Mcconnell moves to speed up Senate impeachment trial
WASHINGTON – Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell proposed Monday to significantly speed up President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, offering rules that would shoehorn opening arguments into a grueling four-day period of 12-hour days, meaning a major part of the nation’s third-ever presidential impeachment trial could wrap up by the weekend.
A day before the trial starts in earnest, Mcconnell proposed rules that would give House prosecutors and the president’s lawyers up to 24 hours each – but a maximum of two days each – to present their arguments as to whether Trump should be removed from office.
Lawyers for the president, who initially sought a lengthy impeachment trial so he could mount a robust public defense, also signaled they were hoping to end the trial quickly, urging the Senate to “swiftly reject” the charges, calling them “deficient on their face” and an “affront to the Constitution.”
The lawyers submitted a 171page legal brief to the Senate, their first major filing in the case, asserting that the two articles of impeachment approved by the House last month are unconstitutional and threaten to set a dangerous precedent by constraining future presidents in foreign affairs.
If the Gop-led body approves Mcconnell’s rules, senators
would then get 16 hours to question each side by submitting questions in writing, and then four hours for closing arguments before beginning debate. At that point, the Senate would vote whether to subpoena witnesses and documents, including whether to accept the evidence the House collected during its three-month investigation.
If witnesses are allowed, they would first be deposed behind closed doors before the Senate decides if their testimony should be heard in public.
Debate and a vote on those rules are expected to be the first order of business Tuesday. The Senate could also vote to dismiss the charges, although Mcconnell has said he does not have the votes for that. Debate on the merits of the House case against Trump would not begin until 1 p.m. EST Wednesday and presumably could go past midnight.
Mcconnell, R-KY., has portrayed his rules as similar to those the Senate adopted during the 1999 impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. Though the total number of hours is similar, the two-day limits were not imposed. That trial lasted five weeks and ended in Clinton’s acquittal.
The proposed accelerated schedule infuriated Democrats, who saw it as a partisan effort to shortcircuit a fair trial and to block Americans from following the historic proceedings.
“Sen. Mcconnell’s resolution stipulates that key facts be delivered in the wee hours of the night simply because he doesn’t want the American people to hear them. Any senator that votes for the McConnell resolution will be voting to hide information and evidence from the American people,” Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer of New York said in a statement. The president’s legal brief largely sidesteps evidence presented by the House in its brief to the Senate and rejects the abuse of power and obstruction of Congress charges as insufficient to warrant convicting Trump and making him the first U.S. president removed from office.
Declaring that Trump did “absolutely nothing wrong,” the president’s brief provides the most detailed look yet at the lines of defense Trump’s legal team intends to use once the trial commences. Claiming the evidence against Trump is “flimsy” and the impeachment case is “rigged,” it is a mix of legal arguments and tweet-ready slogans.
“All of this is a dangerous perversion of the Constitution that the Senate should swiftly and roundly condemn,” the lawyers, led by Trump’s personal attorney Jay Sekulow and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, wrote. “The articles should be rejected and the president should immediately be acquitted.”
Instead of contesting the facts, Trump’s lawyers argued that the actions that prompted impeachment – the president’s withholding of $391 million in military aid to Ukraine and a coveted White House meeting in an effort to pressure the country’s leader into publicly opening an investigation into Joe Biden, a potential 2020 opponent, and into a debunked theory about the 2016 election – did not constitute a crime.