But unlike when Roberts, clad in a cloak, oversaw the trial of then President Trump in 2020, Leahy will routinely assume his role as a senator by votes, including the decision to condemn or absolve the former president of inciting the deadly insurrection of January 6 at the Capitol.
The 80-year-old Vermont Democrat – who is the pro tempore mayor, or the longest-serving senator of the majority party – you may also end up voting on complicated motions related to evidence and witnesses.
Roberts refused to vote in last year’s trial related to Trump’s negotiations with Ukraine and, when specifically asked if he would break the tie, the inscrutable president of the court said: “It would be inappropriate for me, an elected official from a different branch of government “to guide the result.
“This is not a problem for Leahy,” noted Michael Davidson, a former Senate lawyer. “He is part of the body that conducts the trial. … His state will still be represented in the Senate.”
Just as a former president’s first impeachment trial will break new ground in America, so will Leahy’s dual roles. He will have a role model in the actions of two U.S. presidents of justice, Roberts with Trump in 2020 and William Rehnquist with President Bill Clinton in 1999.
Sources familiar with Leahy’s preparation say he is reviewing how the two presided and is seeking standards set by the top judges in an effort to enforce Senate trial procedures, maintain a sense of decorum and avoid boosting the arguments of both. sides.
Leahy will necessarily break, however, with the mainly ministerial position taken by Roberts and Rehnquist.
Leahy has already voted once after being sworn in on January 26 as chairman, with a majority of 55-45 who rejected Republican Sen. Rand Paul’s proposal to block the trial. This vote may be a preview of the final result, an insufficient number of Republicans voting with Democrats and an acquittal from Trump: the process of judging a president in the Senate resembles that of judges and other officials accused by the U.S. House. In all cases, the Constitution requires a two-thirds vote for sentencing.
Leahy, who has promised to be fair and impartial, is declining interviews, according to a spokesman.
How Roberts and Rehnquist performed tests
Roberts and Rehnquist tried to secure an orderly procedure and take a secondary role for themselves. They kept the clock and applied the rules that the Senate leadership had created. They conferred with the Senate congressman (currently Elizabeth MacDonough) and worked from carefully outlined scripts.
Roberts intervened last year to admonish a hostile discussion between House Judiciary President Jerry Nadler and White House lawyer Pat Cipollone. Roberts cited Judge Charles Swayne’s Florida impeachment trial.
When then-Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer questioned Roberts about the tiebreaker vote, the court president said: “If the members of this body elected by the people and accountable to them share equally in a motion, the normal rule is that the movement fails. “Roberts refused to” assert the power to change “a result.
Roberts, when he finished last year, expressed his gratitude to the senators for helping him with his “ill-defined responsibilities in an unfamiliar environment”.
The Constitution only says that, “When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice must preside.”
Leahy had previously said that Roberts was “the first choice” for this second Trump trial, although he is no longer an incumbent president. Schumer, now a Senate majority leader, said in an interview with MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” that “it would be up to John Roberts to preside with a president who is no longer sitting … And he doesn’t want to. Do it.”
Roberts declined requests for comment on the matter.
Leahy’s plans
Leahy will naturally renounce the black cloak, but he will adopt some of the traps of a special president officer. He is expected to work in the shiny, glossy president’s office near the Senate chamber, as the two presidents of justice did. And in doing so, sources familiar with the senator’s preparation say that Leahy will take the lead in the procedural details of Senate leaders, including when to start and end daily.
Senate rules, not judicial practice, generally cover impeachment trials, which are inherently political matters. The Supreme Court, in a 1993 case, said that the Senate is solely responsible for prosecuting an employee who has been impeached. In 1999, Rehnquist described the Senate essentially as a court, not simply as a panel of jurors.
Since the sentencing requires a two-thirds vote, Leahy’s position as a Democratic senator is unlikely to be decisive. But other procedural issues can present complicated dilemmas.
Senate rules say the president can decide on all issues of evidence, but if a senator objects, the official can be reversed by a majority vote in the Senate.
Leahy can avoid deciding on a controversial issue that would likely lead to an objection and, instead, refer the matter directly to the Senate, which is currently divided into Republicans and Democrats.
Trump denies that he incited the crowd that descended on the Capitol, and his lawyers argue that the Senate has no authority to try him. They say that once he leaves office on January 20, he will no longer be able to be subject to an impeachment trial in the Senate.
And they maintain Roberts’ absence as a piece of evidence for the general unconstitutionality of the trial, stating, “(T) the constitutional mandate for the Chief Justice to preside over all impeachments involving the President has evidently disappeared.”
On the broad question of the constitutionality of prosecuting Trump, House administrators insist: “There is no ‘January exception’ to impeachment or any other provision of the Constitution. A president must answer comprehensively for his conduct in office from day one. of mandate. through the last. “