Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Wears a mask while taking a false oath for the 117th Congress with Vice President Mike Pence in the Old Senate House on the US Capitol in Washington, DC, in January 3, 2021.
Kevin Dietsch | AFP | Getty Images
A second impeachment trial for President Donald Trump will likely drag into President-elect Joe Biden’s term, as Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell will not bring the upper house back until Tuesday.
A Kentucky Republican spokesman confirmed that his position informed Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y. that McConnell would not meet again in the Senate before Tuesday, the day before Biden’s inauguration. Schumer asked his Republican counterpart to use emergency powers to conduct a trial quickly and vote on whether to convict Trump and remove him from office.
The House will vote on Wednesday to impeach Trump for inciting a Capitol insurrection last week, while Congress was counting Biden’s electoral victory. Although Democrats said they had to accuse Trump to hold him responsible for the violent turmoil, they feared that a Senate trial in the early days of the Biden administration would undermine confirmation by Cabinet members and the approval of a coronavirus aid package.
Biden suggested that the Senate could “branch out”, spending part of the day on impeachment and part on confirming nominees.
Schumer will become the majority leader after Georgia’s two elected Democratic senators take office, which should happen before the end of the month. The House took extraordinary steps to rush an impeachment article to the floor on Wednesday, but it is unclear whether a Senate led by McConnell would take any further steps to streamline the process.
The Senate trial after the first impeachment of the Trump House lasted almost three weeks, from mid-January to the beginning of February last year.
The timetable makes it unlikely that Congress will remove Trump from office before Biden takes office, a week from Wednesday. However, a Senate vote to condemn Trump would prevent him from becoming president again in 2025.
The Washington Post first reported that McConnell would not bring the Senate back sooner.
If the Senate voted on Trump’s sentencing before control changed hands, all 48 Democrats and 18 Republicans would need to support the move. If the Senate considers impeachment after Democrats take control, all 50 party members plus 17 Republicans will need to support the sentencing.
The New York Times reported that McConnell believes Trump committed impeachable acts. However, he did not comment on whether he would vote to condemn Trump if the impeachment reached the Senate.
Senator Ben Sasse, R-Neb., Said he would consider an impeachment measure sent by the House. The GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania urged Trump to step down.
“I want him to leave. He’s already done enough damage,” Murkowski told Anchorage Daily News.
Other Senate Republicans have said they will not vote to condemn the president. Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally who distanced himself from the president after the attack, said on Wednesday that he opposes impeachment.
The South Carolina Republican criticized the rushed process in the House and said that Trump “has committed to an orderly transfer of power, encouraging calm and rejecting violence”. On Tuesday, the president said that impeachment represents a “tremendous danger” for the country.
Graham also criticized Republicans who support impeachment.
“To my Republican colleagues who legitimize this process, you are doing great harm not only to the country, to the future of the presidency, but also to the party,” he said.
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