Trial to impeach may start on inauguration
PRESIDENT Donald Trump’s impeachment trial could begin on Inauguration Day, just as Democrat Joe Biden takes the oath of office in an extraordinary end to the defeated president’s tenure in the White House.
The trial timeline and schedule are largely set by Senate procedures and will start as soon as the House of Representatives delivers the article of impeachment.
That could mean starting the trial at 1pm US time on Inauguration Day. The ceremony at the Capitol starts at noon.
Mr Trump was impeached on Wednesday by the House of Representatives over the deadly Capitol siege, the only president in US history twice impeached, after a proTrump mob stormed the building.
The attack has left the nation’s capital, and other capital cities, under high security amid threats of more violence around the inauguration.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi has
not said when she will take the next step to transmit the impeachment article, a sole charge of incitement of insurrection.
Some senior Democrats have proposed holding back the article to give Mr Biden and Congress time to focus on his new administration’s priorities. Mr Biden has said the Senate should be able to split its time and do both.
The impeachment trial will be the first for a president no longer in office. And, politically, it will force a reckoning among some Republicans who have stood by Mr Trump throughout his presidency and largely allowed him to spread false attacks against the integrity of the 2020 election.
Meanwhile, Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey has defended the company’s ban of US President Donald Trump, but also warned of the dangerous precedent it sets.
The social media giant was one of many to put curbs on the president – who was impeached for a second time on Wednesday – after violent clashes at the Capitol.
When Twitter called out Mr Trump’s incitement to violence, Mr Dorsey said the company faced an “extraordinary and untenable circumstance” with respect to public safety.
“I believe this was the right decision for Twitter,” Mr Dorsey wrote.
But such bans, he said, also point up Twitter’s “failure” to create an open and healthy space for what Mr Dorsey calls the “global public conversation”.
In effect, he suggested, taking extreme steps with public figures, such as banning Mr Trump, highlight the extraordinary power that companies like his can wield – and the collateral damage that such actions can lead to.
The Twitter co-founder suggested that the social media giant needs to find ways to avoid having to make such decisions in the first place.
Exactly how that would work isn’t clear, although it could range from earlier and more effective moderation to a fundamental restructuring of social networks.
For the moment, Mr Dorsey wrote, Twitter’s goal “is to disarm as much as we can, and ensure we are all building towards a greater common understanding, and a more peaceful existence on earth.”
Mr Trump was impeached by the US for a historic second time, charged with “incitement of insurrection”, over the deadly mob siege.