WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump’s impeachment process it is likely to begin after the inauguration of Joe Biden, and Republican leader Mitch McConnell is telling senators that his decision on whether to condemn the outgoing president for the Capitol Revolt will be a “vote of conscience.”
The moment of the trial, the first of a president who no longer holds office, has not yet been defined. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made it clear on Friday that Democrats intend to move quickly on the $ 1.9 trillion COVID aid and economic recovery package from President-elect Joe Biden to speed up vaccinations and provide relief to Americans. Biden is scheduled to take the oath of office on Wednesday.
Pelosi described the recovery package as a “matter of utmost urgency.”
The uncertainty of the schedule, despite Trump’s swift ouster in the House a week after the deadly January 6 siege, reflects the fact that Democrats do not want Senate trials to dominate the opening days of the Biden administration.
With security on alert for the threat of more potential violence toward the inauguration, the Senate is also making rapid progress in preparing to confirm Biden’s candidate for national intelligence director Avril Haines. A committee hearing is set the day before he takes office, indicating that a confirmation vote to install him in office could come quickly once the new chairman is in office.
Many Democrats have pushed for an immediate indictment to hold Trump accountable and prevent him from holding future office, and proceedings could still begin on the day of the inauguration. But others have urged at a slower pace, as the Senate considers Biden candidates for the Cabinet and the recently-led Congress considers priorities as the coronavirus plan.
Biden’s new White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday that the Senate can do both.
“The Senate can fulfill its constitutional duty as long as it continues to conduct the business of the people,” he said.
Psaki noted that during Trump’s first trial of his removal last year, the Senate continued to hold hearings every day. “There’s some precedent,” he said.
Trump is the only president to be indicted twice and the first to be prosecuted on leaving the White House, an increasingly extraordinary end to the term of the defeated president. He was first indicted by the House in 2019 for his dealings with Ukraine, but the Senate voted in 2020 to acquit him.
When his second trial begins, officials responsible for the removal of the House say they will argue that Trump’s incendiary rhetoric hours before the bloody attack on the Capitol was not isolated, but was part of an escalation of campaigns to overthrow the elections. November. They will argue, culminating in the cry of the Republican president’s rally to “fight like hell” while Congress relied on the votes of the Electoral College to confirm that he had lost against Biden.
For Republican senators, the trial will likely be a final test of their loyalty to the defeated president and his legions of supporters in their home states, and their own experiences at the Capitol refuge when a pro-Trump mob looted. the building and tried to annul Biden’s election. It will force him to re-evaluate his relationship with the defeated president, who lost not only the White House, but majority control of the Senate.
“These men were not drunks who bothered; they were terrorists who were attacking the transfer of power required by this country’s constitution,” Senator Ben Sasse, R-Neb., Said in a statement Friday.
“They failed, but they came dangerously close to starting a bloody constitutional crisis. They must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. “
McConnell, who has spent the last few days talking to senators and donors, is telling them the decision to condemn Trump or not to Trump, which means the management team will not work to keep senators in one line or another. .
Last week’s assault angered lawmakers, shocked the nation and showed haunting images around the world, the Capitol’s most serious breach since the 1812 war and the worst of home-grown intruders.
Pelosi told reporters on Friday that the House’s nine dismissal managers, who act as chamber prosecutors, are working to bring the case to trial.
“The only path to any reunification of this broken and divided country is illuminating the truth,” said Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., Who will serve as the dismissal manager.
Trump was charged Wednesday by the House with a single charge, incitement to insurrection, in swift proceedings a week after the siege. Ten Republicans he joined all Democrats in the 232-197 vote for impeachment, the most bipartisan modern presidential ouster.
McConnell is open to considering the dismissal, as he has told associates he has ended Trump, but has not indicated how he would vote. McConnell continues to dominate his party, though convening the trial next week could be one of his last acts as a majority leader, as Democrats prepare to take control of the Senate with the seats of two new Georgia Democratic senators.
No president has ever been convicted in the Senate and a two-thirds vote against Trump would be needed, an extremely high hurdle. But Trump’s conviction is not out of the realm of possibility, especially because wealthy corporations and political donors distance themselves from his political brand and from Republicans who were in his bid to cancel the election.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of R-Alaska said Thursday, “These illegal actions cannot happen without consequences.” She said in a statement that the House responded “appropriately” to the dismissal and will consider the trial’s arguments.
At least four Republican senators have publicly expressed concern over Trump’s actions, but others have expressed a preference for moving forward. Senator Tom Cotton, of R-Ark., Issued a statement saying he opposes the dismissal against a president who has left office. Trump’s ally Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is supporting the launch of a commission to investigate the siege as an alternative to the conviction.
The riot delayed the counting of votes by the Electoral College, which was the last step to end Biden’s victory, as lawmakers fled to seek refuge and police, guns fired, barricaded the doors of the chamber of the House.
A Capitol police officer died from injuries sustained during the attack and police shot dead a woman. Three more people died in what authorities said were medical emergencies.
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Associated Press writers Will Weissert, Kevin Freking, Andrew Taylor, Alan Fram, Zeke Miller and Jonathan Lemire contributed to this report.