In an unprecedented move, the House impeached now-former President Donald Trump in the middle of January over his alleged role in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The impeachment now moves on into its last stage: a trial in the Senate. After this trial, scheduled to begin on Tuesday, the Senate will vote as to whether or not Trump is guilty over the articles of impeachment filed by the House.
Though Trump has now left office, the impeachment trial of Trump will still continue in a Democratic Senate. The argument that the trial is unconstitutional is the main argument Trump’s lawyers will employ in the trial. In a 78-page brief submitted to the Senate on Monday, the lawyers said that the trial was “political theater” by Democrats and the Senate lacked any power to try a former official.
However, the trial of a former official is not unprecedented: in 1876, the House impeached President Ulysses S. Grant’s War Secretary, William Belknap, after a major scandal. Even though he resigned before his trial in the Senate, the Senate still decided to push on with a trial, though he was later acquitted of all charges.
The Democrats maintain that the trial is constitutional, therefore, and constitutional scholars do agree: holding a trial of a former official who committed gross misconduct while in office to hold him or her accountable definitely aligns with the Framers’ intentions of including impeachment in the Constitution, as well as the fact that there is precedent for doing so. House impeachment managers have framed the impeachment as a way to hold Trump accountable for his actions and to bar him from ever holding office again.
The House impeachment managers include Reps. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the lead manager; Diana DeGette, D-Colo.; David Cicilline, D-R.I.; Joaquin Castro, D-Texas; Eric Swalwell, D-Calif.; Ted Lieu, D-Calif.; Joe Neguse, D-Colo.; Madeleine Dean, D-Pa.; and Delegate Stacey Plaskett representing the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Both parties have already agreed to a deal to make this trial exceptionally quick, with the final vote of conviction coming as early as next week.
After the trial starts on Tuesday, there will be a quick four-hour debate session and then a vote will be held to determine the constitutionality of an impeachment trial for a former president. Only a simple majority is needed, and the Senate had previously voted 55-45 that such a trial was constitutional, so this is expected to pass easily.
Then, there will be a maximum of 16 hours spread over two days for each side, the House impeachment team and Trump’s defense, to present their case. The impeachment team argues first and is expected to present evidence so damning that even if Trump is ultimately acquitted, it could have long-lasting effects on Trump and the GOP’s image, discussed below.
There will then be a number of hours set aside for questioning, and then there will be a debate on whether there is a need to call witnesses to the trial. Based on the fact that both parties want to get this done as soon as possible to focus on more urgent legislation, like COVID-19 relief, this is unlikely to happen. After that, there will be closing arguments and some time to deliberate, then the final vote on the article of impeachment will occur. A two-thirds majority, or 67 senators, is required to convict a president, meaning 17 Republicans will need to break with their party line to ensure Trump is convicted. After that, a simple majority will need to vote again to forever bar Trump from holding any political office again.
The timeframe for all of this to happen is about a week, with the conviction vote coming as soon as Monday, Feb. 15, President’s Day. If necessary, the Senate will convene even on President’s Day, a federal holiday, to continue with the trial.
This unprecedented speedy trial will be a far cry from Trump’s first impeachment when it took about 50 days to get from impeachment in the House to acquittal in the Senate. This time, it will take less than a month.
House impeachment managers will argue that as president, Trump tried to push the lie that he won the 2020 election, pressured officials in multiple states to overturn the results of the election (Georgia is investigating Trump regarding this matter now), and culminating with him summoning, directing, and inciting a violent, armed mob of insurrectionists to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6 in an effort to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s victory. They are expected to use a video-heavy presentation to invoke anger and fury in Republicans of what they felt when rioters stormed the heart of American democracy last month.
Having learned from the previous impeachment, Democrats are making sure to avoid alienating Republicans, using copious amounts of video evidence and make clear arguments to stop anyone from being bored, as many did n the last trial.
Raskin, the leading impeachment manager, has gathered a deep trove of primary-source videos and other evidence showing that they acted under Donald Trump’s request. There will also be excerpts of leaked phone calls of Trump pressuring election officials, copies of his tweets mentioning election-rigging and asking people to go to Washington on Jan. 6, and tweets where he continually insisted that he won the 2020 election even after it was clear he lost. This visual evidence might also make it onto the airwaves, which is likely to remind millions of Americans of the fury they felt when they witnessed live a mob storming the Capitol building, generating even more support for the conviction of Trump. (The latest data indicates a majority of Americans support convicting Trump.)
The Democrats’ brief said, “President Trump violated his Oath of Office and betrayed the American people. His incitement of insurrection against the United States government—which disrupted the peaceful transfer of power—is the most grievous constitutional crime ever committed by a president.”
The strategy here is to tie Trump to the events that went down at the Capitol and direct outrage of the attack to him, strengthening their case for conviction.
Trump’s lawyers plan to insist that Trump had no role at all inciting the violence at the Capitol and did not try to interfere with Congress certifying the electoral votes for Biden. They also claim that Trump’s claims that he won the election and his baseless claims of election-rigging and voter fraud are protected by the First Amendment, although 144 constitutional lawyers called that “legally frivolous.” Also, they plan to argue that the trial itself was unconstitutional, although with the Senate expected to vote that the trial is, in fact, constitutional, this point may fail to gain traction.
It will be important for the impeachment managers to make it clear that this is a trial about Trump, not the whole Republican Party. Otherwise, it could implicate other Republican members of Congress who went along with the president’s claims of election fraud. To stand any chance at convincing 17 Republicans to break with their party line (a very tall order indeed), they must work hard not to antagonize even a single Republican.