Impeachment trial of Don from today
Feb. 8: Donald Trump’s historic second impeachment trial is opening this week with a sense of urgency — by Democrats who want to hold the former president accountable for the violent US Capitol siege and Republicans who want it over as fast as possible.
Scheduled to begin on Tuesday, just over a month since the deadly riot, the proceedings are expected to diverge from the lengthy, complicated trial that resulted in Trump’s acquittal a year ago on charges that he privately pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt on a Democratic rival, Joe Biden, now the president. This time, Trump’s Jan. 6 rally cry to “fight like hell” and the storming of the Capitol played out for the world to see. While Trump very well could be acquitted again, the trial could be over in half the time.
Details of the proceedings are still being negotiated by the Senate leaders, with the duration of opening arguments, senators’ questions and deliberations all up for debate.
So far, it appears there will be few witnesses called, as the prosecutors and defense attorneys speak directly to senators who have been sworn to deliver “impartial justice” as jurors. Most are also witnesses to the siege, having fled for safety that day as the rioters broke into the Capitol and temporarily halted the electoral count certifying Biden’s victory.
Defense attorneys for Trump declined a request for him to testify. Holed up at his Mara-Lago club, Florida, the former president was silenced on Twitter without comments since leaving the White House. —
HYDERABAD, FEB. 8
Five years after his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) during its probe into financial irregularities at First Leasing Company of India, the Madras High Court has quashed the prosecution of S. Dilli Raj, a former chief financial officer of Hyderabad-based microlender Bharat Financial Inclusion Ltd, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
Commenting on the charges levelled against Mr Dilli Raj, a bench of the Madras High Court, comprising Justice P.N. Prakash and Justice V. Sivagnanam, opined that, "We are unable to persuade ourselves to agree with the Enforcement Directorate that the salaries and perquisites that were paid to Dilli Raj while he was in employment with FLCI would amount to proceeds of crime and any property purchased with that would stand tainted."
In its charges against Dilli Raj, the ED claimed that "the salaries, performance bonus and other perquisites paid to S. Dilli Raj, as a vice-president of FLCI during his tenure from 1996-2007, were out of bank borrowings fraudulently obtained by FLCI, which are nothing but proceeds of crime. Accordingly, it is found that the above said property is involved in money laundering."
Dilli Raj had quit Bharat Financial Inclusion Ltd, formerly SKS Microfinance, after he was arrested by the ED in 2016. He was a key member of the transition team at SKS Microfinance, which reoriented it away from its founder and microfinance sector's erstwhile poster boy Vikram Akula.