WASHINGTON (AP) – Donald Trump’s historic second impeachment trial opens this week with a sense of urgency – by Democrats who want to hold the former president accountable for the violent siege of the Capitol and Republicans who want to end it ASAP.
Scheduled to start on Tuesday, just over a month since the deadly riot, the proceedings are expected to deviate from the lengthy, complicated trial that resulted in Trump’s acquittal a year ago on charges that he privately pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt at a Democratic rival, Joe Biden, now the president. This time, Trump’s demonstration on Jan. 6 to “fight like hell” and storm the Capitol was set for the world to see. While Trump could very well be cleared again, the trial could be over in half the time.
Details of the procedure are still being negotiated by Senate leaders, with the length of opening arguments, senators’ questions and deliberations all up for debate.
So far, it seems that few witnesses will be called as prosecutors and lawyers speak directly to senators. who have vowed to deliver ‘impartial justice’ as jurors. Most also witness the siege, who fled to safety that day when the rioters broke into the Capitol and temporarily halted election numbers to confirm Biden’s victory.
Lawyers for Trump declined a request to testify. Tucked into his Mar-a-Lago club, the former president has been silenced on social media by Twitter with no public comments since leaving the White House,
Instead, house managers prosecuting the case are expected to rely on the wealth of videos of the siege, along with the inflammatory rhetoric of Trump refusing to give in to the election, to defend their case. Its new defense team has said it plans to take action with its own cache of videos of Democratic politicians making fiery speeches.
“We have the unusual circumstance that on the very first day of the trial, when those executives walk across the Senate floor, there will be more than 100 witnesses in attendance,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Who led Trump’s first charge. “Whether you need any more witnesses will be a strategic call.”
Trump is the first president to be impeached twice, and the only one to stand trial after leaving the White House. The Democrat-led House approved a single charge, “inciting insurrection,” a week after the riot, the most violent attack on Congress in more than 200 years. Five people died, including a woman who was shot in the building by police and a police officer who died of injuries the next day.
Democrats argue it’s not just about winning conviction, it’s about holding the former president accountable for his actionseven though he is not in the office. For Republicans, the trial will test their political loyalty to Trump and his continued hold on the GOP.
Initially disgusted by the graphic images of the siege, Republican senators, including Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, condemned the violence and blamed Trump. But in recent weeks, GOP senators have rallied around Trump, arguing that his comments do not make him responsible for the violence. They question the legitimacy even to sue someone who is no longer in office.
On Sunday, Republican Senator Roger Wicker from Mississippi described Trump’s impeachment process as a “pointless exercise for exchanging messages.” Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky called the proceedings a farce with “zero chance of conviction” and described Trump’s language and catchphrase as “figurative” speech.
Senators were sworn in as jurors late last month, shortly after Biden was inaugurated, but proceedings were delayed as Democrats focused on confirming the new president’s initial cabinet choices and Republicans tried to distance themselves from the bloody riot as much as possible.
At the time, Paul forced a vote to set the process aside as unconstitutional because Trump is no longer in office, leading 44 other Republicans to his argument.
A prominent conservative attorney, Charles Cooper, rejects that view, writing in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece Sunday that the constitution allows the senate to try an ex-official, an important counterbalance to that of Republican senators who have looked at acquittal by promoting of constitutional claims.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of Trump’s ardent defenders, said he believes Trump’s actions were wrong and “he will have a place in history for all of this,” but stressed that it is not the job of the Senate is to judge.
“It’s not a question of how the trial will end, it’s a question of when it will end,” said Graham. Republicans will see this as an unconstitutional exercise, and the only question is, will they call witnesses, how long will the trial take? But the result is really not in doubt. “
But 45 votes in favor of Paul’s measure suggested the near impossibility of reaching conviction in a Senate where Democrats hold 50 seats, but a two-thirds of the votes – or 67 senators – would be needed to convict Trump. Only five Republican senators joined the Democrats to reject Paul’s motion: Mitt Romney from Utah, Ben Sasse from Nebraska, Susan Collins from Maine, Lisa Murkowski from Alaska and Pat Toomey from Pennsylvania.
Schiff was on NBC’s Meet the Press, Wicker spoke on ABC’s This Week, Paul was on Fox News Sunday, and Graham was on CBS’s Face the Nation. “
___
Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.