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The Senate procedural vote of 55-45 Tuesday does not deter the House from making what it sees as a clear argument against Trump for his role in inciting insurgents. They still have key questions to decide ahead of next month’s trial: They haven’t made a final decision, for example, on whether they will call witnesses. They prepare for the possibility of not having witnesses – but they may decide to use them if they find a witness willing to come forward voluntarily, sources say.
Even without witnesses, Democrats plan to use evidence from video and social media to help illustrate how Trump’s words, actions and tweets motivated rioters to attack the Capitol, the sources said.
But Senate Democrats say the case presented by House Directors may still influence some Republicans, especially if they can use witnesses who would help corroborate Trump’s mindset and actions that led to the riots of January 6 at the Capitol.
“I think the heart of this matter is Trump’s inflammatory and inciting words, words from his own mouth,” Democratic Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal said. “But his intention to do harm, to cause injury and possibly even death may come from witnesses who were with him when he witnessed the assault on the Capitol. Thus, witnesses can corroborate and document forcefully what we know but they have to prove it. “
A complicating factor for the House impeachment team is whether any potential witnesses would be ready to be called – especially those who were in the White House. House impeachment officials want to avoid any sort of legal brawl against witnesses like the House faced in Trump’s first impeachment.
Senator Angus King, an independent from Maine who met with Democrats, said on Tuesday that the question remained open whether executive privilege would still apply to former White House officials after Trump left, who could be called as potential witnesses. King argued that such testimony could shed light on the president’s thinking during the trial.
“It will be either witnesses or documents, and what has been given in the form of intelligence,” King said.
The opening day of Trump’s second impeachment trial showed how high the bar has been for House Democrats to move closer to the votes needed for sentencing, with just five Republicans voting with Democrats to defeat the motion of Paul’s procedure.
While not all Republicans who voted with Paul said the trial was outright unconstitutional, the 55 to 45 vote was as clear a sign as any other as the path to the 67 votes needed to condemn Trump. and preventing him from showing up again was almost impossible. Paul claimed that after the vote he showed that the trial was already over before it started.
Even one of the Republicans who voted with the Democrats and is ready to condemn Trump said the writing was on the wall.
“Do the math. I think it’s extremely unlikely that the president will be convicted,” said Senator Susan Collins of Maine, one of five Republican women to break with Paul.
GOP Senate Focuses on Constitutional Argument
Senate Republicans have united in recent days around the argument that the trial is unconstitutional, giving them a way to push back the impeachment of House Democrats without forgiving Trump’s conduct when rioters attacked the House. Capitol on January 6, violating the very chamber where the impeachment trial will take place.
“I think it showed impeachment died on arrival,” Paul said of the vote he forced on Tuesday. “If you had voted it was unconstitutional, how on earth would you vote to condemn someone for it?”
Democrats have argued Republicans are circumventing their responsibility to hold Trump accountable for his behavior by claiming the trial is unconstitutional. “They don’t want to be held accountable for this vote, so they’re going to try to make it another argument that only concerns the Constitution,” said Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois.
There were signs ahead of Tuesday’s vote that most Republicans in the Senate would remain united. At their party lunch on Tuesday, GOP Senate leaders greeted Jonathan Turley, a leading academics in Conservative law, saying the lawsuit was unconstitutional.
While Turley argued against holding an impeachment trial for a former president, the non-partisan Congressional Research Service wrote this month that “most academics who have scrutinized the matter have concluded that Congress has the power to extend the impeachment process to officials who are no longer in office. “
Alaska GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski, who said Trump had committed indictable offenses and voted against Paul on Tuesday, expressed frustration with the vote that took place even before the trial began – and with less one day’s notice.
“I think it was a little unfortunate that we had this very spontaneous vote on an extraordinarily important issue without thoughtful debate and analysis. People had to make very quick decisions,” Murkowski told reporters on Tuesday. “I’m not saying there is bad faith, but I think it’s important enough that this organ deserves greater consideration and I think what you’ve seen now is that people were forced to take a quick stand. changes as we move forward remain to be seen. “
Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican from Ohio, downplayed the importance of Tuesday’s vote, saying he only saw it as a procedural motion and not as a statement as to whether the trial was constitutional or not.
“I want to hear it debated,” Portman said. “I have questions on the constitutionality and, in practice, on the precedent, but I want to hear it informed, and we will hear it.”
“I believe the constitutional purpose of impeachment is to remove a president from office, not to punish a person after leaving office,” Blunt said in a statement. “No consideration was given to impeaching President Nixon when he stepped down in 1974. The Constitution has not changed and Congress should not set a new destructive precedent.”
Several GOP senators have cited the fact that Chief Justice John Roberts will not preside over the trial – with pro tempore Senate Speaker Pat Leahy of Vermont presiding instead – as the clearest sign that the trial will not go through. the Constitution.
“It would send me a pretty clear signal to me what Roberts thinks about all of this,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa.
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