Fifth day of Trump impeachment begins with debate over witnesses
THE US Senate reconvened on Saturday morning for the fifth day of former US president Donald Trump’s unprecedented second impeachment, with debate centred around whether to call witnesses.
Congressman Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, announced that the House impeachment managers would like to subpoena a congresswoman from Washington state, Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler.
Herrera Beutler has said that she heard from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy that Trump had refused to call off the insurrection in the US Capitol building on January 6 when McCarthy spoke to the former president about the violence.
“We would like the opportunity to subpoena Congresswoman Herrera regarding her communications with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and to subpoena her contemporaneous notes that she made regarding what the president told Kevin McCarthy in the middle of the insurrection,” Raskin told the Senate.
Trump’s lawyer, Michael van der Veen, argued that he would need 100 depositions if the House Democrats decided to call witnesses.
“The real issue is incitement. They put into their case over 100 witnesses, people, who have been charged with crimes under the federal government, and each one of those they said Mr
Trump was a co-conspirator with,” van der Veen said.
“That’s not true ” he bellowed. “But I have the right to defend that ... don’t handcuff me ” Van der Veen also expressed outrage at the notion that witnesses would be called over oom, and said that the depositions should take place in his office in Philadelphia.
Senators burst into laughter at this proposition.
They ultimately voted 55-45 in favour of allowing witnesses.
The decision has thrown the process into limbo, and could ultimately postpone a vote on whether to convict Trump.
The US House of Representatives has charged
Trump with incitement of an insurrection, alleging that his baseless allegations of voter fraud and speech during a rally on January 6 propelled a deadly mob to storm the US Capitol.
Five people died during the riots, including one policeman.
The vote is, nevertheless, expected to fall largely along party lines, with Democrats expected to fail to gain the two-thirds majority necessary to convict Trump and prevent him from running for office in the future.
On Friday, the questioning was also a largely partisan affair, with Democrats asking about the way Trump’s unfounded claims of voter fraud had radicalized his followers, and Republicans suggesting the impeachment was a “political show trial” designed to discredit Trump.
Trump’s second impeachment is unprecedented. The US has only had four presidential impeachments in its history: Two were of Trump and took place during the last year.
No other president or federal official has been impeached twice, and no president has faced an impeachment trial after leaving office.