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US senators have voted to consider hearing from witnesses in Donald Trump’s impeachment.
The vote could potentially extend the procedures that were expected to end with a vote on Saturday (Sunday, NZT).
Heading into Saturday, senators appeared to be close to solving the impeachment that exposed the violence and danger to their own lives and the fragility of the national tradition of a peaceful transfer of presidential power.
But a debate over whether to hear from a House Republican who offered new details Friday night about a heated phone call on the day of the riot between Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has changed things. Democrats say the call, if it happened as alleged, establishes Trump’s disregard for violence.
The live stream at the top of this article shows the procedures as they occur.
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Meanwhile, Republican leader Mitch McConnell made it clear that he will vote to acquit Trump, according to a person familiar with his thinking. Observed closely, the opinion of the Republican leader could influence other members of his party.
While a majority of Democrats are expected to condemn the former president, acquittal already seemed likely in the chamber that is evenly split with Republicans. A two-thirds majority is required for conviction.
AP
Donald Trump is the only president of the United States who has been indicted twice.
Just a month after the deadly riot on January 6, final arguments for the historic trial are laid in a rare Saturday session, which takes place under the surveillance of the armed National Guard troops still guarding the iconic building. .
The result of the crude and emotional process is expected to reflect a country divided over the former president and the future of his politics. The verdict could influence not only Trump’s political future, but also that of senators who vowed to provide impartial justice as jurors.
“What is important about this trial is that it is actually directed to some extent at Donald Trump, but it is more directed at a president that we may not even know in 20 years,” said Senator Angus King, the independent from Maine.
The nearly week-long trial has delivered a grim and graphic narrative of the riots and its aftermath in a way that senators, most of whom fled for their own safety that day, acknowledge they are still grappling with.
Susan Walsh / AP
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is an influential figure in American politics.
House prosecutors have argued that Trump’s rallying cry to go to Capitol Hill and “fight like hell” for his presidency just as Congress was meeting on January 6 to certify Joe Biden’s election victory was part of an orchestrated pattern of violent rhetoric and false claims that the crowd unleashed. Five people were killed, including a rioter who was shot and a police officer.
Trump’s lawyers responded within a brief space of three hours Friday that Trump’s words were not intended to incite violence and that the impeachment is nothing more than a “witch hunt” designed to prevent a reoccupation. The charge.
Just by watching the graphic videos, the rioters shouting menacingly for the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, and Vice President Mike Pence, who was presiding over the vote count, did senators say that they began to understand how dangerously close the country was. of chaos. Hundreds of rioters stormed the building and took over the Senate. Some participated in bloody hand-to-hand combat with the police.
Uncredited / AP
This video image shows one of the many slides presented by Democrats processing the impeachment of former President Donald Trump.
While the Senate is unlikely to get the two-thirds of the votes necessary to convict, several senators appear to be still weighing their vote.
Many Republicans representing states where the former president remains popular doubt whether Trump was fully responsible or whether impeachment is the appropriate response. The Democrats seem almost united by conviction.
Trump is the only president to have been indicted twice and the first to face trial charges after leaving office.
Unlike Trump’s impeachment trial last year in the Ukraine case, a complicated charge of corruption and obstruction over his attempts to get the foreign ally to dig up dirt on then-campaign rival Biden, this one brought an emotional blow over unexpected vulnerability. US tradition of peaceful elections. The charge is unique, incitement to insurrection.
Uncredited / AP
Several people died during the riots in the United States Capitol.
On Friday, Trump’s impeachment lawyers accused Democrats of waging a “hate” campaign against the former president as they concluded his defense.
His attorneys strenuously denied that Trump incited the riots and played out-of-context video clips showing Democrats, some of them senators now serving as jurors, and also telling supporters to “fight back,” with the goal of establishing a parallel to Trump’s overheated rhetoric.
“This is generally political rhetoric,” said Trump’s lawyer, Michael van der Veen. “Countless politicians have spoken of fighting for our principles.”
But the presentation blurred the difference between the general encouragement politicians make to fight for health care or other causes and Trump’s fight against officially accepted national election results, and downplayed Trump’s efforts to undermine those results. The defeated president was telling his supporters to keep fighting after all states had verified their results, after the Electoral College confirmed them, and after nearly all electoral demands brought by Trump and his allies had been rejected in the courts.
Democratic senators shook their heads at what many called a false equivalency to their own fierce words. “We were not asking them to ‘fight like hell’ to overthrow an election,” said Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal.
Susan Walsh / AP
Few Republicans are expected to vote to convict Donald Trump.
Democrats say Trump was the “chief inciter” whose months-long campaign against the election results was based on a “big lie” and laid the groundwork for the riot, a violent internal attack on Capitol Hill unprecedented in history. .
“Be real,” said the chief prosecutor, Rep. Jamie Raskin at one point. “We know this is what happened.”
The Senate has met as an impeachment tribunal for former Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton and now twice for Trump. But the unprecedented nature of the case against an out-of-office president has provided Republican senators with one of several arguments against the conviction.
Republicans maintain that the proceedings are unconstitutional, despite the fact that the Senate voted early in the trial on this issue and confirmed that it has jurisdiction.
Six Republican senators who joined Democrats in voting to take up the case are among the most watched for their votes.
The first signals came on Friday during questions to the lawyers.
Uncredited / AP
In this image from the video, Bruce Castor, an attorney for former President Donald Trump, speaks during the second impeachment trial.
Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, both Republicans, asked the first question. Two centrists known for their independent streaks leaned toward a point prosecutors had made, asking exactly when Trump learned of the Capitol violation and what specific actions he took to end the unrest.
Democrats had argued that Trump did nothing as the crowd rioted.
Another Republican who voted to initiate the trial, Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, asked about Trump’s tweet criticizing Pence moments after another senator told the then-president that Pence had just been evacuated.
Van der Veen replied that “at no time” was the president informed of any danger. Cassidy later told reporters that it was not a very good answer.
