WASHINGTON (AP) – Donald Trump’s historic second indictment opens this week with a sense of urgency – by Democrats who want to hold the former president accountable for the violent siege of the U.S. Capitol and Republicans who want to hand it over as quickly as possible.
The plan is to start on Tuesday, just over a month since the deadly riot., the proceedings are expected to deviate from the long, complicated trial that led to Trump being acquitted a year ago on charges of privately putting Ukraine under pressure to oust a Democratic rival, Joe Biden, now the president. dig. This time, Trump’s call on January 6 to “fight like hell” cries and the Capitol storm has seen the world. Although Trump may very well be acquitted again, the trial could be over in half the time.
Details of the proceedings is still being negotiated by the Senate leaders, with the duration of the first arguments, senators’ questions and deliberations.
So far it seems there will be few witnesses as prosecutors and lawyers speak directly to senators who were sworn to render “impartial justice” as judges. Most are also witnesses to the siege, as they fled to safety that day when the rioters broke into the Capitol and temporarily halted the election count, confirming Biden’s victory.
Defense attorneys for Trump declined a request to testify. The former president, who was held at his Mar-a-Lago club, has been silent on social media without leaving comments from the public since leaving the White House,
Instead, housekeepers who are prosecuting the case are expected to rely on the videos of the siege, along with Trump’s offensive rhetoric that refuses to concede the election, to voice their case. His new defense team said they plan to work against their own memory of videos of democratic politicians.
“We have the unusual circumstances that on the first day of the trial, when the drivers walk on the floor of the Senate, there will already be more than 100 witnesses,” said Adam Schiff, D-Calif. Trump’s first accusation. “Whether you need additional witnesses will be a strategic call.”
Trump is the first president to be charged twice, and the only one to stand trial after leaving the White House. The Democratic-led House has approved a single charge, “incitement to insurrection,” which acts quickly a week after the riots, the most violent attack on Congress in more than 200 years. Five people were killed, including a woman who was shot dead by police in the building and a police officer who died the next day from injuries.
Democrats argue that it is not just a matter of gaining conviction, but of holding the former president accountable for his actions, even if he’s out of office. For Republicans, the trial will test their political loyalty to Trump and his lasting grip on the IDP.
Republican senators, including Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, were initially repulsed by the graphic images of the siege and denounced the violence and blamed Trump. But over the past few weeks, GOP senators have rallied around Trump, arguing that his comments do not make him responsible for the violence. They question the legitimacy of even prosecuting someone who is no longer in office.
On Sunday, Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker described Trump’s indictment as a “senseless biased exercise for messages.” Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky called the proceedings a “zero-chance conviction” and described Trump’s language and words as a “figurative” speech.
Senators were sworn in as jurors late last month, shortly after Biden was inaugurated, but the trial was delayed because Democrats focused on confirming the new president’s initial cabinet election and Republicans tried to distance themselves from the bloody riot as much as possible.
Paul at the time forced a vote to set aside the trial as unconstitutional because Trump is no longer in office, and attracted 44 other Republicans to his argument.
A leading Conservative lawyer, Charles Cooper, rejected the view and wrote in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday that the Constitution allows the Senate to try a former official, a major counterpoint to that of Republican senators seeking acquittal. watched by making constitutional progress. claims.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of Trump’s ardent defenders, said he believed Trump’s actions were wrong and that he would have a place in history for all of these things, but insisted that is not the job of the Senate to judge.
“It’s not a question of how the trial will end, but a question of when it will end,” Graham said. ‘Republicans are going to consider it an unconstitutional exercise, and the only question is whether they will call witnesses, how long will the trial last? But the result is really not in doubt. ”
But 45 votes in favor of Paul’s measure suggested that the impossibility of reaching a conviction in a Senate where Democrats have 50 seats but a two-thirds vote – or 67 senators – is needed to convict Trump. Only five Republican senators have joined Democrats to reject Paul’s motion: Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.
Schiff was on NBC’s Meet the Press, Wicker was on ABC’s “This Week”, Paul was on “Fox News Sunday” and Graham was on CBS ‘”Face the Nation”.
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Associated Press authors Eric Tucker and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.