Impeachment charge makes way to Senate
Conviction of Trump so far drawing little GOP support
WASHINGTON — For the second time in just over a year, the House on Monday sent an article of impeachment against Donald Trump to the Senate for trial.
On a day marked more by ceremony than substance, nine House impeachment managers crossed the Capitol to inform the Senate that they were ready to prosecute Trump on “incitement of insurrection,” a bipartisan charge approved after the then-president spoke to a crowd that later stormed the Capitol.
The House managers, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, walked the impeachment article through a Capitol where memories of the riot were still fresh.
They started in the House chamber, where lawmakers had ducked for cover and donned gas masks as rioters tried to force their way in; past House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office suite, which was ransacked; through the Rotunda, where officers fired tear gas as they lost control over the throng; and into the well of the Senate chamber, where invaders wearing pro-Trump gear congregated, taking photos on the dais that the vice president and senators had been forced to evacuate minutes before.
Raskin stood before the Senate to read the House resolution alleging “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
After he read the charge in full, the managers departed, leaving the matter to the Senate, which planned to reconvene at 2:30 p.m. today to issue a summons to Trump to answer for the charge. Senators were expected to agree to a schedule for the coming weeks and to swear an impeachment oath dating to the 18th century to do “impartial justice.”
But with some of the anger wrought by the Jan. 6 rampage already dissipating, few Republicans appeared ready to repudiate a leader who retains broad sway over their party.
Senators planned to put off the heart of the trial until Feb. 9. That move will allow President Joe Biden time to gain confirmation of crucial Cabinet officials and will buy breathing room for Republicans to weigh their stances on whether to join Democrats in convicting Trump.
“I guess it depends on what state you’re in and what phase in your career you are,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters with a chuckle when asked what would happen to Republicans who voted to convict.
Unlike Trump’s first impeachment, when his party quickly rallied behind him, several Republicans, including Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate minority leader, have signaled they are open to convicting the former president after the deadly riot that ended his campaign to overturn his election loss.
McConnell, who steered the president to acquittal a year ago, has largely left senators to navigate the proceeding on their own this time. He has made clear through advisers and calls with colleagues that he personally views Trump’s conduct as impeachable, sources said, and he sees the process as a possible way to purge Trump from the party and rebuild before the 2022 midterm elections. But McConnell has not committed to voting to convict.
Some Republicans appear ready to join him if he does.
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said he believes “what is being alleged and what we saw, which is incitement to insurrection, is an impeachable offense. … If not, what is?”
But dozens of others have not expressed a willingness to break from four years of alliance with Trump.
SENATORS’ RESPONSE
Democrat Charles Schumer of New York, the Senate majority leader, said there’s only one question “senators of both parties will have to answer before God and their own conscience: Is former President Trump guilty of inciting an insurrection against the United States?”
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., questioned how his colleagues who were in the Capitol on Jan. 6 could see the insurrection as anything other than a “stunning violation” of the nation’s history of peaceful transfers of power.
“It is a critical moment in American history,” Coons said in an interview.
Conviction would allow the Senate to take a vote on barring Trump from ever holding office again. But to even get to such a vote, the Senate would need 17 Republicans to join Democrats in securing a conviction.
With few Republicans ready to defend Trump’s actions, many have turned to arguing that the process itself is flawed because the Constitution does not explicitly say ex-presidents can be tried.
“Why are we doing this?” said Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis. “I can’t think of something more divisive and unhealing than doing an impeachment trial when the president is already gone. It’s just vindictive. It’s ridiculous.”
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said that if Congress starts holding impeachment trials of former officials, then what’s next: “Could we go back and try President [Barack] Obama?”
Besides, he suggested, Trump has already been held to account. “One way in our system you get punished is losing an election,” he said.
Lawmakers in both parties cautioned that Republicans’ mood could shift quickly in the weeks ahead if more evidence breaks into public view about Trump’s actions or if he provokes them further with threats of retribution.
Already, new details are surfacing about Trump’s broader campaign to use his power to stay in office. The Justice Department’s inspector general opened an investigation Monday into whether current or former officials tried to use their positions inappropriately to help Trump overturn the election outcome.
With so much at stake, senators were moving with little precedent to guide them.
“We will listen to it, but I still have concerns about the constitutionality of this and the precedent it sets in trying to convict a private citizen,” said Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa.
She added: “He exhibited poor leadership; I think we all agree with that. But it was these people that came into the Capitol. They did it knowingly. So they bear the responsibility.”
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., is among those who say the Senate does not have the constitutional authority to convict a former president.
And new Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said Trump is one of the reasons he is in the Senate, so “I’m proud to do everything I can for him.”
Irked by senators flocking to procedural claims that a trial is unconstitutional or unfair, Democrats warned Republicans that they could not hide from a substantive verdict.
“There seems to be some hope that Republicans could oppose the former president’s impeachment on process grounds, rather than grappling with his awful conduct,” Schumer said. “Let me be perfectly clear: This is not going to fly.”
Biden, who has been reluctant to comment on the proceeding, told CNN on Monday that the trial “has to happen,” even if it will complicate his legislative agenda. But he cast doubt on whether enough Republicans would vote to convict.
Schumer said failing to conduct the trial would amount to a “get-out-jail-free card” for others accused of wrongdoing on their way out the door.
ASPECTS OF TRIAL
Trump’s new defense lawyer, Butch Bowers, was said to be trying to line up at least one additional lawyer to join him, according to people familiar with the planning. He was also working with Jason Miller, an adviser to Trump, on a public-relations campaign.
Other aspects of the trial began to come into focus Monday. Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the Senate president pro tempore, said he would preside over the trial, assuming a role filled last year by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
The Constitution states that the chief justice of the United States presides over any impeachment trial of the president or vice president. But it does not explicitly give guidance on who should oversee the proceeding for others, including former presidents, and it appeared that Roberts was uninterested in reprising a time-consuming role that would insert him and the Supreme Court into the political fight over Trump.
The role was largely ceremonial during Trump’s impeachment trial a year ago. But as the presiding officer, Leahy could issue rulings on key questions about the admissibility of evidence and whether a trial of a former president is even allowed under the Constitution. He will also retain a vote himself.
The job could also have gone to Vice President Kamala Harris in her capacity as president of the Senate. But there were clear drawbacks for Harris in overseeing a proceeding that is all but certain to be regarded by some as an effort by Democrats to use their newfound power to punish the leader of the rival party.
Leahy’s presence on the dais could open Democrats to similar allegations from the right, particularly if he issues a contentious ruling, but officials said there was no clear alternative without the chief justice. In a statement, Leahy was adamant that he would take “extraordinarily seriously” his trial oath to administer impartial justice.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said that without the chief justice presiding, the proceeding is a “sham.”