tim Blodgett, lead Democratic House impeachment managers as they walk through Capitol Hill, to deliver the impeachment article alleging incitement to insurrection to the Senate the former president of the United States, Donald Trump. .
The nine House prosecutors carried the single charge of “incitement to insurrection” throughout the Capitol, making a solemn and ceremonial march to the Senate through the same corridors that rioters looted a few weeks ago. But Republican denunciations of Trump have cooled off since the January 6 riot. Instead, Republicans are making a tangle of legal arguments against the legitimacy of the trial and questioning whether Trump’s repeated demands to overturn the election of Joe Biden really amounted to incitement.
What seemed like a closed case to some Democrats that unfolded for the world on live television, when Trump encouraged a crowd to “fight like hell” for his presidency, he meets a Republican Party that feels very different. . Not only are there legal concerns, but senators are reluctant to cross the former president and his legions of supporters who are his voters. Security remains tight on Capitol Hill.
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Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas said that if Congress begins holding impeachment trials of former officials, what’s next? Could we go back and judge President Obama?
Furthermore, he suggested, Trump has already been held accountable. “One way in our system of being punished is to lose an election.”
Arguments in the Senate trial will begin the week of February 8, and the case against Trump, the first former president to face impeachment, will test a political party that is still preparing for the post-Trump era. Republican senators are balancing the demands of big money donors who are distancing themselves from Trump and voters demanding loyalty from him. A Republican, Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, announced Monday that he would not seek reelection in 2022 citing the polarized political atmosphere.
For Democrats, the tone, tenor, and length of the upcoming trial, so early in Biden’s presidency, poses its own challenge, forcing them to strike a balance between their promise to hold Trump accountable and their enthusiasm to deliver. the priorities of the new administration after its sweep. of control of the House, the Senate and the White House.
Evan Vucci / AP
US President Joe Biden said he did not believe enough Republican senators would vote for impeachment to convict.
Biden himself told CNN Monday night that impeachment “has to happen.” While acknowledging the effect it could have on his schedule, he said there would be “a worse effect if it didn’t happen.”
Biden said he did not believe enough Republican senators would vote for impeachment to convict, though he also said the outcome could have been different if Trump had had six months left in office.
In a Monday night scene reminiscent of just a year ago, Trump is now the first president to be indicted twice, the lead House attorney, this time Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, appeared before the Senate to read the House resolution accusing minor crimes. ”
Earlier, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that failure to carry out the trial would amount to a “get out of jail free card” for other officials accused of wrongdoing on their way out the door.
Republicans seem more eager to discuss the judicial process than the substance of the impeachment case against Trump, he said, perhaps to avoid passing judgment on the former president’s “role in fomenting the despicable attack” on Capitol Hill.
He said there is only one question that “senators from both parties will have to answer before God and their own conscience: is former President Trump guilty of inciting an insurrection against the United States?”
Jacquelyn Martin / AP
US President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Washington on January 6 before the US Capitol was stormed.
On Monday (local time), it emerged that Chief Justice John Roberts is not expected to preside over the trial, as he did during Trump’s first impeachment trial, which could affect the severity of the proceedings. The change is said to be in line with protocol because Trump is no longer in office.
Instead, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who plays the largely ceremonial role of president pro-tempore of the Senate, will preside.
Leaders of both sides agreed to a brief delay in proceedings that serves their political and practical interests, even as National Guard troops remain on Capitol Hill amid threats to the security of lawmakers before trial.
The start date gives Trump’s new legal team time to prepare his case, while also providing more than a month away from the passions of the bloody riot. For the Democrat-led Senate, the weeks in between provide the best time to confirm some of Biden’s key cabinet nominees.
Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware questioned how his colleagues on Capitol Hill that day could view the insurrection as more than a “shocking violation” of the nation’s history of peaceful transfers of power.
“This is a critical moment in American history,” Coons said in an interview Sunday.
John Minchillo / AP
Violent rioters loyal to the president of the United States, Donald Trump, stormed the Capitol in Washington on January 6. The words of Trump supporters who are accused of participating in the deadly riot on the US Capitol may end up being used against them in their impeachment in the Senate.
An early vote to dismiss the trial would likely not be successful, given that Democrats now control the Senate. Still, growing Republican opposition to the proceedings indicates that many Republican senators would eventually vote to acquit Trump. Democrats would need the support of 17 Republicans, a high bar, to condemn him.
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas said he does not believe the Senate has the constitutional authority to convict Trump after he has left office.
“I think a lot of Americans are going to think it’s strange that the Senate is spending its time trying to convict and remove from office a man who left office a week ago,” Cotton said.
Democrats reject that argument, pointing to an 1876 impeachment of a secretary of war who had already resigned and the views of many jurists. Democrats also say a reckoning of the first Capitol invasion since the War of 1812, perpetrated by rioters incited by a president while Electoral College votes were being counted, is necessary to ensure such a siege never occurs again.
Some Republican senators have agreed with the Democrats, although it is nowhere near the number it will take to convict Trump.
Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah said he believes that “what is alleged and what we saw, which is incitement to insurrection, is a crime that can be challenged.” Romney said, “If not, what is it?”
But Romney, the only Republican who voted to convict Trump when the Senate acquitted the then president in last year’s trial, appears to be an outlier.
