Tag: Trump Senate impeachment Trial

Trump impeachment trial to begin week of Feb. 8

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The Senate will start President Trump‘s second impeachment trial during the week of Feb. 8, Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) announced on Friday.

“Both the House managers and the defense will have a period of time to draft their legal briefs just as they did in previous trials. … Once the briefs are drafted, the presentation by the parties will commence the week of Feb. 8,” Schumer said from the Senate floor.

Schumer’s announcement comes after he disclosed earlier Friday that the House article of impeachment will be delivered to the Senate on Monday. Continue reading.

‘We’re ready to go’: Trump legal team readies for Senate trial’s start

But they are unsure whether the want to bring in the president’s top House allies.

President Donald Trump’s lawyers have their strategy in place for the upcoming Senate impeachment trial. All they need now is a start date.

Coordinating over the past month, the White House counsel’s office and the president’s team of private lawyers have prepared a detailed legal brief pushing back against last month’s House-passed impeachment articles that seek Trump’s removal from office for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

That document, according to a person familiar with the Trump legal strategy, is modeled after one that President Bill Clinton’s lawyers submitted at the start of his 1999 Senate impeachment trial — which ended a month later with his acquittal. Continue reading.

 

Ten senators to watch on Trump impeachment trial

The Hill logoAs the impeachment spotlight shifts to the Senate, several senators are emerging as early pivotal players as Washington gears up for President Trump’s trial. 

The rules, where a simple majority can make or break decisions, could throw a curveball into the looming procedural fights that will determine what the trial looks like. Democrats will need four GOP senators to successfully call a witness or request documents, and only three GOP senators to block a Republican motion.

A handful of senators in both parties will be under the microscope during the proceeding as the press — and leadership — look for areas where members might break ranks. Continue reading

Impeachment Trial Looming, Chief Justice Reflects on Judicial Independence

New York Times logoChief Justice John Roberts’s year-end report on the judiciary praised civics education, but it was not hard to detect a timely subtext that appeared to be addressed to President Trump.

WASHINGTON — As Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. prepares to preside over the impeachment trial of President Trump, he issued pointed remarks on Tuesday in his year-end report on the state of the federal judiciary that seemed to be addressed, at least in part, to the president himself.

The two men have a history of friction, and Chief Justice Roberts used the normally mild report to denounce false information spread on social media and to warn against mob rule. Some passages could be read as a mission statement for the chief justice’s plans for the impeachment trial itself.

“We should reflect on our duty to judge without fear or favor, deciding each matter with humility, integrity and dispatch,” he wrote in the report. “As the new year begins, and we turn to the tasks before us, we should each resolve to do our best to maintain the public’s trust that we are faithfully discharging our solemn obligation to equal justice under law.” Continue reading