Raskin: We Defended Our House
From CNN’s Josiah Ryan
Lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin hailed Democrats’ efforts to convict former President Trump as the “most bipartisan presidential impeachment in the history of the United States,” and said Democrats successfully defended Congress from Trump’s attack.
“Trump stormed our House with the mob he incited and we defended our House,” said Raskin. “He violated out Constitution and we defended the Constitution.”
“They tried to trash our democracy and we revived it, and we protected,” he added.
Raskin then pointed to remarks made by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell shortly after the acquittal as proof that they had succeeded in making their argument.
“Senator Mitch McConnell just went to the floor, essentially to say that we made our case on the facts, that he believed that Donald Trump was practically and morally responsible for inciting the events of January 6th. He described it as we did, as a disgraceful dereliction of duty, a desertion of his office.”
Watch the moment here:
Conviction In The Senate Will Hinge On Republicans
At this point, there do not appear to be enough votes in the Senate to convict Trump in an impeachment trial: Sixty-seven votes, or two-thirds of the chamber, would be needed to make this happen.
That math means 17 Republicans would have to join with the 50-person Democratic caucus on a conviction vote, once newly elected Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia are seated. While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is reportedly pleased Democrats are impeaching Trump, according to the New York Times, no Senate Republicans have announced that theyll vote to convict the president yet. McConnell also recently told colleagues he has yet to make a final decision.
Sans sufficient GOP support for conviction, Trump would be acquitted much like he was during the previous impeachment process last year. In the first impeachment trial, Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah was the only Senate Republican to vote in favor of conviction.
Whether or not more Republicans are willing to do so this time around could have major implications for Trumps political future and that of other Republicans with presidential aspirations.
Thus far, Republicans have stopped short of backing a conviction, however. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Pat Toomey have called for Trumps resignation, while Sen. Ben Sasse has said hell consider the article of impeachment when the House sends it over.
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Raskin Almost Breaks Down Recalling His Familys Experience On January 6
ED KILGORE: Raskin closed the initial presentation of House impeachment managers on an emotional note, with his own experience from January 6, the day after he buried a 25-year-old son who had died by suicide. He brought two of his surviving kids with him to the Capitol on January 6. After receiving visits from colleagues from both parties who expressed sympathy for his loss, he and his family experienced the fear and horror of the attack. Barely controlling his voice, Raskin accused Trumps attorneys of inventing a January exception from the accountability normally afforded by impeachment in order to shield the former president.
I watched the first 2 hours of arguments inside the Senate chamber. The mood was very heavy & somber. Senators were slack-jawed during the opening video montage. And they were deeply moved by Raskin’s closing speech. A number came to thank him, mostly Democrats but Cotton as well
Jon Ward
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Not That Any Of It Matters To Nearly Half Of The Jurors
CNNs Manu Raju :
Roger Wicker just told me that Democrats sent a better team this time than 2020, calling them very eloquent. But he told me no nothing changed his mind on the constitutionality question. He thinks its not constitutional to try a former president. Heading into the trial this afternoon, some GOP senators said no matter what they heard minds wouldnt be changed. No, Ron Johnson said when asked if anything could change his mind. Is there anything that could change Democrats minds about the whole thing? Probably not.
Trump Rails Against Impeachment At Rally Held During Vote
Tonight, the House Democrats are trying to nullify the ballots of tens of millions of patriotic Americans,” he continued, later saying his predecessor, President Barack Obama, should have been the one facing that penalty. “Why didn’t the Republicans impeach him?” he asked.
Trump accused Democrats of “declaring their deep hatred and disdain for the American voter” and characterized their support for his impeachment as an “eternal mark of shame”: They have nothing. They’re the ones who should be impeached, every one of them.
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Impeachment Trial Of A Former President
There is precedent for impeaching and trying a federal official who already left office . In 1797, the House impeached Senator William Blount for conspiracy. The Senate tried him, even though it had already expelled him. In 1876, Secretary of War William W. Belknap resigned hours before the House voted for his impeachment on charges relating to his role in the trader post scandal, and the Senate proceeded to hold a trial, ruling by a vote of 3729 that it did have jurisdiction after a challenge by Belknap’s attorneys.
Before the trial began, most Republicans in the Senate argued that the Senate lacks the constitutional authority to conduct an impeachment trial of a former president. This argument was also made by former federal appellate judge J. Michael Luttig, as well as one of Trump’s lawyers at his first impeachment trial, Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, and law professor Jonathan Turley, who testified in Trump’s favor at his first trial.
Where Does The Senate Come In
The Senate is tasked with handling the impeachment trial, which is presided over by the chief justice of the United States in the case of sitting presidents. However, in this unusual case, since Trump is not a sitting president, the largely ceremonial task has been left to the Senate pro tempore, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the chamber’s most senior member of the majority party.
“The president pro tempore has historically presided over Senate impeachment trials of non-presidents,” Leahy said in a statement in January. “When presiding over an impeachment trial, the president pro tempore takes an additional special oath to do impartial justice according to the Constitution and the laws. It is an oath that I take extraordinarily seriously.”
To remove a president from office, two-thirds of the members must vote in favor at present 67 if all 100 senators are present and voting.
If the Senate fails to convict, a president is considered impeached but is not removed, as was the case with both Clinton in 1998 and Andrew Johnson in 1868. In Johnsons case, the Senate fell one vote short of removing him from office on all three counts.
In this trial, since the president has already left office, the real punishment would come if the president were to be convicted, when the Senate would be expected to vote on a motion to ban the former president from ever holding federal office again.
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Graham Wants The Senate Impeachment Trial To Be ‘as Short As Possible’
Graham also said he would push for a quick trial in the Senate, adding that he would not call witnesses being sought by Trump and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
“Well listen to the House case, allow the president to make comments through his legal team, then well vote, and the sooner the better for me,” Graham said.
“I’ve made up my mind about the accusations, Ive seen the transcripts,” he said, calling the testimony of Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and others “hearsay upon hearsay. I’ve never believed this was an impeachable offense.”
Nbc/wsj Poll: Public Remains Split On Trump’s Impeachment And Ouster From Office
Just hours before the U.S. House of Representatives is slated to vote on two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, a new national NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that the American public remains deadlocked reliably along party lines over whether he should be impeached and removed from office.
While that split suggests Trump will likely survive a Senate trial after an impeachment in the House a conviction requires a two-thirds vote and thus a sizable number of Republican senators the survey also finds that about half of all voters say they are certain to vote against the president next November.
And Trumps job approval rating is stuck in the low or mid-40s, where its been in the NBC/WSJ poll for most of the last two years.
President Donald Trump is not a fan of the impeachment proceedings, but a decade ago he said it would have been “wonderful” if Nancy Pelosi had impeached a Republican predecessor, George W. Bush.
In a 2008 interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, which went viral online on Wednesday, Trump said he was “surprised” Pelosi “didn’t do more in terms of Bush and going after Bush.”
“It just seemed like she was really going to look to impeach Bush and get him out of office. Which personally I think would have been a wonderful thing,” Trump said.
Blitzer responded, “To impeach him?”
“For the war,” Trump said. “For the war! Well, he lied! He got us into the war with lies!”
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“He built this mob over many months with repeated messaging until they believed that they had been robbed of their vote and they would do anything to stop the certification,” Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., said. “He made them believe that their victory was stolen and incited them so he could use them to steal the election for himself.”
The House managers made an intense presentation, often showing moments of both violence and heroism during the insurrection.
The video timeline the managers played showed how bad that day was, and how it could have been much worse. According to their argument, the rioters had been just 58 steps away from some senators. They showed previously unseen footage of Romney being stopped from going the wrong way toward the mob by Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman. They reiterated how close Vice President Mike Pence and his family were to danger when they were locked down within the same building where rioters were chanting to hang the vice president.
“The truth is, this attack never would have happened but for Donald Trump. And so they came, draped in Trump’s flag, and used our flag, the American flag to batter and to bludgeon,” Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., said. Another House manager, Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., made a similar argument, saying Trump “directed them here, to Congress. He quite literally, at one part of that speech, pointed at us.”
Donald Trump Impeachment Trial: What You Need To Know
Senate trial began on Tuesday for ex-president charged with incitement of insurrection over Capitol riot
Donald Trumps unprecedented second impeachment trial began on Tuesday 9 February in the Senate. He is the first US president to be impeached twice, and it is the first time an impeachment trial has been held against a former president. The trial will hear allegations that he committed high crimes and misdemeanors before leaving office.
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Invoking The 25th Amendment
On the evening of January 6, CBS News reported that Cabinet members were discussing invoking the 25th Amendment. The ten Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, led by U.S. Representative David Cicilline, sent a letter to Pence to “emphatically urge” him to invoke the 25th Amendment and declare Trump “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office”, claiming that he incited and condoned the riots. For invocation, Pence and at least eight Cabinet members, forming a simple majority, would have to consent. Additionally, if challenged by Trump, the second invocation would maintain Pence as acting president, subject to a vote of approval in both houses of Congress, with a two-thirds supermajority necessary in each chamber to sustain. However, Congress would not have needed to act before January 20 for Pence to remain acting president until Biden was inaugurated, per the timeline described in Section 4.
On the same day, the House of Representatives voted to call for Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment. The resolution passed with 223 in favor, 205 against, and 5 not voting Adam Kinzinger was the only Republican to join a unified Democratic Caucus.
Process For Impeachment And Conviction
The following two charts show the process for impeachment, which begins in the U.S. House with the introduction of an impeachment resolution and a committee inquiry conducted by the United States House Committee on the Judiciary. If the committee adopts articles of impeachment against the official, the articles will go to a full floor vote in the U.S. House.
When articles of impeachment are adopted by the U.S. House, the process moves to the U.S. Senate where senators will either acquit or convict the official following a trial.
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First Impeachment Of Donald Trump
| First impeachment of Donald Trump | |
|---|---|
| Members of House of Representatives vote on two articles of impeachment | |
| Accused | Donald Trump, President of the United States |
| Proponents | |
| Outcome | Acquitted by the U.S. Senate, remained in the office of President of the United States |
| Charges | |
| Voting in the U.S. Senate | |
| Accusation | Article I Abuse of power |
| Votes in favor | |
| Acquitted | |
| Accusation | Article II Obstruction of Congress |
| Votes in favor |
| A request by U.S. President Donald Trump to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate Joe Biden and his son sparked the scandal. |
| Events |
|---|
Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, was impeached for the first time by the House of Representatives of the 116th United States Congress on December 18, 2019. The House adopted two articles of impeachment against Trump: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Senate acquitted Trump of these charges on February 5, 2020.
Two days after the acquittal, Trump fired two witnesses who had testified about his conduct in the impeachment inquiry: Ambassador Gordon Sondland and Alexander Vindman, together with Vindman’s twin brother Yevgeny.
First Read: Impeachment Caps A Dark And Dysfunctional Decade In American Politics
Chuck Todd, Mark Murray and Carrie Dann
Its only fitting that the decade is coming to an end with an impeachment vote against the president of the United States, because its been a dark 10 years in American politics.
And its gotten progressively worse, especially in the last three years.
Consider this timeline of controversy, gridlock, outrage and resentment in our politics. Add them all up, and its easily the darkest decade in politics since the 1960s. And think of anyone in their 20s right now its all theyve seen.
Get more of First Read here and here.
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, whose panel led the investigation into Trump’s Ukraine dealings at the center of Democrats’ abuse of power argument, joked Wednesday that the passage of President Donald Trump’s scorched-earth letter that focused on Schiff was “probably the nicest thing” Trump had “to say about me” in some time.
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Former President Donald Trump Acquitted In 2nd Impeachment Trial
Donald Trump is the only U.S. president to be impeached twice.
Exactly a month and a week after insurrectionists incited a riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, former President Donald Trump‘s second impeachment trial came to a climactic end on Saturday afternoon, with Trump being acquitted for his alleged role of inciting the deadly event. A majority of senators voted to convict the former president, but failed to reach the super majority threshold needed for a conviction.
“This has been yet another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our Country. No president has ever gone through anything like it, and it continues because our opponents cannot forget the almost 75 million people, the highest number ever for a sitting president, who voted for us just a few short months ago,” Trump said in a statement.
“Our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun. In the months ahead I have much to share with you, and I look forward to continuing our incredible journey together to achieve American greatness for all of our people. There has never been anything like it!” the statement continued.
Drama ensued on the Senate floor Saturday morning when senators voted to hear from witnesses. However, after a roughly one-hour recess, the Senate determined no witnesses would be called, and opted instead to admit into evidence written testimony from Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash.
Trial Expected To Go Late
ED KILGORE: There were rumors, and probably false hopes, that after yesterdays rout, House impeachment managers might give up a big chunk of their 16 hours of argument time over the next two days, providing a more manageable schedule for all involved. Chuck Schumers notice at the beginning of todays trial session that the Senate planned to take a 45-minute dinner break tonight was not a good sign for an early adjournment.
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