WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump’s indictment will likely begin after Joe Biden’s inauguration, and Republican leader Mitch McConnell tells senators that their decision to condemn the outgoing president for the Capitol riots will be a ‘vote of conscience’.
The timing of the trial, the first of a president no longer in office, has not been set yet. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made it clear on Friday that Democrats intend to move quickly with President-elect Joe Biden’s 1.9 billion COVID aid and economic recovery package to speed up vaccinations and send Americans relief. Biden will take the oath on Wednesday.
Pelosi called the recovery package a ‘matter of complete urgency’.
The uncertainty of the schedule, despite the House House’s quick indictment just a week after the deadly siege on Jan. 6, reflects the fact that Democrats do not want Senate hearings to open during Biden’s government opening days. does not dominate.
With security aware of the threat of more potential violence in the inauguration, the Senate is also moving fast to prepare for the confirmation of Biden’s nominated candidate for national intelligence director, Avril Haines. A committee hearing is ahead of the day before the inauguration, indicating a confirmation vote to install her in office could come quickly once the new president is in office.
Many Democrats have called for an immediate indictment to hold Trump accountable and prevent him from holding future office, and the proceedings could still begin with Inauguration Day. But others have slowed down as Senate Biden’s nominees for the cabinet consider and the New Democratic Congress considers priorities such as the Coronavirus plan.
Biden’s incoming White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday the Senate can do both.
“The Senate can carry out its constitutional duty while continuing the affairs of the people,” she said.
Psaki noted that during Trump’s first indictment last year, the Senate continued to hold daily hearings. “There’s a precedent,” she said.
Trump is the only president to be charged twice, and the first to be prosecuted when he leaves the White House, an increasingly extraordinary end to the defeated president’s term. He was first charged by the House in 2019 over his relations with Ukraine, but the Senate voted in 2020 to acquit.
When his second trial does begin, House House indictments say they will state the case that Trump’s offensive rhetoric was not isolated a few hours before the bloody attack on the Capitol, but rather was part of a growing election campaign. overthrown in November. They will argue that it culminated in the Republican president’s call to ‘fight like hell’ while Congress compared the votes of the Electoral College to confirm that he had lost to Biden.
For Republican senators, the trial will be a perhaps final test of their loyalty to the defeated president and his legions of supporters at home in their states, and their own experiences of sheltering at the Capitol while a pro-Trump mob robs the building and tried to overthrow Biden’s election. This will force a further re-evaluation of their relationship with the defeated president, who has lost not only the White House but also the majority control of the Senate.
“These men were not drunks who became noisy – they were terrorists who attacked the country’s constitutional transfer of power,” Sen. Ben-Sasse R-Neb. Said in a statement on Friday.
“They failed, but they were dangerously close to starting a bloody constitutional crisis. They must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. ”
McConnell, who has spoken to senators and donors in recent days, tells them the decision on whether Trump should be guilty alone or not; this means that the leadership corps will not work to keep senators in line in any way.
The assault last week angered lawmakers, stunned the country and flashed disturbing images around the world, the most serious burglary on the Capitol since the 1812 war and the worst by homebreakers.
Pelosi told reporters on Friday that the nine directors for the indictment of the House, who are acting as prosecutors for the House, are working to execute the case.
“The only way to any reunification of this broken and divided country is by shining a light on the truth,” said Mr. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., Who will serve as indictment manager, said.
Trump was indicted by the House on Wednesday on the single charge, incitement to rebellion, in lightning-fast proceedings just a week after the siege. Ten Republicans joined all Democrats in 232-197 to become an indictment, the most dual modern presidential indictment.
McConnell is open to considering accusations, after telling associates he was done with Trump, but he did not indicate how he would vote. McConnell still holds a large position in his party, though the trial next week may be among his last appearances as majority leader as Democrats prepare to control the Senate with the sitting of two new Democratic senators from Georgia.
No president has ever been convicted in the Senate, and that would require a two-thirds vote against Trump, which is a very big hurdle. But Trump’s conviction is not out of the question, especially as corporations and wealthy political donors distance themselves from his brand of politics and the Republicans who stood by his attempt to overthrow the election.
Senator Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said Thursday: “Such illegal actions cannot proceed without consequence.” She said in a statement that the House is responding “appropriately” with accusation and she will consider the trial arguments.
At least four Republican senators have publicly expressed concern about Trump’s actions, but others have indicated their preference for continuing. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Has issued a statement saying he opposes the accusation against a president who has left office. South Carolina Trump ally Lindsey Graham is building support for launching a commission to investigate the siege as an alternative to conviction.
The riot slowed the voices of the Electoral College, which was the last step in securing Biden’s victory when lawmakers fled to the shelter and police, pulling guns, blocked the doors to the living room.
A Capitol police officer has died from injuries sustained during the attack, and police have shot dead a woman. Three other people were killed in what, according to authorities, were medical emergencies.
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Associated Press authors Will Weissert, Kevin Freking, Andrew Taylor, Alan Fram, Zeke Miller and Jonathan Lemire contributed to this report.