WASHINGTON (AP) – Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is proposing to postpone the start of Donald Trump’s indictment to February to give the former president time to prepare and review his case.
House Democrats who voted last week to accuse Trump of inciting the deadly uprising on Jan. 6 have indicated they want to go to trial quickly, while President Joe Biden begins his term and says a full settlement is needed before the country – and Congress – can move on.
But McConnell proposed in a statement Thursday night a more extensive timeline that would mean the House will pass the indictment on January 28 next week, starting the first phase of the trial. Thereafter, the Senate will give the president’s defense team and the prosecutors of the House two weeks to submit orders. Arguments in the trial are likely to begin in mid-February.
‘Senate Republicans are strongly united behind the principle that the establishment of the Senate, the office of the presidency and former President Trump himself deserves a complete and just process that respects his rights and the serious factual, legal and constitutional questions on the game, ”especially given the unprecedented speed of the House process, McConnell said.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., is reviewing the plan and will discuss it with McConnell, a spokesman said. The two leaders are also negotiating on how the new Senate will work 50-50 and how they will balance other priorities.
Some Democrats may find a delay in the trial because it would give the Senate more time to confirm Biden’s nominees for the cabinet and discuss a new round of coronavirus relief. Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, a key ally of the president, told CNN that the Democrats will consider a delay “if we make progress in confirming the very talented, experienced and diverse team that President Joe Biden has nominated. . “
The ultimate power over timing rests with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who could cause the start of the trial at any stage by sending the charge of inciting an uprising to the Senate. The California Democrat has not yet said when she will do so.
“It will be soon. “I do not think it will take long, but we have to do it,” Pelosi said on Thursday. She said Trump did not deserve an “out-of-jail card” just because he left office and asked Biden and others for national unity.
According to his second defense team in two years, Trump began assembling his defense team by hiring attorney Butch Bowers to represent him, according to an adviser. Bowers previously served as an adviser to former South Carolina governments. Nikki Haley and Mark Sanford.
South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham helped Trump find Bowers after members of his former legal team indicated they had no plans to join the new effort. Trump was harmed compared to his first trial, in which he had the full means of the White House attorney’s office to defend himself.
Pelosi’s nine indictment managers, who will prosecute the case in the House, met regularly to discuss strategy. Pelosi said she would talk to them “in the next few days” about when the Senate might be ready for a trial.
Shortly before the January 6 uprising, Trump told thousands of his supporters during a rally near the White House to “fight like hell” against the election results confirmed by Congress. A crowd marched down to the Capitol and stormed in, interrupting the score. Five people, including a Capitol police officer, died in the chaos and the House charged Trump a week later, with ten Republicans joining all Democrats.
Pelosi said it would be “detrimental to unity” to forget that “people died here on January 6, the attempt to undermine our election, to undermine our democracy, to dishonor our Constitution.”
Trump was acquitted by the Republican-led Senate during his first indictment. The White House legal team, assisted by Trump’s personal advocates, has been aggressively fighting the House’s accusations that he encouraged the President of Ukraine to investigate Biden against military aid. Pelosi noted that the House does not want to convict the president this time of private conversations, but for a very public uprising that they themselves experienced and that was played on live television.
“This year, the whole world has witnessed the incitement of the president,” Pelosi said.
Dick Durbin, senator from Illinois, the Senate Democrat no. 2, said it was still too early to know how long a trial would last or whether the Democrats wanted to call witnesses. But he said: ‘You do not have to tell us what is going on with the mob scene. We ran down the stairs to escape. ‘
McConnell, who this week said Trump “provoked” his supporters before the riot, did not say how he was going to vote. He told his GOP colleagues that it was a vote of conscience.
Democrats will need the support of at least 17 Republicans to convict Trump, a high bar. While a handful of Senate Republicans have indicated they are open to conviction, most have said they believe a trial will be divisive and question the legality of a president’s trial after he leaves office.
Graham said that if he were Trump’s lawyer, he would focus on the argument and on the merits of the case – and whether it’s incitement ‘under the law.
“I think the public record is your television screen,” Graham said. “So I do not understand why it would take so long.”
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Associated Press authors Meg Kinnard in Columbia, SC, and Jill Colvin in West Palm Beach, Florida, contributed to this report.