No trial date set thus far in Senate
Impeach session timing up in air
WASHINGTON — No date is set yet for President Donald Trump’s historic second impeachment trial where U.S. senators will serve not only as jurors but as personal witnesses and victims of the attack on the Capitol by a mob of his supporters.
The trial could begin as soon as Inauguration Day.
Trump is the only president to be twice impeached and the first to be prosecuted as he leaves the White House.
In pursuing conviction, House impeachment managers said Thursday that they will be making the case that Trump’s incendiary rhetoric hours before the attack on the Capitol was not isolated, but rather part of an escalating campaign to overturn the November election results. It culminated, they will argue, in the Republican president’s rally cry to “fight like hell” as Congress was tallying the Electoral College votes to confirm that he’d lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
The trial could begin shortly after Biden takes the oath of office Wednesday, but some Democrats are pushing for a later trial to give Biden time to set up his administration and work on other priorities. No date has been set.
National Guard troops have flooded Washington, D.C., to protect the Capitol amid warnings of more violence ahead of the inaugural. It’s a far different picture, because of the covid-19 pandemic and the threats of violence, from the tradition
al pomp and peaceful transfer of power.
Whenever it starts, the impeachment trial will force a further reckoning for the Republican Party and the senators who largely stood by Trump throughout his presidency and allowed him to spread attacks against the 2020 election.
Last week’s assault angered lawmakers, stunned the nation and flashed unsettling imagery around the globe. It was the most serious breach of the Capitol since the War of 1812 and the worst by home-grown intruders.
“The only path to any reunification of this broken and divided country is by shining a light on the truth,” said Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., who will serve as an impeachment manager.
“That’s what the trial in the Senate will be about,” she said Thursday.
Trump was impeached Wednesday by the House on a single charge, incitement of insurrection, in proceedings just a week after the attack. Ten Republicans joined all Democrats in the 232-197 vote to impeach.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is open to considering impeachment, having told associates that he is done with Trump, but he has not signaled how he would vote on impeachment.
No president has ever been convicted in the Senate, and it would take a two-thirds vote against Trump, a high hurdle. Two new senators from Georgia, both Democrats, are to be sworn in, leaving the chamber divided 50-50. That will tip the majority to the Democrats once Kamala Harris takes office. The vice president is the tie breaker.
But conviction of Trump is not out of the realm of possibility, especially as corporations and wealthy political donors distance themselves from his brand of politics and the Republicans who stood by his attempt to overturn the election.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said Thursday, “Such unlawful actions cannot go without consequence.” She said in a statement that the House responded “appropriately” with impeachment and she will consider the trial arguments.
At least four Republican senators have publicly expressed concerns about Trump’s actions, but others have signaled their preference to move on. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., issued a statement saying he opposes impeachment against a president who has left office. Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is building support for an alternative of launching a commission to investigate the Capitol attack.
Ahead of opening arguments, Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, another impeachment manager, suggested that senators will be asked to focus on their own experiences the day of the attack.
“You don’t have to tell anyone who was in the building twice what it was like to be terrorized,” Swalwell said.
The riot delayed the tally of Electoral College votes that was the last step in finalizing Biden’s victory as lawmakers fled for shelter and police, guns drawn, barricaded the doors to the House chamber.
A Capitol Police officer died from injuries suffered in the attack, and police shot and killed a woman. Three other people died in what authorities said were medical emergencies.
Under Senate procedure, the trial is to start soon after the House delivers the article of impeachment. The soonest the calendar has senators back in session is Tuesday.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has not said when she will take the next step to transmit the impeachment article to the Senate. After Trump’s first impeachment in 2019, she withheld the articles for some time to set the stage for the Senate action.
Biden has said the Senate should be able this time to split its work, starting the trial and working on his priorities, including swift confirmation of his Cabinet nominees.
On Inauguration Day, the Senate typically confirms some of the new president’s Cabinet, particularly national security officials.
“We are working with Republicans to try to find a path forward,” said Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer’s office.
Biden ally Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said the tension among Democrats is over moving ahead quickly on impeachment or focusing on the president-elect’s other priorities. “We are balancing,” he said on CNN.
Holed up at the White House, watching the impeachment proceedings on TV, Trump released a video statement late Wednesday in which he appealed to his supporters to refrain from any further violence or disruption of Biden’s inauguration.
“Mob violence goes against everything I believe in and everything our movement stands for,” Trump said.
He was impeached by the House in 2019 over his dealings with Ukraine, but the Senate voted in 2020 to acquit.
This time, in making a case for the “high crimes and misdemeanors” demanded in the Constitution, the four-page impeachment resolution relies on Trump’s own language spreading claims about the election. It also seeks to prevent him from ever holding public office again.
CHENEY UNDER FIRE
Meanwhile, a group of Republicans in the House is calling on Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 Republican, to resign from her leadership post after she voted to impeach Trump.
Members of the Freedom Caucus, including the chairman, Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, as well as Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Matt Gaetz of Florida, are circulating a petition calling on Cheney to step down from her role as chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, arguing that her vote to impeach Trump had “brought the conference into disrepute and produced discord.”
Cheney was one of 10 Republicans to break with the party Wednesday and vote to impeach Trump.
“One of those 10 cannot be our leader,” Gaetz said in an interview Wednesday on Fox News’ “Hannity.” “It is untenable, unsustainable, and we need to make a leadership change.”
Cheney has brushed aside calls to step down, saying that she was “not going anywhere” and calling her break with Trump “a vote of conscience.” Several Republicans, including some members of the Freedom Caucus, have begun to circle the wagons around her.
Others in the party who have been critics of the president have also rushed to her defense.
“Liz has more support now than she did two days ago,” said Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who also voted to impeach Trump. “She has gained immeasurable respect.”
Kinzinger suggested that it was Republicans like Jordan who should be shoved aside in the wake of the siege and the impeachment it prompted.
“Since the discussion is opened, though, we may have to also have a discussion about who in our party fomented this, and their roles as ranking members,” he said.
The debate over Cheney’s leadership post reflects the deep fractures in the Republican Party over Trump.
While prominent figures have recoiled from Trump’s brand of politics in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot, worrying that it could spell ruin for their party, a small group — many of them in the House — remains unwilling to abandon him. Republicans are scrambling to determine the political consequences of doing so, and whether they would pay a steeper political price for breaking with the president or for failing to.
Senate Republicans are facing just such a dilemma as they contemplate how to vote in an impeachment trial.
Reps. Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader, and Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the minority whip, voted against impeaching Trump, although McCarthy said the president bore responsibility for the siege and deserved a censure.
Information for this article was contributed by Lisa Mascaro, Mary Clare Jalonick, Kevin Freking, Andrew Taylor, Alan Fram, Zeke Miller and Jonathan Lemire of The Associated Press; and by Catie Edmondson of The New York Times.