WASHINGTON (AP) – As the House prepares to bring the charge against Donald Trump to trial in the Senate, a growing number of Republican senators say they are opposed to the process., which reduces the chance of former president being convicted on the charge that he incited a siege of the American Capitol.
Late Monday night, House Democrats will carry the only charge of ‘incitement to rebellion’ across the Capitol, a rare and ceremonial move to the Senate by prosecutors who will argue their case. They hope strong Republican condemnations of Trump after the January 6 riot will translate into a conviction and a separate vote to withhold Trump from holding office.
But instead, GOP passions seem to have cooled since the uprising. Now that Trump’s presidency is over, Republican senators who will serve as judges in the trial are advancing his legal defense, as he did during his first trial last year.
“I think the trial is stupid, I think it is counterproductive,” said Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla. “He said that ‘the first chance that I would vote to end this trial would do so’ because he believed it would be bad for the country and further fuel partisan divisions.
Trump is the first former president to face accused trial, and it will test his grip on the Republican Party, as well as the legacy of his tenure, which came to an end when a crowd of loyal supporters listened to his rally by storming the Capitol trying to overthrow Joe Biden’s election. The proceedings will also force the Democrats, who are taking full advantage of party control over the White House and Congress, to balance their promise to hold the former president accountable while also pursuing Biden’s priorities.
Arguments in the Senate hearing will begin the week of February 8th. Leaders of both parties agreed to the brief delay in giving Trump’s team and prosecutors time to prepare and give the Senate a chance to confirm some of Biden’s cabinet members. Democrats say the extra days will allow more evidence to come about the riot by Trump supporters, while Republicans hope to set up a united defense for Trump.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., Said in an interview with The Associated Press on Sunday that he hopes the clarity on the details of what happened on January 6 will make it clearer to my colleagues and the American people that we need has. a degree of accountability. ‘
Coons questioned how his colleagues who were in the Capitol that day could view the uprising as anything other than an ‘astonishing violation’ of the tradition of peaceful transfers of power.
“This is a critical moment in American history and we need to look at it and look at it hard,” Coons said.
An early vote to reject the trial would probably not succeed, as Democrats now control the Senate. The growing Republican opposition continues to indicate that many GOP senators will eventually vote to acquit Trump. Democrats would need the support of 17 Republicans – a high bar – to convict him.
When the House accused Trump on January 13, exactly one week after the siege, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Said he did not believe the Senate had the constitutional authority to convict Trump after he left office. do not have. On Sunday, Cotton said ‘the more I talk to other Republican senators, the more they start lining up’ behind the argument.
“I think many Americans will find it strange that the Senate is spending its time convicting and removing a man who left office a week ago,” Cotton said.
Democrats reject the argument, citing an indictment of a war secretary in 1876 who had already resigned and on opinions by many jurists. Democrats also say that a settlement of the first invasion of the Capitol since the war of 1812, carried out by rioters promised by a president and told them to fight like hell against the election results counted at the time, is so necessary the country can move forward and ensure that such a siege never happens again.
A few GOP senators have agreed with Democrats, though that is nowhere near the number needed to convict Trump.
Mitt Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said he believes there is a “consideration of opinion” that an indictment is appropriate after someone leaves office.
“I believe that what is being claimed and what we have seen, what is incitement to rebellion, is an undisputed offense,” Romney said. “If not, what is it?”
But Romney, the lone Republican who voted to condemn Trump when the Senate acquitted the then president at last year’s trial, appears to be an outlier.
Senator Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota, said he believes a trial is a ‘moot point’ after a presidential term is over, ‘and I think it’s a problem that they would have a very difficult time have to try to get inside the Senate. . ”
On Friday, GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a close ally of Trump who helped him build a legal team, urged the Senate to reject the idea of a trial for the presidency – possibly with a vote to dismiss the charge – and suggested Republicans would investigate whether Trump’s words on January 6 were legally ‘incitement’.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who said last week that Trump “provoked” his supporters before the riot, did not say how he would vote or argue any legal strategies. The Kentucky senator told his GOP colleagues that it was a vote of conscience.
One of the House’s nine indictments, Nancy Pelosi, said Trump’s encouragement of his loyalists before the riot was an extremely heinous presidential crime. ‘
Rep Madeleine Dean, D-Pennsylvania, said: “I mean, think back. It was only two-and-a-half weeks ago that the president gathered a crowd at the White House Ellipse. He incited them with his words. And then he lit the match. ”
Trump’s supporters invade the Capitol and interrupt the election statement because he falsely claims that there was massive fraud in the election and that it was stolen by Biden. Trump’s claims have been rejected in the courts, including by judges appointed by Trump and by state election officials.
Rubio and Romney were on ‘Fox News Sunday’, Cotton appeared on Fox News Channel’s ‘Sunday Morning Futures’ and Romney was also on CNN’s ‘State of the Union’, just like Dean. Rounds was interviewed in NBC’s “Meet the Press”.
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Associated Press author Hope Yen contributed to this report.