Trump’s impeachment trial may conclude on Saturday

over 4 years in The Irish Times

Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial could conclude on Saturday.
This leaves a divided US Senate to decide whether the former president incited his supporters to attack the US Capitol on January 6th in a last-ditch effort to stay in power after his November election defeat.
Mr Trump is the first US president to be impeached twice and the first to face trial after leaving office. If convicted, the Senate could then vote to bar him from running for office again.
Conviction is seen as unlikely, however, as at least 17 Republicans in the 100-seat chamber would have to join all 50 Democrats to find the former president guilty.
Only six Republicans voted with Democrats to move forward with the trial, rejecting an argument made by other Republican senators that the constitution does not allow Congress to impeach a president who has already left office.
The Senate is due to convene at 10am (3pm Irish time), and a final vote could come in the afternoon.
The trial has highlighted the extraordinary danger politicians faced on January 6th, when Mr Trump urged his followers to march to the Capitol and “get wild” in an effort to prevent lawmakers from certifying his defeat to Democrat Joe Biden in the presidential election. Five people died in the chaos.
Security-camera footage shown at the trial showed rioters came perilously close to lawmakers as they were evacuated from the Senate and the House of Representatives.
House Democrats making the case for impeachment have argued that Mr Trump set the stage for violence through repeated – and baseless – claims that the election results were fraudulent. They say he summoned the mob to Washington, gave the crowd its marching orders and did nothing to stop the violence as it played out on television.
Mr Trump’s defence lawyers have argued that Mr Trump’s activity was allowable under free-speech protections in the US constitution.
As many as 10 Republicans could find Mr Trump guilty, according to a Senate aide, which would still be short of the 67 votes needed for conviction. Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, who reprimanded Mr Trump after the January 6th attack, remains a question mark.– Reuters

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