It remains to be seen how long the trial will last, whether the administrators of the impeachment of the Chamber will seek witnesses and what the exact contours of the president’s legal defense will be.
Roberts will not chair as he did at the first trial, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN on Monday.
Instead, Senator Patrick Leahy, the Senate’s pro tempore president, is due to chair, the sources said. The constitution says the chief justice presides when the person facing the trial is the current president of the United States, but senators preside in other cases, a source said, and Trump’s second trial will take place without him in office.
Leahy’s likelihood of overseeing the trial raised questions about whether he would also be eligible to vote, but constitutional experts say nothing would stop him from doing so.
It would take a two-thirds vote in the Senate to condemn Trump, a high barrier to clean up what seems increasingly unlikely to happen, as several Senate Republicans are already arguing that it is illogical and may be unconstitutional impeachment from a former president. .
Under the agreement reached by Schumer and McConnell, several ceremonial functions of the trial will take place this week. On Tuesday, the Senate is also expected to issue a subpoena to Trump, another step in the process of organizing the trial to speed up.
Then, the trial will be effectively put on hold while impeachment managers and Trump’s legal team exchange pre-trial summaries for two weeks. Final instructions were due on February 9, allowing the trial to begin in earnest.