Trump's second impeachment: why this time is different
Of the four political trials in US history, Trump accumulates half. This will be more dramatic than a year ago and may have long-term consequences.
It might be tempting to call it the judgment of the century if it weren't for the sense of déjá vu. This week Donald Trump faces an impeachment trial in the United States Senate. Yes, another one. He is accused of instigating a rebellion by encouraging his followers to "fight" his electoral defeat shortly before they stormed the United States Capitol on January 6. The incident ended with five deaths.
In a way, it will be a repeat of the first impeachment from a year ago. Once again, Trump himself will be absent; And, once again, given the submissive attitude of the Republican Party, acquittal seems inevitable.
But this second time there are crucial differences. Trump is now a former president and the first to be tried by the Senate after leaving the White House. For that reason, it will be Patrick Leahy, the oldest Democratic senator with 80 years, who will preside over the sessions this time in place of John Roberts, the president of the Supreme Court.
During the first trial, Trump was making comments on Twitter, but now he has been expelled from the platform for his inflammatory statements.
A grittier sequel
Accused of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, that trial was based on trying to establish whether documents and phone records showed pressure on the President of Ukraine to open an investigation against Joe Biden. The sequel, however, promises to be more stark and visceral.
The process will take place at the scene of the crime: the sacred chamber of the Senate invaded by the rioters, among whom were groups of white supremacists. The nine Democrats in charge of the impeachment management are expected to contribute new videos and eyewitness accounts that clearly evoke the terror felt by members of Congress when they barricaded themselves in offices in fear for their lives.
"If Democrats do what is being said and present visual evidence, it will be the first time anything like this has been seen in a Senate trial," says Charlie Sykes, founder and editor of the Bulwark website. "It will be a graphic narration of the preparations, the aggression, the violence and the scope of the threat and it will be very difficult to minimize it, especially since each of those senators was, in some way, a witness to what happened."
"I really think it is going to be more powerful than some people expect. The result is sung, I have no illusions about that, but considering the way in which evidence has been accumulating in recent weeks, I hope it is something overwhelming. ", He says.
Half of political trials
There have only been four presidential impeachments in American history, and Trump is responsible for half. The second process began in January with a vote in the House of Representatives in which he was accused of inciting violence against the United States Government - all Democrats and 10 Republican congressmen voted in favor.
That set the stage for the trial that started this week. The legal documents filed by both parties offer a preview of the upcoming fight. House prosecutors maintain that Trump was "individually responsible" for the assault on the Capitol - at a time when Biden's electoral victory was being certified - for "creating a powder keg, lighting the match, and then searching for his own benefit in the resulting confusion. "
Prosecutors argue that it would be "impossible" to imagine an attack like the one that occurred without Trump stirring the crowd into "hysteria." This is the same argument Liz Cheney, a Republican congresswoman from Wyoming, made when she rebelled against the party line and voted for impeachment.
The defense of the former president
In a 14-page brief where the word "denied" or "denies" appears 29 times, Trump's hastily assembled legal team maintains that the former president cannot be held responsible because he never incited anyone to "engage in destructive behavior. ". Those "responsible" for the attack are being investigated and prosecuted, he alleges.
But the prosecution brief abounds in details of the fear that politicians and their assistants felt during the assault. "Some congressmen called their loved ones out of fear of not surviving the assault by President Trump's insurrectionary mob," the statement said.
The anguish they felt has become clear in recent days, with the memory of the traumatic events of January 6 that Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib made during their speeches in the House. Tlaib burst into tears as he pleaded with her colleagues: "Please, please take seriously what happened on January 6, it will lead to more deaths and we can do better."
According to the Democrats in charge of the impeachment management, Trump's behavior not only "endangered the lives of each and every member of Congress," but also endangered "the peaceful transition of power and the line of succession ". In their brief they detail the threats against then-Vice President Mike Pence and against Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, while the pro-Trump mob went "hunting" against them. In the video footage, some can be heard chanting: "Hang Mike Pence!", Who is accused of being a traitor for refusing to annul the election result.
But as chilling as the evidence is, Trump's team denies the case is within the jurisdiction of the Senate because he is no longer in office and he is a private citizen. Democrats reject that argument based on the background of William Belknap, a Secretary of War who resigned in 1876 and was later impeached in the House of Representatives and another in the Senate.
They also argue that the Constitution explicitly allows the Senate to disqualify a condemned former high-ranking official from holding new responsibilities in the future, a key issue considering that Trump has not ruled out running for president again in 2024.
However, it seems likely that the defense will win Trump's acquittal by challenging the constitutionality of the trial. In the Senate, 45 of the 50 Republicans have already voted in that regard in an attempt to end the trial before it began, including minority leader Mitch McConnell.
Condemning Trump would require a two-thirds majority in the Senate. In the 100-member chamber, that means 17 Republicans would have to join the 50 Democrats, but the majority of Republicans have time and again demonstrated their loyalty to Trump and their fear of possible retaliation from the mogul's electoral base.
"You may eventually get seven or eight Republicans voting for a conviction, but [Republicans] are weak and afraid of losing their precious little seat," says former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele. "'Fuck the country, I'm going to continue being a senator, I have to be re-elected' ... That's the most important thing for them. They would sacrifice their mother to keep the seat: that's what it comes down to."
Still, there is still some suspense surrounding possible pressure from Trump for his legal team to continue with the "big lie" of the stolen elections. For two months, his unfounded statements of electoral fraud have been rejected by the courts, state authorities and that of his own attorney general.
The defense brief uses the first amendment (which protects freedom of expression) to affirm that Trump had the right to "express his belief that the election results were suspicious." But sticking with that issue at trial could end up being a spectacular own goal because it would make it more difficult for Republicans to defend him.
"If they make that argument, they can't be taken seriously," Steele says. "In truth, they would be lying, presenting false evidence; if they make the accusation and I am a senator, I would say 'let's see, show me the proof', do you mean that you have evidence that 60 courts or the Supreme Court did not have?
The key audience: suburban suburbs
A key figure in the trial will be Constitutional Law professor Jamie Raskin. Despite being a relatively new member of the Chamber, he has emerged as one of the main leaders in managing impeachment. His son Tommy committed suicide on New Year's Eve, at the age of 25. He was studying law at Harvard and battling depression. "I am not going to lose my son at the end of 2020 and my country and my republic in 2021," Raskin told CNN in January.
Raskin has asked that Trump, who now lives on his luxurious Florida estate, testify under oath at trial. But Bruce Castor and David Schoen, the former president's attorneys, rejected the request on the grounds that it was a "publicity stunt." It is still unclear whether prosecutors will be able to call other witnesses to testify, such as police officers still recovering from serious injuries.
The impeachment is necessarily impeachment and the fact that the entire process is led by Leahy, a Democrat, and not the neutral Chief Justice, can only mean more crossfire between senators, always thinking about the next election.
"The key audience for this trial, if there is one, is the voters in the suburbs on the periphery. They abandoned Republicans in the presidential elections and abandoned them in the second round of the Senate elections in Georgia." says Wendy Schiller, professor of political science at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
"If Democrats can gain ground with those voters by linking current Republican senators to Donald Trump in the next two years, that would help them keep the Senate and that is why this trial is happening," she explains.
"You can understand why the House opened the impeachment against Donald Trump," says Schiller. "Firstly, because he was still in office; and secondly, to protect the country against any abuse of power he might commit in the ten days between impeachment and January 20. [But] it is very difficult to argue that this judgment means something. "
