Yesterday, the House of Representatives formally delivered an article of impeachment against Donald Trump to the Senate. The House voted to impeach one week after Trump incited the January 6th insurrection, and that was the sole charge the House voted on: incitement of an insurrection. After the House vote, Speaker Pelosi slow-walked sending the article to the Senate until the new Democratic senators were sworn in and Chuck Schumer became the Majority Leader. Schumer and Mitch McConnell consulted about the Senate trial and now it’s set for February 8th.
For the second time in just over a year, the House on Monday sent an article of impeachment against Donald J. Trump to the Senate for trial, thrusting his political fate into the hands of 50 Republican senators who for now appear reluctant to convict him.
On a day marked more by ceremony than substance, nine House managers walked across the Capitol to inform the Senate that they were ready to prosecute Mr. Trump for “incitement of insurrection,” a charge approved on a bipartisan basis after the former president stirred up a violent mob that stormed the Capitol earlier this month. But senators planned to quickly hit pause, putting off the heart of the trial until Feb. 9 and buying Republicans time to prepare for a proceeding that will be as much a referendum over the future of their party as it will be on Mr. Trump himself.
Unlike Mr. Trump’s last impeachment, when Republicans quickly and enthusiastically rallied behind him, several Republicans, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, have signaled they are open to convicting the former president after a mendacious campaign to overturn his election loss that turned deadly. That would allow the Senate to bar him from ever holding office again. But at least at the trial’s outset, their numbers fell well short of the 17 Republicans that would be needed to join Democrats in securing a conviction.
Instead, with the trial on hold, Republicans’ initial fury about the Jan. 6 attack appeared to be giving way to cold political calculations about the price they might pay for abandoning Mr. Trump, given his continued hold on the voters who comprise the party’s base.
President Biden, in an interview with CNN on Monday, said that while he thought the trial was necessary, he did not believe 17 Republican senators would vote to convict Mr. Trump. “The Senate has changed since I was there, but it hasn’t changed that much,” Mr. Biden said.
Because Trump is no longer the sitting president, Chief Justice John Roberts was able to make his own choice about whether or not to preside over the impeachment trial in the Senate. Roberts was tasked with the job last year, for Trump’s first impeachment trial, but for the second trial, Senator Patrick Leahy will preside over the trial. Which should be good – Leahy will keep things moving and he’s not beholden to MAGA politics in any way. Still, I think President Biden is right – the Senate trial is important because we need to show that there are consequences for inciting an insurrection, and we need to get these f–king Republicans on the record about it. But Trump probably won’t be “convicted.”
Interestingly enough, something else happened yesterday which might provide more accountability and repercussions for the Republicans who incited the terrorists and tried to overturn the election. The Justice Department’s inspector general has launched an investigation “to examine whether any former or current department officials ‘engaged in an improper attempt’ to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Inspector General Michael Horowitz said Monday that the investigation will investigate allegations concerning the conduct of former and current Justice Department officials but will not extend to other government officials.” I don’t see how it could NOT extend to elected officials since it’s all connected.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
Great, I’m anxious to watch the impeachment managers play the uncut tape of the Treason Rally before the attack as evidence and then watch all the GOP senators say “actually, that was fine” and acquit him again.
Raskin is unbelievable. I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed, let alone lead the Managers on this. I’m sure it gives him a purpose, but my God, I’d be on my knees. Bless him!
I am beyond pissed that the very same Senators that were PART of the insurrection/sedition, inciting the violence, are sitting on the “jury”. That should NOT be allowed to happen!
I would think there are a lot more middle of the road Rs horrified by what happened than there are in that mob base. THIS is the time they need to make their voices heard to their reps. We ALL need to be calling the R reps in our areas and let them know how we feel about treason!
Hoping Leahy enforces the trial rooms better than Roberts did. If Marsha Blackburn decides to spend the time partying in the cloakroom like she did last year, her ass should be barred from re-entry and voting for the duration. Her pay should also be docked. Same with those like Lindsey Graham, who left early every single day last year instead of hearing the arguments.
Seeing these photos just makes me want to weep. Republicans have been working overtime to minimize the insurrection and any momentum we may have had had as far as genuine outrage over the violent events on January 6 has pretty much ground to a halt.
I guess we can hope that even more evidence of Trump’s and others involvement in trying to violently overturn the election emerges. But I’m not very hopeful at this point anymore that any real consequences will be meted out. This country is a broken mess.
The frustrating thing is that it won’t even matter. They could obtain video of Trump saying “I, Donald J. Trump, do hereby incite an insurrection on this the 6th day of January in the year of our lord 2021” and it wouldn’t change a thing. WE care, but the Republicans do not. We keep saying we have to get their votes on the record, but it doesn’t matter to them because they will be PROUD of these votes. They have no shame. It makes me want to scream into the void all day every day.
I said this on the Spike Lee thread (probably the wrong place) but the only consolation I can take from them NOT impeaching Trump is that he isn’t disqualified from holding public office so he promptly forms his own Patriot Party and splits their vote. If the GOP are sacrificing all their honour on the altar of vote retention then that would be karma.
I guess the “I could shoot someone on 5th Ave. and get away with it” just moved to the Capitol….with the same response from republiTHUGs.
I hope the head of the secret service has to testify as to why trump was not immediately taken to the wh bunker. The answer is ‘because he was running the insurrection’. Make them say it out loud.
I’m so torn about watching the proceedings, I think it might send me into a really depressing place if I actually watch the evidence presented and then have to see to our senate acquit him. On the other hand, it almost seems like a bare minimum of civic duty to pay attention to a presidential impeachment.
Also, given that the man is no longer in office, so it’s no longer urgent to remove him, why not prioritize DC statehood and then impeachment. (I don’t know how quick the process is, it may not give us 2 more senators to potentially convict, but it is so past time to give DC residents a real voice in the federal government that, now that Congress is controlled by Democrats, I need them to stop delaying).
Don’t put yourself through it. You already know the gist of what will happen. There’s nothing you can do about it. Whatever happens is going to happen at this point. Any information you need to know will be available online later. It’s good to stay informed, but you don’t necessarily need to hear it word for word. It’s also fine to take a break all together sometimes. You can always get caught up later when you are in a better place.
Thanks. Right now I’m leaning towards watching short recaps followed immediately by something completely silly and uplifting. Maybe if I lived in a swing state and I felt there was value in calling my senator to express my support for conviction, then I’d at least feel like there was purpose to watching, but I’m in NY, my senators will vote to convict.
The trial should show Americans how much worse the Insurrection was than we realize. With every revelation I see, the more horrified I get. A trial breaking everything down from the moves Trump made leading up to it to prevent a significant police and military presence from being there in the first place, to how he refused to send in the National Guard and prevented them from accessing their riot gear, to the Congress members and Senators who gave the insurrectionist TOURS of the building a few days before, expose who gave them the layout of the building and locations of people’s offices and all of the secret locations they were sent to, to what Trump was doing during the insurrection, how he was calling Congressmen to get them to overturn the election results. How they were there to assassinate congressmen and were prepared to do so with setting up hanging gallows, zip ties to restrain them and setting up multiple pipe bombs.
Lay it ALL out!
I hope his staff turn on them and tell the world how giddy Trump was watching the news as it unfolded and how they had to BEG him to say anything to get the insurrectionists to stand down. Get some of them to testify that they were there on Trump’s orders. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them turn on him because he didn’t pardon them and now he’s acting like he doesn’t know them.
Show videos of the horrors which include the insurrectionists live streaming themselves and stating that they were there because Trump told them to be.
Is there any chance enough republicans will go against party and put country and democracy (read: morals) first?
According to Rachel Maddow, 2/3’s of senators in attendance are needed to vote guilty, not 2/3’s of total number of senators. If more GOP senators, like Paul, boycott then it becomes more of a possibility.
I agree that the trial is important even if he’s not convicted. If there was no trial now, then what would stop future presidents from doing whatever the eff they wanted in the few weeks before their term ended?
I want to point out that the congressman in the front – the one holding the folder with the dark hair – is my congressman, Jamie Raskin. His 25 year old son died by suicide on New Year’s Day, less than a week later he was hiding from the terrorists, and was worried because his daughter and son-in-law had been in the house chamber that day, and then he drafted the articles of impeachment. So even in the face of immense personal grief, some politicians can still do the right thing.
This trial is supposed to commence the week of Feb. 8th. My sister’s birthday is that week….I was wracking my brain to figure out what to get her, something *different* this year…. Well…here it is: Happy Birthday, Sis! I hope to give you a GUILTY verdict!
My conviction trial (I’m not calling it impeachment because he was already impeached twice) prediction: Trump takes the stand and tanks himself. His lawyer will probably advise against that, but Trump won’t be able to resist the spotlight. He’ll take the stand and say something outrageous that will anger enough folks the Republicans will be forced to convict. That’s my call right now.
Yeah i can see that happening given that he has no platform to spew sh!t from and why not take the opportunity to entice another coup attempt than from the very place he tried to get his mob to burn down.
Shortly after the 6th a Republican political analyst said that in a few weeks the people (Dems and ind) would forget and everything will just go on as before. This can’t happen. When I hear people saying there’s nothing we can do, that’s just playing into what they’re hoping for. We need to start emailing our Senators daily. Yes, daily. Everyone who wants him convicted need to really start making it a political issue specific to each Senator.
I’ve been keeping an eye on the criminal complaints and affidavits filed by the FBI in all of these cases. There are three people who they want under one complaint. Included in the criminal complaint are quotes from facebook posts DURING the insurrection. One of the quotes is, “k. On January 6, 2021, while at the Capitol, CALDWELL received the following Facebook message: “All members are in the tunnels under capital seal them in . Turn on gas”. When CALDWELL posted a Facebook message that read, “Inside,” he received the following messages, among others: “Tom take that bitch over”; “Tom all legislators are down in the Tunnels 3floors down”; “Do like we had to do when I was in the core start tearing oit florrs go from top to bottom”; and “Go through back house chamber doors facing N left down hallway down steps.”
Do I think we should feel powerless? No. We need to be loud and persistent and let them know we’re watching.