WASHINGTON – The chief prosecutor for President Donald Trump’s historic second impeachment began building his case for sentencing at the trial, saying on Sunday that Trump’s incitement to the crowd that invaded the U.S. Capitol was “the most dangerous crime” ever committed by a president against the United States States.
A Senate trial could begin later this week, once Democrat Joe Biden takes office as 46th president.
Congressman Jamie Raskin, D-Md., Did not say when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Would send the only impeachment article against Trump – for “inciting insurrection” – to the Senate, which would trigger the start of the trial. But Raskin said “this should happen soon”, while Pelosi is organizing the formal transfer.
The House voted to impeach Trump last Wednesday, a week after the violent uprising that interrupted the official counting of electoral votes, plundered the Capitol and left Congress deeply shaken. Before the crowd dominated the police and entered the building, Trump told them to “fight like hell” against certifying Biden’s election victory.
“We will be able to tell the story of this attack on America and all the events that led to it,” said Raskin. “This president decided to dismantle and overturn the election results of the 2020 presidential election. He was perfectly clear about that. “
Democrats and the new administration face the challenge of settling the score with the attack on the Capitol while Biden takes office and tries to move the country forward. They say that Congress can do both, balancing a trial with confirmations from the new president’s office and consideration of his legislative priorities.
Raskin said that Congress cannot set a precedent where “we just want to leave the past in the past” just because Trump left office.
However, it is clear that Democrats do not want the Senate trial to dominate Biden’s opening days. Pelosi said on Friday that Democrats intend to move quickly with Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion economic recovery and COVID aid package to speed up vaccinations and send aid to Americans, calling it “a matter of utmost urgency”
Ron Klain, the new White House chief of staff at Biden, said he hopes Senate leaders, on a bipartisan basis, “will find a way to move forward in all of their responsibilities. This impeachment trial is one of them, but putting people in the government and taking action against the coronavirus is another one of those responsibilities ”.
It is unclear how many Senate Republicans – if any – would vote to condemn Trump. Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is telling his caucus that the decision to convict the president who is stepping down will be a “vote of conscience”. His stance, first reported by Business Insider, means that the Republican Party leadership team will not work to keep senators in line in one way or another.
McConnell is open to considering impeachment, but said he has not yet decided how he would vote. He continues to have great influence in his party, although calling for the trial this week may be one of his last acts as a majority leader, as Democrats are preparing to take control of the Senate with two new Democratic senators from Georgia.
For Republican senators, the trial will perhaps be the final test of their loyalty to the defeated president and his legions of supporters in their states. This will force a new reassessment of his relationship with Trump, who lost not only the White House, but control of the majority of the Senate, and a broader discussion about the future of the Republican Party when he leaves office.
Some Republican Party senators are already on Trump’s side, despite their criticisms of his behavior. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the president’s most loyal allies, said the impeachment was a “bad, hasty and emotional move” that puts the presidency at risk and will cause more division.
He said he expected all Senate Republicans to reject impeachment. “Please do not justify and legitimize what the House has done,” said Graham.
Some Republican senators have suggested that they would consider the sentence. Two of them, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski and Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, said he should step down. Murkowski said the House responded “appropriately” with the impeachment and that it will consider the trial’s arguments.
No president has ever been convicted in the Senate, and it would take a two-thirds vote against Trump, a major hurdle. But conviction is not outside the realm of possibility, especially as corporations and wealthy political donors distance themselves from the type of politics of Trump and the Republicans who supported his attempts to overthrow the election.
Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, was spotted at the White House on Saturday and told ABC that he would likely join Trump’s impeachment defense team. He suggested that he would continue to spread unfounded allegations of electoral fraud to the Senate floor.
Trump campaign spokesman Hogan Gidley turned Trump away from Giuliani’s comments, tweeting: “President Trump has not yet determined which lawyer or law firm will represent him for the infamous attack on our Constitution and democracy, known as the ‘ impeachment fraud. ‘We will keep you informed. “
There was no widespread fraud in the election, as confirmed by several election officials and William Barr, who stepped down as attorney general last month. Almost all of the legal challenges presented by Trump and his allies have been rejected by the judges.
Trump is the only president to suffer two impeachment cases and the first to be sued for leaving the White House, an increasingly extraordinary end to his term. A precedent set by the Senate in 1800 established that a trial can continue even after a federal official leaves office. Trump was impeached for the first time by the House in 2019 because of his negotiations with Ukraine, but the Senate voted last year for absolution.
Ten Republicans joined all Democrats in the 232-197 impeachment vote on Wednesday, the most bipartisan modern presidential impeachment.
When their second trial begins, House impeachment managers say they will make the case that Trump’s incendiary rhetoric hours before the Capitol attack was not isolated, but directly aimed at interrupting the electoral count as part of his escalating campaign to overthrow the month of November election.
A Capitol policeman died of injuries sustained in the attack, and police shot and killed a woman. Three other people died in what the authorities said were medical emergencies.
Raskin and Klain were on CNN’s “State of the Union” and Graham on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures”.