It’s on track to be the trial of the century: President Donald Trump fighting to keep his job before a jury of 100 senators. Sure, it would be an unprecedented move in U.S. history for Republican leader Mitch McConnell to table Trump impeachment proceedings without allowing any significant debate or
It’s on track to be the trial of the century: President Donald Trump fighting to keep his job before a jury of 100 senators.That’s because of a Constitution that designates the Senate with the “sole power to try” an impeachment that comes from the House. But nowhere in America’s founding document is the trial said to be a mandatory act.
“You’re going to start hearing that argument and much more loudly, because we’re not too far away from the moment when voters start voting,” said Michael Steel, a longtime GOP operative and aide to former House Speaker John Boehner. “You’ve got to make the case why it matters and why it rises to the level of removing an elected president of the United States from the White House.”
“Up to the Senate,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said in an email. “No way to force them to act.”For most senators, the default answer on pretty much every impeachment question in the Trump era has been to punt. It’s too speculative, they frequently say, even when presented with the details of something the president has done that House Democrats are willing to declare has crossed a line worthy of his removal.
“I trust Mitch McConnell to run the Senate, so I’m sure he would operate in a procedurally appropriate manner,” said Oklahoma GOP Rep. Tom Cole. “But institutionally, if the House votes to impeach, I don’t see how you ignore a trial in the Senate. But, again, I trust his judgment.” In 1797, Sen. William Blount of Tennessee became the first federal official to face impeachment proceedings, though he got expelled from the Senate before his colleagues could hold a trial against him. During President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment, the Senate voted to acquit Abraham Lincoln’s successor on three House-passed articles dealing with his handling of reconstruction after the Civil War. Then the chamber adjourned and never took up the other eight.
Lott’s Democratic counterpart, retired South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle, said in an email that he too leaned on his party’s top lawyer, Bob Bauer, for help interpreting the requirements to hold an impeachment trial. Bauer, who would go on to become White House counsel under Obama, earlier this year penned an analysis on the blog Lawfare on exactly this topic.
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