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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to send the article of impeachment against Donald Trump to the Senate on Monday, launching the start of the former president’s trial on a charge of incitement of insurrection over the deadly Capitol riot.
“There will be a trial,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in making the announcement Friday. “It will be a full trial, it will be a fair trial.”
Trump is the first president to be twice impeached and the first to face a trial after leaving office.
While the transmission of the article launches the trial proceedings, the schedule ahead remains uncertain as the Senate, now in Democratic control, is also working to swiftly confirm President Joe Biden’s Cabinet nominees and tackle the new administration’s legislative priorities.
Biden says the Senate can do both and Schumer said he also speaking to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell about the “timing and duration” of the proceedings ahead.
“Senate Republicans strongly believe we need a full and fair process,” McConnell said after Schumer spoke. On Thursday he proposed delaying the start of Trump’s trial to February to give the former president time to prepare and review his case. Trump is still assembling his legal team..
House Democrats who voted to impeach Trump last week for inciting the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot say a full reckoning is necessary before the country—and the Congress—can move on.
The timing and details ahead rests on negotiations between Schumer and McConnell, who are also in talks over a power-sharing agreement for the Senate, which is narrowly-split, 50-50, but in Democratic control because the vice president serves as a tie-breaking vote.
Under an extended timeline as McConnell proposed, the president’s defense team and House prosecutors would have two weeks to file briefs. Arguments would likely begin in mid-February.
A trial delay could appeal to some Democrats, as it would give the Senate more time to confirm Biden’s Cabinet nominees and debate a new round of coronavirus relief.
Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, a key ally of the president’s, told CNN that Democrats would consider a delay “if we are making progress on confirming the very talented, seasoned and diverse” team Biden has nominated.
Pelosi said Trump doesn’t deserve a “get-out-of-jail card” just because he has left office and Biden and others are calling for national unity.
Facing his second impeachment trial in two years, Trump began to assemble his defense team by hiring attorney Butch Bowers to represent him, according to an adviser. Bowers previously served as counsel to former South Carolina Govs. Nikki Haley and Mark Sanford.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina helped Trump find Bowers after members of his past legal teams indicated they did not plan to join the new effort. Trump is at a disadvantage compared to his first trial, in which he had the full resources of the White House counsel’s office to defend him.
Pelosi’s nine impeachment managers, who will be prosecuting the House case, have been regularly meeting to discuss strategy.
Shortly before the Jan. 6 insurrection, Trump told thousands of his supporters at a rally near the White House to “fight like hell” against the election results that Congress was certifying. A mob marched down to the Capitol and rushed in, interrupting the count. Five people, including a Capitol Police officer, died in the mayhem, and the House impeached Trump a week later, with 10 Republicans joining all Democrats in support.
Pelosi said it would be “harmful to unity” to forget that “people died here on Jan. 6, the attempt to undermine our election, to undermine our democracy, to dishonor our Constitution.”
Trump was acquitted by the Republican-led Senate at his first impeachment trial. The White House legal team, aided by Trump’s personal lawyers, aggressively fought the House charges that he had encouraged the president of Ukraine to investigate Biden in exchange for military aid. This time around, Pelosi noted, the House is not seeking to convict the president over private conversations but for a very public insurrection that they themselves experienced and that played out on live television.
“This year, the whole world bore witness to the president’s incitement,” Pelosi said.
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said it was still too early to know how long a trial would take or if Democrats would want to call witnesses. But he said, “You don’t need to tell us what was going on with the mob scene we were rushing down the staircase to escape.”
McConnell, who said this week that Trump “provoked” his supporters before the riot, has not said how he will vote. He told his GOP colleagues that it will be a vote of conscience.
Democrats would need the support of at least 17 Republicans to convict Trump, a high bar. While a handful of Senate Republicans have indicated they are open to conviction, most have said they believe a trial will be divisive and questioned the legality of trying a president after he has left office.
Graham said that if he were Trump’s lawyer, he would focus on that argument and on the merits of the case—and whether it was “incitement” under the law.
“I guess the public record is your television screen,” Graham said. “So, I don’t see why this would take a long time.”
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Enough is enough! Aren’t we suppossed to begin healing and getting along now, as our new president has said? More partisan politics and retribution is not what we need as a nation right now.
I think it was Lincoln who called for healing in his second Inaugural address. What it got him was a bullet in the head.
There’s nothing partisan about treason and sedition. After punishment for the guilty, then the healing can begin.
Kevin – It’s partisan to impeach someone who violated his oath of office and tried to overturn our free and fair elections???
You’re right, Kevin; spot-on. Thanks.
Are there more pressing issues in our country than another witch hunt?
Al Gore, Hillary Clinton and Stacey Abrams all deny they lost their elections, but they weren’t prosecuted..
One window was broken at the Capitol building last week. No graffiti or burning. It was wrong and those responsible are being arrested.
But what about the year long rioting across our country and Indy? Thousands of windows on thousands of buildings and businesses including Federal property? Silence.
Did they break an oath to protect the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic?
If a President can’t be impeached for provoking a mob to storm Congress so they can’t ratify election results, exactly what is impeachable behavior?
And if a President can’t be impeached once he leaves office (he can), does that mean Joe Biden can do whatever he wants in the last week of his Presidency?
Bernard – There was a law officer murdered. Feces were smeared on the walls. It’s not about which riots were worse. It’s not about who rioted first. It’s not a witch hunt – it’s holding a wanna be dictator who tried to overturn our free and fair elections accountable for his unacceptable actions.
BINGO!
BINGO was intended for Bernard’s comments, not those that followed as replies to his.
I’m yet to see a specific quote in which President Trump encouraged his supporters to go forth and do what a few of them did. You’re right to contrast that to the millions -if not billions- of dollars in damage done to so many major cities across the country this spring and early summer that were never firmly castigated by those who want to vilify Trump now for far lesser actions by a tinier number of his supporters…again, with no quotes from him instructing them to go forth and do so.
Bob.
.
Did he lie about election fraud for months on end? Yep. He ever started the plan before the election had happened.
Did he put together a rally on the very day that the votes were being counted? Yep.
Did he tell them to march down to the Capitol? Yep. He even lied to them and said he’d be there with them.
Did he tell them that Mike Pence let them down? Yep.
Did he tell them “you have to show strength”? Yep.
Did he tell them to “demand that Congress do the right thing”? Yep.
Did he walk out there and call them off when things got out of control? Nope. He just complained that the people looked “low class”.
Did he send in reinforcements? No, Mike Pence had to do that. The same Mike Pence the crowd (who erected a gallows, it should be noted) wanted to hang.
If Bill Clinton should have been convicted and removed from office for lying in a court of law (and he should have), then Trump should be in prison for life. If Trump is not impeached, I don’t ever want to hear about how corrupt Hillary Clinton or Hunter Biden are ever again.
https://www.businessinsider.com/capitol-rioters-say-trump-told-them-to-come-to-washington-2021-1?op=1
Not surprisingly, the GOP senators are lying when they say it’s unconstitutional to try Trump, giving them an out to vote “no” so they can keep their jobs.
Behold the below, signed by over 150 legal scholars, including the co-founder of the Federalist Society.
“Now that President Trump has left office, may the Senate take up an article of impeachment, and try, convict, and disqualify President Trump from holding future office? We, the undersigned constitutional law scholars, conclude it can.
We take no position on whether the Senate should convict President Trump on the article of impeachment soon to be transmitted by the House of Representatives.
We differ from one another in our politics, and we also differ from one another on issues of constitutional interpretation. But despite our differences, our carefully considered views of the law lead all of us to agree that the Constitution permits the impeachment, conviction, and disqualification of former officers, including presidents.”
https://scholarsonimpeachment.medium.com/constitutional-law-scholars-on-impeaching-former-officers-69f372677c35
Yawn. If it was so critical to impeach so fast in the House and he was such a danger to America, why didn’t Nancy deliver the articles to the Senate last week? Asking for a friend.
Yawn indeed, Olde Skool G.
Since much of the same outcome happened in Indianapolis AND evidence of the riot still exists downtown, can we begin the same process with Joe Hogsett? I feel he has violated his oath to protect the citizens on Indianapolis. Safety on our streets has declined since he took office for his 1st term and has dropped even more in this 2nd term.
And yet he got more votes in 2019 than 2015. I’m not sure who has run a worse campaign in the last few years – Jim Merritt for Indianapolis mayor or Woody Myers for governor. And that’s leaving out 2015, where the Marion County GOP ran a guy who owned a sandwich shop.
Don’t worry, the Indianapolis Republicans are going to make public safety in Indianapolis the governor’s problem with a committee he’s going to appoint – it’s a bill in the Statehouse this year. As everyone who works in corporate America knows, when you need leadership and decisive action, a committee is always the way to go. (End heavy sarcasm). I’d rather one of those Republicans like Freeman or Sandlin come up with a real plan and run for mayor.
He needs to go to jail and be held accountable, if not what kind of example are we setting for our children and our political future?!