Tag: Trump impeachment

McConnell: Senate impeachment trial to start next Tuesday

The Hill logoSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says the Senate will begin debating an organizing resolution to start the Senate trial on Tuesday of next week.

The GOP leader said Chief Justice John Roberts will swear in senators as jurors this week, before the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

McConnell said the House is expected to send over articles of impeachment on Wednesday and that the Senate will then have to go through a series of preliminary steps and housekeeping measures. Continue reading.

Senate Impeachment Trial Must Include All Important Evidence

Center for American Progress logoIn impeaching President Donald Trump, the U.S. House of Representatives uncovered overwhelming evidence that Trump extorted a foreign government to interfere in the 2020 election. The House did so even though Trump engaged in unprecedented obstruction of Congress by blocking critically important witnesses and documents, circumstances that underlay the House’s second impeachment article. Now, as the U.S. Senate begins the trial phase of impeachment proceedings, every senator must make a crucial decision: recklessly support the president’s obstruction or uphold their oaths under the U.S. Constitution.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) made a reasonable request that the Senate obtain a limited set of additional firsthand evidence and testimony from persons directly involved in Trump’s scheme. Yet, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) seems intent on beginning the Senate impeachment trial without committing to require witnesses and relevant documents that have been withheld by the Trump administration. It is very possible that at no time will majority party senators impose this requirement, and they have offered no substantive reason why this evidence would be unnecessary here.

This is an untenable position. The Senate should see all available, relevant evidence rather than willfully avoid finding out information that President Trump’s supporters fear will damage him. Continue reading.

Pelosi says Trump ‘impeached for life’ despite McConnell’s ‘gamesmanship,’ ‘coverup’

Washington Post logoHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sunday that President Trump is“impeached for life” regardless of “any gamesmanship” by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), whom she accused of orchestrating a “coverup” of Trump’s actions as the Senate waits for the House to transmit the articles of impeachment.

Challenging McConnell to hold a serious trial that includes testimony from witnesses, Pelosi did not rule out the possibility that the House would subpoena former national security adviser John Bolton if the Senate chooses not to. She repeatedly chastised McConnell for signaling that he is not interested in fully weighing the House’s charges.

“Dismissing is a coverup. Dismissing is a coverup. If they want to go that route again, the senators who are thinking now about voting for witnesses or not — they will have to be accountable for not having a fair trial,” Pelosi said on ABC News’s “This Week.” Continue reading.

Roberts would hold the gavel, but not the power, at Trump impeachment trial

The chief justice is likely to punt contentious and political questions to lawmakers

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. will preside over any impeachment trial of President Donald Trump as the Constitution requires, but don’t expect him to make decisions that substantively reshape the action.

Although there is speculation about how active a role Roberts will take in an impeachment trial and whether key witnesses testify, the Senate under past rules has given relatively little authority to the nation’s top judicial figure. And in the areas Roberts might have authority to make rulings, such as questions about whether evidence is relevant, the rules also allow the Senate to call for a vote to overrule him anyway.

Also, past impeachment trial rules, such as those for President Bill Clinton in 1999, give the chief justice the ability to defer making a ruling on his own and instead put a question to a Senate vote. Continue reading.

Even after the Senate trial begins, the House could still add more impeachment articles

The 1936 impeachment of a Florida federal judge outlines the process for adding new charges

House Democrats are preparing to send two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate, but they still could add more — even after the Senate trial begins.

If the House managers appointed next week found evidence to support additional articles of impeachment against the president, whether from potential witness testimony on the Senate floor or through other means, they could march back across the Capitol and seek an amended impeachment article resolution on the House floor.

While there is no reason to suspect House Democrats would add new charges, a precedent referenced in Jefferson’s Manual from the 1936 judicial impeachment of Halsted L. Ritter, who had been a federal judge based in Palm Beach County, Florida, appears to give them that power. Continue reading.

Democrats brace for round two of impeachment witness fight

The Hill logoSenate Democrats are preparing for round two in the fight over impeachment trial witnesses.

Now that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has won round one, saying he has the 51 votes needed to start President Trump’s impeachment trial without an agreement on potential testimony, Democrats are vowing they will force votes at multiple points during the trial.

The strategy sets up key junctures to watch during the likely weeks-long trial that, Democrats hope, keeps pressure on a handful of GOP senators they will need to win any of the looming procedural battles. Continue reading.

Trump Faces the Ghosts of Presidents Past

It’s as if Trump took some of the biggest challenges that plagued former presidents and mushed them into a big, politically explosive ball.

A LOOMING SENATE TRIAL after a legacy-staining impeachment. Fights with Congress over the power of the executive to use military force without lawmakers’ express approval. Keeping Iran nuclear-free.

The ghosts of presidencies past are haunting President Donald Trump, who is grappling at once with several political and foreign policy crises that individually consumed the attention of previous presidents. And on top of it, Trump has to juggle them all as he seeks re-election in a deeply polarized political environment.

Trump returned from a two-week holiday stay at his Mar-a-Lago resort to a maelstrom of problems – some of them arguably self-created, his critics note. The GOP-led Senate, which is widely expected to acquit Trump of the two articles of impeachment approved by the Democratic-run House in December, was still feuding with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat who is still holding up the formal action until she sees what kind of trial the Senate plans to conduct. Continue reading.

McConnell tells GOP senators to expect impeachment trial next week

The Hill logoSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told Republicans during a closed-door lunch on Thursday to expect President Trump’s impeachment trial to start next week. 

Three GOP senators said the Republican leader warned lawmakers during the caucus meeting that they should not expect to be able to go home next weekend, indicating that the long-delayed trial will be underway.

Proceedings have been held up while Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has refused to send over the House-passed articles of impeachment, but she told reporters earlier Thursday that she would “soon” do so. Continue reading.

McConnell backs changing Senate rules over Pelosi impeachment delay

Axios logoSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has signed onto a resolution by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) seeking to change the rules of the Senate to dismiss articles of impeachment if they are not transmitted within 25 days of their approval — in this case, Jan. 12.

Why it matters: The constitutionality of such a move, which 12 other co-sponsors have signed onto, is not clear. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reiterated on Thursday that she is waiting to see what the Senate trial will look like before she names impeachment managers and transmits the articles.

  • McConnell has said he has the GOP votes to approve a resolution on trial rules without support from Democrats, and he has repeatedly criticized Pelosi for attempting to interfere with the Senate process.
  • The Senate would require a two-thirds majority in order to change the rules, unless McConnell were to invoke the “nuclear option” and decide the issue by a simple majority vote. Continue reading.

George Conway and Neal Katyal educate Mitch McConnell on how to hold a real impeachment trial — and explain why John Bolton must testify

AlterNet logoAttorneys George Conway and Neal Katyal have written an editorial for the New York Times in which they call on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to stop trying to protect President Donald Trump and hold a real impeachment trial in the Senate.

In particular, the editorial hammers McConnell for declaring that there’s no chance Trump will be removed from office before hearing former national security adviser John Bolton’s testimony.

“Remember that the diplomat Fiona Hill testified at the House impeachment hearings that Mr. Bolton called the pressuring of Ukraine by the administration a ‘drug deal’ and said he wanted no part of it,” they write. “Mr. Bolton himself has said that he possesses new information that has not been revealed. He even gave a speech saying that some of Mr. Trump’s foreign policy decisions were made in his self-interest, not in the interest of the American people.” Continue reading.