Trump lawyer asks to stay impeachment trial if it ends on Sabbath

It’s unclear how Senate leaders will honor Mr Schoen’s request. If they decided to speed up the trial to ensure it is concluded by sunset on Friday, it would be by far the fastest presidential impeachment trial in history. If they suspended it as Mr Schoen requested, the procedure could turn into a federal holiday on Monday and what was supposed to be a week’s vacation for the Senate, when its members were supposed to take a break to return at home in their states. If executives chose to delay it further instead, it would trigger planned action to confirm Mr Biden’s candidates and advance his pandemic aid bill.

Mr Schoen said in a telephone interview on Friday that he had not heard from leaders on a range of issues related to the trial, including its timing and the time each side would have to present their arguments. Mr Schumer, who has negotiated with Mr McConnell on the issues, is expected to announce the details shortly before the trial begins.

Mr. Schoen is one of a second group of lawyers who stepped in to represent Mr. Trump in his second impeachment trial. The First Team resigned after its lawyers refused to commit to making the former president’s preferred trial strategy – that they defend him by repeating his baseless claims that the election was stolen from him.

Now, Mr. Schoen joins a list of prominent Jews who have encountered problems in Washington over their observance of the Sabbath. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the Orthodox Jewish daughter and son-in-law of the former president, said they received special permission from a rabbi to attend Mr. Trump’s inaugural festivities in 2017. They said they were granted at least one similar exemption. once later in Mr. Trump’s presidency to travel on the Sabbath.

During Bill Clinton’s 1999 impeachment trial, then-Connecticut senator Joseph I. Lieberman, who is a practicing Jew, walked four miles from his Georgetown apartment to Capitol Hill to sit as a juror. Because Jewish law teaches that the Sabbath can be broken if the matter involves “concern for human life,” Mr. Lieberman, in consultation with his rabbis, developed his own rule that he refrained from campaign or conduct any strictly political activity on the Sabbath, but would attend Senate sessions and vote, if necessary.

However, he did not ride in a car or an elevator, in accordance with a restriction stemming from a ban on creating sparks and fires.

Mr Schoen’s request will now have to be heeded with decades-old impeachment trial rules and the Senate’s timetable, work habits and policy. The rules say the Senate should meet Monday through Saturday for impeachment trials and only take a break on Sunday, the schedule that was followed in Mr. Trump’s last trial and that of Mr. Clinton’s.