WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial it is likely to start after Joe Biden takes office, and Republican leader Mitch McConnell is telling senators that his decision to convict the outgoing president for the Capitol riot will be a “vote of conscience”.
The time of the trial, the first of a president who is no longer in office, has not yet been defined. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made it clear on Friday that Democrats plan to move quickly on President-elect Joe Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion aid and economic recovery package. to speed up vaccinations and send help to Americans. Biden is expected to take the oath of office on Wednesday.
Pelosi called the recovery package “a matter of total urgency”.
The scheduling uncertainty, despite Trump’s swift impeachment by the House just a week after the deadly Jan. 6 siege, reflects the fact that Democrats don’t want Senate trial procedures to dominate the early days of the Biden administration.
With security on the alert for the threat of more potential violence At the start of the inauguration, the Senate is also moving quickly to prepare confirmation of Biden’s appointment as National Intelligence Director, Avril Haines. A committee hearing is scheduled for the day before the inauguration, signaling that a confirmation vote to install her in office can take place quickly once the new president is in office.
Many Democrats pushed for an immediate impeachment trial to hold Trump accountable and prevent him from holding a future position, and the process may still begin on the day of his inauguration. But others called for a slower pace as the Senate considers those nominated for Biden’s cabinet and Congress, recently led by Democrats, considers priorities like the coronavirus plan.
Biden’s new White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said on Friday that the Senate can do both.
“The Senate can fulfill its constitutional duty while continuing to conduct the people’s business,” she said.
Psaki noted that during Trump’s first impeachment trial last year, the Senate continued to hold hearings every day. “There is some precedent,” she said.
Trump is the only president to be charged twice, and the first to be prosecuted for leaving the White House, an increasingly extraordinary end to the defeated president’s term. He was first charged by the House in 2019 because of his negotiations with Ukraine, but the Senate voted in 2020 for absolution.
When their second trial begins, managers of the House’s impeachment say they will make the case that Trump’s incendiary rhetoric hours before the bloody attack on the Capitol was not isolated, but part of a campaign to overturn the November election. This culminated, they will argue, in the Republican president’s rallying cry to “fight like the devil” while Congress was counting the votes of the Electoral College to confirm that he had lost to Biden.
For Republican senators, the trial will perhaps be a final test of their loyalty to the defeated president and his legions of supporters in their states, and their own experiences of sheltering on Capitol Hill as a pro-Trump crowd ransacked the building and tried to overthrow the election of Biden. This will force a new reassessment of his relationship with the defeated president, who lost not only the White House, but the majority control of the Senate.
“These men were not drunk who got rowdy – they were terrorists who attacked the constitutionally mandated transfer of power in this country,” said Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., In a statement on Friday.
“They failed, but they came dangerously close to starting a bloody constitutional crisis. They must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. “
McConnell, who has spent the past few days talking to senators and donors, is telling them that the decision whether or not to condemn Trump is theirs alone – meaning that the leadership team will not work to keep senators in line in one way or another. another.
Last week’s attack angered lawmakers, stunned the nation and launched disturbing images around the globe, the most serious violation of the Capitol since the War of 1812, and the worst for local intruders.
Pelosi told reporters on Friday that the House’s nine impeachment managers, who serve as House promoters, are working to bring the case to trial.
“The only way for any reunification of this broken and divided country is to illuminate the truth,” said Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., Who will serve as an impeachment manager.
Trump was accused on Wednesday by the House on the sole charge of inciting insurrection, in quick procedures like lightning just a week after the siege. Ten Republicans joined all Democrats in the 232-197 vote for impeachment, the most bipartisan modern presidential impeachment.
McConnell is open to considering impeachment, having told associates that he broke up with Trump, but he showed no signs of how he would vote. McConnell remains a big influence on his party, although calling for a trial next week may be one of his last acts as a majority leader as Democrats prepare to take control of the Senate with two new Democratic senators from Georgia.
No president has ever been convicted in the Senate, and it would take a two-thirds vote against Trump, an extremely high hurdle. But Trump’s belief is not outside the realm of possibility, especially as corporations and wealthy political donors distance themselves from their type of politics and from the Republicans who defended their attempt to overthrow the election.
Senator Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said on Thursday: “These illegal actions cannot be without consequences.” She said in a statement that the Chamber responded “appropriately” with the impeachment and that it will consider the arguments of the trial.
At least four Republican senators have publicly expressed concerns about Trump’s actions, but others have signaled their preference to move on. Senator Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Released a statement saying he opposed impeachment against a president who stepped down. Trump’s ally Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is building support for launching a commission to investigate the siege as an alternative to sentencing.
The riot delayed the counting of votes from the Electoral College, which was the last step to finalize Biden’s victory, while lawmakers fled to shelter and the police, with weapons drawn, blocked the doors of the Chamber of the Chamber.
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.
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Associated Press writers Will Weissert, Kevin Freking, Andrew Taylor, Alan Fram, Zeke Miller and Jonathan Lemire contributed to this report.