- Republican Senator Lindsey Graham asked Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer in a letter on Sunday to hold a Senate vote to reject President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.
- Graham, a close ally of Trump, briefly broke with the president after the January 6 uprising, but has since defended him.
- In the letter to Schumer, Graham argued that if the trial were not closed, “we will delay indefinitely, if not forever, the healing of this great nation.”
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Senator Lindsey Graham asked Senator Chuck Schumer in a letter on Sunday to take a vote in the Senate rejecting President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.
“The Senate must vote to reject the impeachment article once it is received in the Senate,” Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, said in the letter. “We will be delaying the healing of this great nation indefinitely, if not forever, if we do otherwise.”
Trump was accused by the House of Representatives last week on charges of “inciting insurrection” because of his role in the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol, where his supporters tried to prevent certification of the results of the 2020 elections. The attack left five people dead.
The Senate must hold a trial in which it will vote on the president’s conviction. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, has indicated that the trial will not start until Induction Day, when Schumer, a Democrat from New York, will be the new majority leader.
Read More: Mitch McConnell is telling Republican senators that his decision to condemn Trump in the impeachment trial is a ‘vote of conscience’
Graham, a frequent ally of the president, briefly broke with Trump after the siege of the Capitol and acknowledged that President-elect Joe Biden had won the 2020 election in the United States.
In the letter to Schumer, however, he argued that it would be “unconstitutional” to conduct an impeachment trial for Trump after he left office. Although this type of trial has never been attempted for a former president of the United States, several lawyers have argued that it would be permitted by the constitution.
Graham also praised Vice President Mike Pence for refusing to heed calls, including from the president, to break the constitution by trying to overturn the election results. Graham compared this decision to Schumer’s.
“But now, in your first act as a leader of the majority, instead of beginning the national cure that the country so desperately craves, you seek revenge and political retaliation,” he wrote.
Graham said Senate Republicans “rejected unconstitutional actions” in relation to electoral certification.
“Virtually all of us reject new challenges for the 2020 elections,” he said.
In the days before certification, about a dozen Republican senators said they would oppose the certification of some votes from the Electoral College. Of these, several reversed the course after the Capitol violence, but eight of them ended up supporting at least one of the objections.
Graham himself lobbied Georgia’s top election official to reject predominantly Democratic ballots.
Days before sending the letter to Schumer, Graham spoke out against the impeachment and hinted that McConnell, who said he will wait to hear the evidence presented at the trial, is “making the problem worse.”