United States: five questions on the new impeachment trial of Donald Trump
Former US President Donald Trump's second impeachment trial begins in Washington on Tuesday. France 24 takes stock to understand all the challenges of a trial that promises to be historic in more ways than one.
Donald Trump has not been president for nearly three weeks, but his impeachment trial does open Tuesday, February 9, in the US Senate. The former President of the United States is accused of encouraging the January 6 assault on Capitol Hill, in which five people, including a police officer, were killed. Failing to be removed from his mandate as president, already completed, he could be sentenced to ineligibility. But for that, a vote gathering two thirds of the senators is necessary. An unlikely result given the lack of enthusiasm of elected Republican officials to clearly distance themselves from Donald Trump.
1-A trial for history?
With this new impeachment trial, Donald Trump becomes the first President of the United States to be targeted a second time by such a procedure. During his first trial, in January 2020, he was accused of pressuring Ukraine to harm his future presidential opponent, Joe Biden. After three weeks, Donald Trump was, unsurprisingly, acquitted by a Senate controlled by the Republicans.
The former president is this time accused of "incitement to insurrection" for his role in the attack on the Capitol on January 6. This will be the fourth impeachment trial in U.S. history. Before him, Andrew Johnson (1868) and Bill Clinton (1999) also suffered a similar trial.
Donald Trump also stands out by becoming the first US president to be tried after his term ends. Democrats in the House of Representatives launched the impeachment procedure on January 13, just a week before Donald Trump left the White House and Joe Biden was inaugurated. The timing of this trial will also be at the heart of the debates over the next few days.
2-Can a former president be tried?
This is the question that will be put forward by Donald Trump's defense team to discredit the impeachment trial launched by the Democrats. The Republican billionaire and his allies rely on his departure from the White House on January 20 to argue that the trial is unconstitutional: senators can, according to them, dismiss a sitting president, but not judge a simple citizen.
Contesting the legitimacy of such a trial befits Republican senators, who will thus be able to hide behind this legal point to avoid defending the inflammatory speech held by Donald Trump on January 6.
"There is no 'January exception' for impeachment or any other constitutional measure," the Democrats, however, wrote in the indictment document sent to the Senate. "Presidents do not have the right to a carte blanche to commit serious crimes and misdemeanors as they approach the end of their mandate."
Democrats add that a former minister has already been tried after his term ends. According to them, we must condemn Donald Trump to make him ineligible and to "dissuade the next presidents from provoking violence in order to remain in power".
3-What is Donald Trump accused of?
In a document summarizing their argument, the Democrats set the tone: with his speech on January 6 to the White House, Donald Trump "created a powder keg, lit a match and then sought to personally profit from the chaos that followed."
Democrats should therefore return at length to the events that have shaken American democracy. After two months of a gruesome crusade against the verdict of the ballot box, Donald Trump called on his supporters to demonstrate in Washington on the day Congress was to ratify the victory of his rival. Posing again, against all evidence, as a victim of "massive fraud", he launched to the crowd: "You will never take back our country by being weak. You must show strength".
Moments later, hundreds of men and women forced their way into the Capitol, sowing fear and chaos. Five people, including a policeman beaten with a fire extinguisher, were killed in the attack. It will take several hours for Donald Trump to ask his supporters to "come home", in a video where he also tells them: "We love you".
To recall the scale of the tragedy, Democratic prosecutors could ask to hear witnesses, in particular members of the police. But it is not certain that the senators, who will have to validate the framework of the trial on Tuesday (duration, schedules, hearings ...), accept. Likewise, Donald Trump let it be known in early February that he would not testify in the Senate.
4-Who to lead the charge and defend the former president?
The prosecution will be led by Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin. The 58-year-old progressive, the son of an adviser to President Kennedy, was elected to Congress in 2016, where his first act was to oppose the certification of Donald Trump's victory due to Russian interference in the campaign.
Four years later, this professor of constitutional law will accuse the ex-president of having committed "a treason of historic magnitude". The affair has a personal tone for him. Jamie Raskin buried his 25-year-old son on January 5, who suffered from depression and died by suicide. To change their minds, the elected official invited his daughter and son-in-law to the Capitol the next day. The two found themselves locked in an office, when supporters of Donald Trump invaded the premises.
For his part, Donald Trump, who has suffered a wave of resignations within his team, has struggled to build his team of lawyers. While brilliant lawyers and stars of the bar had followed one another to defend him during his first trial, he recruited in extremis Bruce Castor and David Schoen who, without being leading lawyers, have already hit the headlines.
The first, who was a longtime prosecutor in Pennsylvania, had been seized in 2005 of a complaint for sexual assault against Bill Cosby. He had refused to initiate proceedings against the comedian, who was finally sentenced thirteen years later for these abuses.
The second, a criminal in Alabama, has said on several occasions that he is convinced that the financier Jeffrey Epstein, accused of sexual exploitation of minors, was killed in his cell, although official investigations have confirmed the thesis of suicide.
5-What are the chances of seeing Donald Trump sentenced?
The chances of Donald Trump being convicted by the Senate are slim because the 50 Democratic senators will have a hard time convincing 17 Republicans to get the two-thirds majority of the 100 Senate members needed for a conviction.
Two votes indicate that Republicans remain fervent supporters of Donald Trump. In the House of Representatives vote on Jan. 13 on the indictment against the former president, only 10 out of 211 Republican representatives voted in favor.
Likewise, on the day senators were sworn in to serve as jurors on January 26, 45 out of 50 Republican senators voted to challenge the legality of Donald Trump's impeachment trial.
The popularity of the latter with the electoral base of the Republican Party is such that elected officials can take no risk. They already have the mid-term elections of 2022 in mind. However, voting with the Democrats and against Donald Trump could well cost them their seat in the next election.
