The Senate Tuesday convened for the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump and will begin with a debate and vote on whether it is constitutional to try to convict an ex-president.
The nine House impeachment managers entered the chamber after all 100 senators filed into the room and were seated for what is expected to be a trial lasting one week or more.
The House voted to impeach Trump on Jan. 13 for inciting an insurrection that provoked the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. But Tuesday’s debate will center solely on whether the now-ex president can be convicted.
The debate on the constitutionality of the trial is expected to last up to four hours, and the vote may mirror one taken last month in which 45 Republicans voted not to proceed to a trial on the grounds that Trump has now left office and as a private citizen is no longer under the Senate’s jurisdiction.
Lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, will open the arguments on behalf of the prosecution along with Democratic Reps. David Cicilline of Rhode Island and Joe Neguse of Colorado.
The trial is already shaping up to be much different than Trump’s 2020 impeachment trial, which lasted three weeks and resulted in his acquittal on corruption and obstruction of Congress charges.
Democratic leaders want the trial to wrap up quickly and are not eager to summon witnesses, but other Democratic senators say they believe witnesses will help convince Republicans of the severity of the charge against Trump, who they say prompted an angry throng of his supporters to push their way violently into the Capitol last month as part of a protest to contest the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory.
“We’ll get to the truth, and one of the ways to get to the truth in a trial is for witnesses with relevant information to testify under oath,” said Sen. Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat.
Senior Democratic aides with the impeachment team told reporters Tuesday the Democratic impeachment managers plan to deliver their impeachment case “like a violent crime prosecution” against the former president.
Democrats are expected to defeat the effort by Trump’s lawyers to end the trial over constitutional grounds.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, told reporters Tuesday the trial “is obviously constitutional.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, told fellow party lawmakers in a letter Tuesday that the House will begin crafting a COVID-19 aid package while the impeachment managers and Senate Democrats try to convict Trump.
“Today is an important day in the life of our Country,” Pelosi said. “In the Senate, our House Managers, under Congressman Jamie Raskin’s leadership, will be defending the Constitution and our Democracy.”
