It is unclear how Senate leaders will honor Schoen’s request. If they acted to speed up the trial to ensure it was completed by Friday morning, it would by far represent the fastest presidential impeachment trial in history. If they suspended as Schoen asked, the lawsuit could bleed on a federal holiday on Monday and what should be a week of holidays for the Senate, when its members should have time off to return to their states. If leaders chose to postpone it further, it would undermine the planned action to confirm Biden’s nominees and present his pandemic aid project.
The New Washington
Schoen said in a telephone interview on Friday that he had not heard from leaders about a number of issues related to the trial, including its schedule and how much time each side would be given to present its arguments. Schumer, who is negotiating with McConnell on these issues, is expected to announce the details shortly before the trial begins.
Mr. Schoen is part of a second group of lawyers who intervened to represent Mr. Trump in his second impeachment trial. The first team left after their lawyers refused to pledge to follow the former president’s preferred trial strategy – that they defend him by repeating his baseless allegations that the election was stolen from him.
Now, Mr. Schoen joins a list of prominent Jews who had problems in Washington because of Sabbath observance. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, daughter and son-in-law of the former president who are Orthodox Jews, said they received special permission from a rabbi to attend Trump’s inaugural festivities in 2017. They said they had obtained a similar exemption, at least once again. late in Mr. Trump’s presidency to travel on Saturday.
During Bill Clinton’s 1999 impeachment trial, a Connecticut senator at the time, Joseph I. Lieberman, who is a practicing Jew, walked six kilometers from his Georgetown apartment to Capitol Hill to be sworn in. As Jewish law teaches that the Sabbath can be broken if the matter involves “concern for human life”, Mr. Lieberman, in consultation with his rabbis, drew up his own rule that he abstained from campaigning or carrying out any activity strictly political on Saturday, but would attend Senate sessions and vote if necessary.
He did not ride a car or elevator, however, following a restriction that comes from the ban on creating sparks and fires.
Schoen’s request will now have to be taken into account in the rules of the impeachment trial of decades ago and in the Senate’s schedule, work habits and politics. The rules say the Senate should meet Monday through Saturday for impeachment trials and break only on Sunday, the schedule that was followed during Trump and Clinton’s last trial.