Former President Trump has the dubious honor of being the only president to be charged twice, and is also the first to face a trial after leaving office, so the Senate will enter unknown constitutional waters when the impeachment trial starts next time. month.
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer announced late on Friday that Trump’s impeachment trial would begin on February 8. deliver the only impeachment article to the Senate on Monday, January 25. Senators will take office as members of the impeachment court the following day, Tuesday, January 26.
Both impeachment managers and Trump’s lawyers will have time to deliver legal summaries presenting their cases, before the trial formally begins, two weeks after the article has been submitted to the Senate. The extra time allows both sides to prepare their presentations and allows senators to continue confirming nominees for President Biden’s office before all regular Senate deals are interrupted while a trial is being held.
Although senators participated in an impeachment trial for Trump just a year ago – the president was acquitted on February 5, 2020 – the oncoming trial is proving very different from the first.
The House first accused Trump on December 18, 2019, after several weeks of hearings. Both articles of impeachment accused him of “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress”. The impeachment vote was split almost entirely by party lines, with only one independent vote for Trump’s impeachment, and three Democrats voting against impeachment in at least one article.
The impeachment process in the Chamber this year was much faster and bipartisan. Trump was impeached for the second time a week after urging his supporters to “fight like hell” to annul the election ahead of Congress’ scheduled count of the results of the Electoral College on January 6. After his speech at the rally, a crowd of pro-Trump supporters stormed the United States Capitol, resulting in the deaths of five people. Congress did not count the Electoral College votes again for six hours, and several Republican lawmakers still voted to overturn the results of the elections in Pennsylvania and Arizona.
The resolution for Mr. Trump’s impeachment was brought to the House floor on January 11, with the House renouncing the traditional process of holding hearings and conducting an investigation into any offense. This time, there was only one article of impeachment, accusing Mr. Trump of “Incitement to Insurrection”. Ten Republicans joined all 222 Democrats in Trump’s impeachment vote, bringing the vote to 232 to 197.
After Trump was accused of impeachment in 2019, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not announce impeachment administrators until January 15, 2020, almost a month later. This year, Pelosi announced the impeachment administrators on the same day of the vote for Mr. Trump’s impeachment, January 13, 2021.
In 2020, senators were sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts as members of the impeachment court on January 16, and the trial began on Tuesday, January 21. Trump was acquitted almost exactly two weeks later, on February 5. Senator Mitt Romney, voted to condemn the president on one charge, “Abuse of Power”, the only Republican to vote for Trump’s impeachment on any of the charges.
This year’s test is expected to be very different. Some Republicans have argued that it is unconstitutional to impeach a president who is no longer in office, but the constitution does not specify whether a president needs to be in office to be removed.
It is also unclear how long the second trial will take, or what evidence each side would choose to present. Pelosi argued on Thursday that this impeachment trial would be different from Trump’s first impeachment trial, which was triggered by a call he made to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in 2019 urging Ukraine to investigate then-candidate Joe Biden. Mr Trump defended his appeal to Zelensky as “perfect”.
“This year, the whole world has witnessed the incitement of the president, the execution of his call to action and the violence that has been used,” said Pelosi. “I see a big difference between something that we all witness and what information you may need to substantiate an Impeachment Article based, in large part, on a call the president made and described as ‘perfect’.”
Trump’s legal team has not yet been officially announced, but one of his lawyers will be South Carolina attorney Butch Bowers, who has experience representing politicians involved in scandals.
Although the Supreme Court president traditionally presides over an impeachment trial under the constitution, Roberts may not want to participate in a second impeachment trial against Mr. Trump. In that case, Vice President Kamala Harris will preside over the trial as president of the Senate or, if she chooses not to do so, Senate pro tempore president Patrick Leahy will preside over the trial.
A two-thirds majority of the Senate, 67 votes, is needed to condemn the president. Democrats have 50 seats in the Senate and are unlikely to get the support of 17 Republicans to condemn Trump, especially since he is no longer in office. However, more Republicans can vote to condemn Trump than in 2020, as he was harshly criticized by some Republican senators for encouraging violence among his supporters on January 6.
If Trump were condemned by the Senate, Congress would vote whether to prevent him from seeking an elected office again. Only a simple majority is needed to prevent you from taking office.
Many Republicans argue that holding a trial after Trump leaves office is divisive, but Democrats argue that it is necessary to hold an impeachment trial for Trump to show that a president should be held responsible for his actions even in his last month of his term. .