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WASHINGTON: The United States Senate began hearing closing arguments on Saturday (February 13) at Donald Trump’s impeachment when the Republican top senator said he would vote to acquit the former president of inciting the January 6 deadly assault on the Capitol.
The decision by Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell means that Trump will almost certainly be cleared by the Senate of the charge of inciting an insurrection by his supporters.
Before moving on to closing arguments, proceedings were halted for a few hours after House prosecutors, in a surprise move, said they wanted to call witnesses at trial.
House impeachment manager Jamie Raskin said he wanted to call a Republican lawmaker as a witness, but ultimately agreed with Trump’s defense attorneys only to have his testimony turned into evidence.
Trump’s lawyers had threatened in response to call their own witnesses, including Vice President Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives and others.
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The Senate voted 55-45 to allow witnesses, but senators, House attorneys and defense attorneys reached an agreement that allowed the trial to proceed to closing arguments.
The final arguments began after the decision on the vote of 55 to 45 in favor of the witnesses, which had disturbed members of the Senate.
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who earlier this week was one of six members of his party who voted the trial should continue, raised his hands when asked if he expected Saturday’s vote on witnesses.
“Shelby says he’s seen three of these and this is the craziest,” he said, referring to Senator Richard Shelby, whose 34-year term included the 1998 impeachment of former Democratic President Bill Clinton and Trump’s first impeachment.
The Senate floor looked chaotic during and after the vote. The senators huddled together in apparent confusion and Senators Ron Johnson and Mitt Romney engaged in a heated conversation.
The four hours of final arguments will be divided equally between both parties, with the House prosecutors in first place.
A vote on whether to acquit or convict the 74-year-old former Republican president is expected Saturday afternoon.
Raskin had wanted Rep. Jamie Herrera Beutler to testify after she issued a statement about the events of January 6.
Herrera Beutler, a Republican from Washington state, was one of 10 Republican lawmakers who voted to impeach Trump in the House of Representatives.
In his statement, he said that House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had called Trump while the attack was ongoing and implored him to stop the rioters.
“When McCarthy finally contacted the president on January 6 and asked him to publicly and forcefully stop the riot, the president initially repeated the falsehood that it was Antifa who had violated the Capitol,” Herrera Beutler said.
“McCarthy refuted that and told the president that they were Trump supporters,” the congresswoman said.
“That’s when, according to McCarthy, the president said, ‘Well, Kevin, I think these people are more upset about the election than you,'” he said.
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The United States Capitol Building on the third day of President Trump’s impeachment in Washington, United States. (Photo: Reuters)
A CLOSE CALL
Trump was indicted by the Democratic-controlled House on January 13 for inciting the attack on the United States Capitol by his supporters, who sought to block Congressional certification of the election victory for Democrat Joe Biden on November 3.
A conviction in the 100-member Senate, which is split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, would require a two-thirds majority and seems highly unlikely after McConnell said he would vote for acquittal.
“While it is a close decision, I am convinced that impeachment is primarily a tool of impeachment and therefore we lack jurisdiction,” McConnell said in an email to his Republican colleagues.
“The Constitution makes it perfectly clear that presidential misconduct while in office can be prosecuted after the president has left office,” he said. “Given these conclusions, I will vote in favor of acquittal.”
READ: Another trial for all ages: the Senate will try Trump for riots in the Capitol
Michael van der Veen, attorney for former President Donald Trump, departs on the fourth day of the impeachment trials of former President Donald Trump on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, United States, on February 12, 2021 (Photo: Jabin Botsford / Pool via REUTERS). )
Trump’s defense attorneys argued Friday that the former president is not responsible for the attack on Congress and concluded his presentation in just three hours.
This followed two days of evidence from Democratic impeachment managers centered on heartbreaking video footage of the mob’s assault on Capitol Hill.
Trump’s defense attorneys called the indictment unconstitutional and an “act of political revenge.”
They argued that Trump’s speech near the White House that preceded the January 6 attack, when he told his supporters to “fight back,” was merely rhetorical.
In order to turn the tide on the powerful use Democrats make of video evidence, defense attorneys replayed their own compilations that showed Democratic lawmakers at different times using the word “fight.”
House impeachment managers charge that after losing to Biden, Trump deliberately stoked the tension with a campaign of lies that claimed there had been massive electoral fraud.
On January 6, he staged a fierce rally near the White House, calling on the crowd to march on Congress, which was in the process of certifying Biden’s victory.
Then the mob stormed the Capitol, disrupting certification. Five people, including a police officer and a woman shot during the riots, died in the chaos.
The trial has highlighted the extraordinary danger lawmakers faced on January 6, when Trump urged his supporters to march on Capitol Hill and “freak out” in an effort to reverse their electoral defeat. Then-Vice President Mike Pence and lawmakers had to be rushed into hiding for safety. Five people died in chaos.
Trump’s words that day followed months in which he repeated false claims that Biden’s victory was the result of widespread fraud.
When the impeachment article made it to the Senate, only six Republicans voted with Democrats to go ahead with the trial, rejecting an argument by other Republican senators that the Constitution does not allow Congress to impeach a president who has already left office.
Security camera footage shown at the trial showed the rioters getting dangerously close to lawmakers and Pence when they were evacuated from the Senate and House chambers.
