Trial is moment of truth for GOP
Donald Trump led ‘‘an attack on the very foundation’’ of American democracy and must be tried by the Senate for the sake of ‘‘truth and justice’’, the Republican senator Mitt Romney has said.
The Senate trial will be triggered by the delivery, expected today, of the article of impeachment passed by the House of Representatives, which accuses Trump of inciting the mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6.
Senate Democrats and Republicans have agreed to delay its beginning until February 8, to allow President Joe Biden time to secure confirmations of cabinet appointments and the introduction of a new Covid-19 relief package, and to allow Trump’s legal team time to prepare for his defence.
Romney, appearing on two Sunday morning TV shows, said that Trump’s telephone call on January 2 to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, asking him to overturn the election results there demanded a trial, as did his ‘‘incitation towards the insurrection’’.
However, many of Romney’s fellow Republicans continue to throw their weight behind Trump, insisting that a trial could damage the prospect of unifying a divided nation. Romney countered that ‘‘if we’re going to have unity in our country, I think it’s important to recognise the need for accountability, for truth and justice.’’
Republican senators considering a guilty verdict would face a fierce backlash from the party’s rank and file. At least 17 Republican votes would be needed to secure a conviction, assuming that all 50 Democrats in the Senate follow the party line. Ten Republican members of the House voted to impeach Trump, and most have since faced censure motions by local branches of their party.
In Arizona, Kelli Ward, leader of the state Republican Party, narrowly won re-election over the weekend with a recorded endorsement from Trump, his first political intervention since leaving the White House. The state party proceeded to pass resolutions censuring the Republican governor, Doug Ducey, for his lockdown measures during the pandemic; the former Republican senator Jeff Flake, who ‘‘rejected the interests of the American people over globalist interests’’; and Cindy McCain, widow of the late John McCain, who endorsed Biden.
Romney’s statement may lead the way for other centrist Republicans to leave the Trump camp. At the first impeachment trial last year he was the only Republican in the Senate to vote in favour of conviction. He told Fox News that ‘‘it’s pretty clear that over the last year or so there has been an effort to corrupt the election in the United States. It was not by President Biden, it was by President Trump’’.
The case against the former president could be bolstered by reports at the weekend that before the storming of the Capitol he tried to oust the acting attorney-general, and engage the Justice Department in an effort to overturn the election results in Georgia.
Perhaps sensing which way the wind is blowing, some members of the Republican establishment in Washington, including from within the former administration, are said to have begun a lobbying effort in favour of a conviction that could lead to Trump being barred from holding federal office, freeing the party from his sway.
A memo arguing that ‘‘it is difficult to find a more anticonservative outburst by a US president than Donald Trump the last two months’’ has been circulated among senators, according to CNN.
‘‘Trump created a cult of personality that is hard to dismantle; conviction could do that,’’ an unnamed former Republican official told the broadcaster.