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US

Rand Paul calls Trump impeachment trial ‘dead on arrival’ after 45 GOP senators vote against it

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U.S. Sen. Rand Paul declared former President Trump’s Senate impeachment trial “dead on arrival” on Tuesday after 45 Senate Republicans voted against holding the proceeding, viewing it as unconstitutional.

Rand, a Kentucky Republican, had called for a procedural vote regarding holding a trial, claiming the Senate shouldn’t address the article of impeachment against Trump filed by the House this month because Trump is now out of office.

FORTY-FIVE REPUBLICANS VOTE AGAINST PROCEEDING WITH SENATE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL

If a trial were to proceed, Trump would become the first former president to face an impeachment trial.

In Paul’s view, the votes of 45 Republicans against holding a trial proved his point – and likely rendered any upcoming trial to be moot.

SEN. RAND PAUL CLASHES WITH ABC’S GEORGE STEPHANOPOLOUS: ‘YOU’RE FORGETTING WHO YOU ARE AS A JOURNALIST!’

“If you voted that it was unconstitutional, how in the world would you ever vote to convict somebody for this?” Paul told reporters after the vote, according to Politico. “This vote indicates it’s over. The trial is all over.”

Paul added in a Twitter message that the vote showed the House’s impeachment case – charging Trump with “inciting an insurrection” in connection with the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol – was “dead on arrival.”

On Tuesday night, during an appearance on “FOX News Primetime” with Maria Bartiromo,” Paul addressed what he saw as a double standard by Democrats.

“One of Bernie Sanders’ supporters came to the ballfield, nearly killed Steve Scalise … but nobody talked about impeaching Bernie Sanders. Maxine Waters has said, ‘Get up in their face’ — so has Cory Booker — ‘Become a mob, we want you to mob them at restaurants and cause mayhem.’ That sounds like an incitement to violence but nobody’s talking about impeaching Maxine Waters, nobody’s talking about impeaching Bernie Sanders or Cory Booker for saying ‘Get up in their face.’

“So it’s a significant hypocrisy and double standard that they’re putting forward and they should be called out on it. Nobody should be shy about calling them out on their hypocrisy.”

The only five GOP senators who supported placing Trump on trial were longtime critics of Trump — Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Mitt Romney of Utah. They voted along with 50 Democrats in the 55-45 tally.

In floor marks ahead of the vote, Paul also claimed that the absence of the chief justice of the Supreme Court also made a Senate impeachment trial unconstitutional. Chief Justice John Roberts said he would not preside over the trial because Trump was no longer president.

RAND PAUL TO TRIGGER SENATE VOTE ON WHETHER TRUMP IMPEACHMENT TRIAL IS CONSTITUTIONAL

“Impeachment is for removal from office and the accused here has already left office,” Paul had argued prior to the procedural vote. “Hyper-partisan Democrats are about to drag our great country into the gutter of rancor and vitriol the likes of which has never been seen in our nation’s history.”

He also claimed a Senate impeachment trial would be “the antithesis of unity” in a nation seeking healing after years of partisan division.

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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., argued that Paul’s assessment of the situation was “flat-out wrong,” claiming it had already been “completely debunked by constitutional scholars all across the political spectrum.” Article 1 Section 3 of the Constitution states that officials can be barred from holding office ever again through impeachment, Schumer said. 

The House voted to impeach Trump on Jan. 13, one week after rioters stormed the Capitol following a nearby Trump rally on the day that Congress was gathering to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s Dec. 14 Electoral College victory. The vote was delayed but resumed later that night, after rioters were cleared out of the Capitol.

Fox News’ Morgan Phillips contributed to this story.

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US

Biden tells CNN Trump’s impeachment trial ‘has to happen’

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Biden made the comment during a brief one-on-one interview with CNN in the halls of the West Wing. He acknowledged the effect it could have on his legislative agenda and Cabinet nominees but said there would be “a worse effect if it didn’t happen.”

Biden told CNN he believed the outcome would be different if Trump had six months left in his term, but said he doesn’t think 17 Republican senators will vote to convict Trump.

“The Senate has changed since I was there, but it hasn’t changed that much,” Biden said.

The House impeachment managers formally triggered the start of Trump’s second impeachment trial Monday evening after they walked across the Capitol and began reading on the Senate floor the charge against Trump, the first president in history to be impeached twice.

The contours of Trump’s Senate trial are starting to take shape as the ceremonial elements get underway, with the Senate’s longest-serving Democrat expected to preside over the trial and Democrats still weighing whether to pursue witnesses during proceedings that could take up a chunk of February.

Chief Justice John Roberts will not be presiding like he did for Trump’s first impeachment trial, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Instead, Sen. Patrick Leahy, the president pro tempore of the Senate, is expected to preside, the sources said. The Constitution says the chief justice presides when the person facing trial is the current president of the United States, but senators preside in other cases, one source said.

As the fourth Senate impeachment trial of a president in US history gets underway, there are still two big looming questions over the Democrats’ impeachment case: Whether they will seek witnesses and how long the trial will take. The answers to both are still not known yet, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

This story is breaking and will be updated.

CNN’s Jeremy Herb and Manu Raju contributed to this report.

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US

Chief Justice John Roberts won’t preside over the Senate impeachment trial

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Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz at the US Capitol on December 18, 2019 in Washington, DC.  Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Department of Justice Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz on Monday announced that the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) is initiating “an investigation into whether any former or current DOJ official engaged in an improper attempt to have DOJ seek to alter the outcome of the 2020 Presidential Election,” according to a release.

The Office of the Inspector General said they were making this statement, consistent with DOJ policy, “to reassure the public that an appropriate agency is investigating the allegations.”

The probe comes on the heels of reports last week from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal that former President Donald Trump attempted to use his Justice Department to challenge the election results, an effort that included the possibility of Trump ousting then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen.

The Times said in a report published Friday that Jeffrey Clark, a lawyer for the DOJ, nearly convinced Trump earlier this month to remove Rosen and use the department to undo Georgia’s election results.

Clark  — who appealed to the former President’s false claims of election fraud  — met with Trump earlier in January and told Rosen following the meeting that the then-President was going to replace him with Clark. Clark would then move to keep Congress from certifying the election results in Biden’s favor, according to the paper.

Rosen demanded to hear the news straight from Trump, the Times said, and arranged a meeting on the evening of Jan. 3  — the same day that Trump’s call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which Trump pressured the state official to find enough votes for him to win Georgia, came to light.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called for Horowitz to launch a probe on Saturday, writing in a tweet that it was “unconscionable a Trump Justice Department leader would conspire to subvert the people’s will.”

 

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US

Trump faces a second impeachment trial. Here’s how it could be different from the first.

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Former President Trump has the dubious honor of being the only president to be impeached twice, and is also the first to face a trial after leaving office, so the Senate will enter into uncharted constitutional waters when the impeachment trial begins next month.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Friday evening that the impeachment trial for Mr. Trump would begin on February 8. The House impeachment managers will deliver the single article of impeachment to the Senate on Monday, January 25. Senators will be sworn in as members of the impeachment court the following day, on Tuesday, January 26.

Both the impeachment managers and Mr. Trump’s attorneys will each have time to deliver legal briefs stating their cases, before the trial formally begins two weeks after the article was first delivered to the Senate. The extra time allows for both sides to prepare their presentations, and lets senators continue to confirm President Biden’s cabinet nominees before all regular Senate business halts while a trial is conducted.

Even though senators participated in an impeachment trial for Mr. Trump barely a year ago — the president was acquitted on February 5, 2020 — the upcoming trial is shaping up to be very different from the first.

The House impeached Mr. Trump the first time on December 18, 2019, after several weeks of hearings. The two articles of impeachment charged him with “Abuse of Power” and “Obstruction of Congress.” The vote to impeach was divided almost entirely along partisan lines, with only one independent voting to impeach Mr. Trump, and three Democrats voting against impeachment on at least one article.

The impeachment proceedings in the House this year were a far faster and more bipartisan affair. Mr. Trump was impeached a second time one week after he urged supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn the election ahead of Congress’ scheduled counting of the Electoral College results January 6. Following his speech at the rally, a mob of pro-Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, resulting in the deaths of five people. Congress didn’t return to count the Electoral College votes for six hours, and several Republican lawmakers still voted to overturn the election results in Pennsylvania and Arizona.

The resolution to impeach Mr. Trump was brought to the House floor on January 11, with the House forgoing the traditional process of holding hearings and conducting an investigation into any wrongdoing. There was only one article of impeachment this time, charging Mr. Trump with “Incitement of Insurrection.” Ten Republicans joined all 222 Democrats in voting to impeach Mr. Trump, bringing the vote to 232 to 197.

After Mr. Trump was impeached in 2019, Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not announce the impeachment managers until January 15, 2020, nearly a month later. This year, Pelosi announced the impeachment managers on the same day as the vote to impeach Mr. Trump, January 13, 2021.

In 2020, senators were sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts as members of the impeachment court on January 16, and the trial began on Tuesday, January 21. Mr. Trump was acquitted almost exactly two weeks later, on February 5. Senator Mitt Romney, voted to convict the president one charge, “Abuse of Power,” the only Republican to vote to impeach Mr. Trump on either charge. 

This year’s trial is expected to be very different. Some Republicans have argued that it is unconstitutional to impeach a president who is no longer in office, but the Constitution does not specify whether a president needs to be in office to be impeached.

It is also unclear how long the second trial will last, or what evidence either side would choose to bring. Pelosi argued on Thursday that this impeachment trial would differ from Mr. Trump’s first impeachment trial, which was triggered by a call he made to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in 2019 urging Ukraine to investigate then-candidate Joe Biden. Mr. Trump defended his call to Zelensky as “perfect.”

“This year, the whole world bore witness to the President’s incitement, to the execution of his call to action, and the violence that was used,” Pelosi said. “I do see a big difference between something that we all witnessed versus what information you might need to substantiate an Article of Impeachment based on, large part, on a call that the President made and described as ‘perfect.'”

Mr. Trump’s legal team has yet to be officially announced, but one of his lawyers will be South Carolina attorney Butch Bowers, who has experience representing politicians embroiled in scandals.

Although the chief justice of the Supreme Court traditionally presides over an impeachment trial in accordance with the constitution, Roberts may not want to participate in a second impeachment trial against Mr. Trump. In that case, Vice President Kamala Harris would preside over the trial as president of the Senate, or, if she opts against doing so, Senate president pro tempore Patrick Leahy would preside.

A two-thirds majority of the Senate, 67 votes, is required to convict the president. Democrats hold 50 seats in the Senate, and it is unlikely they could garner support from 17 Republicans to convict Mr. Trump, particularly since he is no longer in office. However, more Republicans may vote to convict Mr. Trump than in 2020, as he has been harshly criticized by some GOP senators for encouraging violence among his supporters on January 6.

If Mr. Trump were convicted by the Senate, Congress would then vote on whether to bar him from seeking elected office again. Only a simple majority is needed to bar him from holding office.

Many Republicans argue that holding a trial after Mr. Trump has left office is divisive, but Democrats counter that it is necessary to hold an impeachment trial for Mr. Trump in order to show that a president must be accountable for his actions even in his last month of his term in office.

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US

Trump impeachment trial to begin week of Feb. 8

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Opening arguments in the Senate impeachment trial for Donald Trump over the Capitol riot will begin the week of Feb. 8, the first time a former president will face such charges after leaving office.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced the schedule Friday evening after reaching an agreement with Republicans, who had pushed for a delay to give Trump a chance to organize his legal team and prepare a defense on the sole charge of incitement of insurrection.

The February start date also allows the Senate more time to confirm President Joe Biden’s Cabinet nominations and consider his proposed $1.9 trillion COVID relief package — top priorities of the new White House agenda that could become stalled during trial proceedings.

“We all want to put this awful chapter in our nation’s history behind us,” Schumer said about the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol siege by a mob of pro-Trump supporters.

“But healing and unity will only come if there is truth and accountability. And that is what this trial will provide.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will send the article of impeachment late Monday, with senators sworn in as jurors Tuesday. But opening arguments will move to February.

Trump’s impeachment trial would be the first of a U.S. president no longer in office, an undertaking that his Senate Republican allies argue is pointless, and potentially even unconstitutional. Democrats say they have to hold Trump to account, even as they pursue Biden’s legislative priorities, because of the gravity of what took place — a violent attack on the U.S. Congress aimed at overturning an election.

If Trump is convicted, the Senate could vote to bar him from holding office ever again, potentially upending his chances for a political comeback.

The urgency for Democrats to hold Trump responsible was complicated by the need to put Biden’s government in place and start quick work on his coronavirus aid package.

“The more time we have to get up and running … the better,” Biden said Friday in brief comments to reporters.

Republicans were eager to delay the trial, putting distance between the shocking events of the siege and the votes that will test their loyalty to the former president who still commands voters’ attention.

Negotiations between Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell were complicated, as the two are also in talks over a power-sharing agreement for the Senate, which is split 50-50 but in Democratic control because Vice President Kamala Harris serves as a tie-breaking vote.

McConnell had proposed delaying the start and welcomed the agreement.

“Republicans set out to ensure the Senate’s next steps will respect former President Trump’s rights and due process, the institution of the Senate, and the office of the presidency,” said McConnell spokesman Doug Andres. “That goal has been achieved.”

Pelosi said Friday the nine House impeachment managers, or prosecutors, are “ready to begin to make their case” against Trump. Trump’s team will have had the same amount of time since the House impeachment vote to prepare, Pelosi said.

Democrats say they can move quickly through the trial, potentially with no witnesses, because lawmakers experienced the insurrection first-hand.

One of the managers, California Rep. Ted Lieu, said Friday that Democrats would rather be working on policy right now, but “we can’t just ignore” what happened on Jan. 6.

“This was an attack on our Capitol by a violent mob,” Lieu said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It was an attack on our nation instigated by our commander in chief. We have to address that and make sure it never happens again.”

Trump, who told his supporters to “fight like hell” just before they invaded the Capitol two weeks ago and interrupted the electoral vote count, is still assembling his legal team.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Friday deferred to Congress on timing for the trial and would not say whether Biden thinks Trump should be convicted. But she said lawmakers can simultaneously discuss and have hearings on Biden’s coronavirus relief package.

“We don’t think it can be delayed or it can wait, so they’re going to have to find a path forward,” Psaki said of the virus aid. “He’s confident they can do that.”

Democrats would need the support of at least 17 Republicans to convict Trump, a high bar. While most Republican senators condemned Trump’s actions that day, far fewer appear to be ready to convict.

A handful of Senate Republicans have indicated they are open — but not committed — to conviction. But most have come to Trump’s defense as it relates to impeachment, saying they believe a trial will be divisive and questioning the legality of trying a president after he has left office.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally who has been helping him find lawyers, said Friday there is “a very compelling constitutional case” on whether Trump can be impeached after his term — an assertion Democrats reject, saying there is ample legal precedent. Graham also suggested Republicans will argue Trump’s words on Jan. 6 were not legally “incitement.”

“On the facts, they’ll be able to mount a defense, so the main thing is to give him a chance to prepare and run the trial orderly, and hopefully the Senate will reject the idea of pursuing presidents after they leave office,” Graham said.

Other Republicans had stronger words, suggesting there should be no trial at all. Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso said Pelosi is sending a message to Biden that “my hatred and vitriol of Donald Trump is so strong that I will stop even you and your Cabinet from getting anything done.” Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson suggested Democrats are choosing “vindictiveness” over national security as Biden attempts to set up his government.

McConnell, who said this week that Trump “provoked” his supporters before the riot, has not said how he will vote. He said Senate Republicans “strongly believe we need a full and fair process where the former president can mount a defense and the Senate can properly consider the factual, legal and constitutional questions.”

Trump, the first president to be impeached twice, is at a disadvantage compared with his first impeachment trial, in which he had the full resources of the White House counsel’s office to defend him. Graham helped Trump hire South Carolina attorney Butch Bowers after members of his past legal teams indicated they did not plan to join the new effort.

___

Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani in Washington, Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, and Jill Colvin in West Palm Beach, Florida, contributed to this report.

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World

Beny Steinmetz, a Mining Magnate, Found Guilty in Swiss Corruption Trial

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GENEVA — A Swiss court on Friday convicted the French-Israeli mining magnate Beny Steinmetz on charges of corrupting foreign public officials and forging documents, in a trial over his successful bid to reap lavish iron ore resources in the West African nation of Guinea.

Mr. Steinmetz, one of the richest people in Israel, was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay a $56.5 million fine.

The case centered on alleged payouts of millions of dollars to a former wife of an ex-president of Guinea, Lansana Conté, who died in 2008. The trial exposed the shady and complex world of deal-making and cutthroat competition in the lucrative mining business.

His defense lawyer, Marc Bonnant, said he would “immediately” appeal the ruling. Mr. Bonnant said his client had not given “a single dollar” to any official of the Guinea regime during Mr. Conté’s presidency.

The prosecutor, Yves Bertossa, told reporters he was “satisfied” with the verdict, and the Swiss transparency group Public Eye hailed a “landmark ruling.”

“This conviction of a high-profile business figure not only sends a strong signal to the commodities sector as a whole, but also demonstrates the vital need for Switzerland to finally remedy the legal loopholes that allow such predatory practices,” it said.

Mr. Steinmetz, 64, denied the charges, which date to the mid-2000s and involved his company, BSG Resources, squeezing out a rival for mining rights to vast iron ore deposits in the Simandou region of Guinea.

The Geneva prosecutor’s office alleged that Mr. Steinmetz and two other defendants engaged in corruption of foreign officials and falsification of documents to hide from authorities and banks the paying of bribes. Some of the funds allegedly transited through Switzerland — and the case has been investigated in Europe, Africa and the United States.

The Swiss prosecutor’s office said Mr. Steinmetz, starting in 2005, crafted a pact of corruption with Mr. Conté, who ruled the West African country from 1984 until his death, and his fourth wife, Mamadie Touré, involving the payment of nearly $10 million.

In its court filing, the prosecutor’s office said BSG Resources won exploration and exploitation licenses in Guinea between 2006 and 2010 in the Simandou region, and that its competitor — the Anglo-Australian mining group Rio Tinto — was deprived of the concessions it had held until then in that region.

In 2014, the Guinean government, after a review launched by the democratically elected president, Alpha Condé, accused Mr. Steinmetz’s company of corruption, paying millions of dollars through a representative to Ms. Touré.

Civil society organizations have lobbied for proposals that would add accountability for businesses headquartered in Switzerland for their actions abroad. One such proposal, which would have held companies based in Switzerland liable for human rights violations and environmental damage committed by subsidiaries abroad, failed in a referendum last year.

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Health

Low-Fat, Plant-Based Diet Compared to Low-Carb, Animal-Based Diet in Clinical Trial – Here Are the Results

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People on a low-fat, plant-based diet ate fewer daily calories but had higher insulin and blood glucose levels, compared to when they ate a low-carbohydrate, animal-based diet, according to a small but highly controlled study at the National Institutes of Health. Led by researchers at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), the study compared the effects of the two diets on calorie intake, hormone levels, body weight, and more. The findings, published today (January 21, 2021) in Nature Medicine, broaden understanding of how restricting dietary carbohydrates or fats may impact health.

“High-fat foods have been thought to result in excess calorie intake because they have many calories per bite. Alternatively, high-carb foods can cause large swings in blood glucose and insulin that may increase hunger and lead to overeating,” said NIDDK Senior Investigator Kevin Hall, Ph.D., the study’s lead author. “Our study was designed to determine whether high-carb or high-fat diets result in greater calorie intake.”

The researchers housed 20 adults without diabetes for four continuous weeks in the NIH Clinical Center’s Metabolic Clinical Research Unit. The participants, 11 men and nine women, received either a plant-based, low-fat diet or an animal-based, low-carbohydrate diet for two weeks, immediately followed by two weeks on the alternate diet. The low-fat diet was high in carbohydrates. The low-carbohydrate diet was high in fats. Both diets were minimally processed and had equivalent amounts of non-starchy vegetables. The participants were given three meals a day, plus snacks, and could eat as much as desired.

Examples of dinners given to study participants: low-carb, animal-based diet (left) and low-fat, plant-based diet (right). Credit: Amber Courville and Paule Joseph, NIH

The main results showed that people on the low-fat diet ate 550 to 700 fewer calories per day than when they ate the low-carb diet. Despite the large differences in calorie intake, participants reported no differences in hunger, enjoyment of meals, or fullness between the two diets. Participants lost weight on both diets, but only the low-fat diet led to a significant loss of body fat.

“Despite eating food with an abundance of high glycemic carbohydrates that resulted in pronounced swings in blood glucose and insulin, people eating the plant-based, low-fat diet showed a significant reduction in calorie intake and loss of body fat, which challenges the idea that high-carb diets per se lead people to overeat. On the other hand, the animal-based, low-carb diet did not result in weight gain despite being high in fat,” said Hall.

These findings suggest that the factors that result in overeating and weight gain are more complex than the amount of carbs or fat in one’s diet. For example, Hall’s laboratory showed in 2019 that a diet high in ultra-processed food led to overeating and weight gain in comparison to a minimally processed diet matched for carbs and fat.   

The plant-based, low-fat diet contained 10.3% fat and 75.2% carbohydrate, while the animal-based, low-carb diet was 10% carbohydrate and 75.8% fat. Both diets contained about 14% protein and were matched for total calories presented to the subjects, although the low-carb diet had twice as many calories per gram of food than the low-fat diet. On the low-fat menu, dinner might consist of a baked sweet potato, chickpeas, broccoli and oranges, while a low-carb dinner might be beef stir fry with cauliflower rice. Subjects could eat what and however much they chose of the meals they were given.

“Interestingly, our findings suggest benefits to both diets, at least in the short-term. While the low-fat, plant-based diet helps curb appetite, the animal-based, low-carb diet resulted in lower and more steady insulin and glucose levels,” Hall said. “We don’t yet know if these differences would be sustained over the long term.”

The researchers note that the study was not designed to make diet recommendations for weight loss, and results may have been different if participants were actively trying to lose weight. Further, all meals were prepared and provided for participants in an inpatient setting, which may make results difficult to repeat outside the lab, where factors such as food costs, food availability, and meal preparation constraints can make adherence to diets challenging. The tightly controlled clinical environment, however, ensured objective measurement of food intake and accuracy of data.

“To help us achieve good nutrition, rigorous science is critical − and of particular importance now, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, as we aim to identify strategies to help us stay healthy,” said NIDDK Director Griffin P. Rodgers, M.D. “This study brings us closer to answering long-sought questions about how what we eat affects our health.”

Reference: “Effect of a plant-based, low-fat diet versus an animal-based, ketogenic diet on ad libitum energy intake” by Kevin D. Hall, Juen Guo, Amber B. Courville, James Boring, Robert Brychta, Kong Y. Chen, Valerie Darcey, Ciaran G. Forde, Ahmed M. Gharib, Isabelle Gallagher, Rebecca Howard, Paule V. Joseph, Lauren Milley, Ronald Ouwerkerk, Klaudia Raisinger, Irene Rozga, Alex Schick, Michael Stagliano, Stephan Torres, Mary Walter, Peter Walter, Shanna Yang and Stephanie T. Chung, 21 January 2021, Nature Medicine.
DOI: 10.1038/s41591-020-01209-1

The research was supported by the NIDDK Intramural Research Program. Additional NIH support came from the National Institute of Nursing Research under grant 1Z1ANR000035-01.



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US

Mitch McConnell proposes delaying Trump’s impeachment trial | Trump impeachment (2021)

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The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, is proposing to push back the start of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial by a week or more to give the former president time to review the case.

House Democrats who voted to impeach Trump last week for inciting the 6 January Capitol attack have signaled they want a quick trial as President Joe Biden begins his term, saying a full reckoning is necessary before the country – and the Congress – can move on.

But McConnell told his fellow GOP senators on a call Thursday that a short delay would give Trump time to prepare and stand up his legal team, ensuring due process.

The Indiana senator Mike Braun said after the call that the trial might not begin “until sometime mid-February”. He said that was “due to the fact that the process as it occurred in the House evolved so quickly, and that it is not in line with the time you need to prepare for a defense in a Senate trial”.

The timing will be set by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, who can trigger the start of the trial when she sends the House charges for “incitement of insurrection” to the Senate, and also by McConnell and the new Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, who are in negotiations over how to set up a 50-50 partisan divide in the Senate and the short-term agenda.

Schumer is in charge of the Senate, assuming the majority leader post after Democrats won two new Senate seats in Georgia and Vice-President Kamala Harris was sworn in on Wednesday. But with such a narrow divide, Republicans will have some say over the trial’s procedure.

Democrats are hoping to conduct the proceedings while also passing legislation that is a priority for Biden, including coronavirus relief, but they would need some cooperation from Senate Republicans to do that, as well.

Schumer told reporters on Thursday that he was still negotiating with McConnell on how to conduct the trial, “but make no mistake about it. There will be a trial, there will be a vote, up or down or whether to convict the president.”

Pelosi could send the article to the Senate as soon as Friday. Democrats say the proceedings should move quickly because they were all witnesses to the siege, many of them fleeing for safety as the rioters descended on the Capitol.

“It will be soon, I don’t think it will be long, but we must do it,” Pelosi said on Thursday. She said Trump did not deserve a “get out of jail card” for his historic second impeachment just because he has left office and Biden and others are calling for national unity.

‘The mob was fed lies’: McConnell blames Trump for Capitol attack – video

Without the White House counsel’s office to defend him – as it did in his first trial last year – Trump’s allies have been searching for lawyers to argue the former president’s case. Members of his past legal teams have indicated they do not plan to join the effort, but the South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham told GOP colleagues on Thursday that Trump was hiring the South Carolina attorney Butch Bowers, according to a person familiar with the call who was granted anonymity to discuss it. Bowers did not immediately respond to a message Thursday.

Prosecuting the House case will be Pelosi’s nine impeachment managers, who have been regularly meeting to discuss strategy. Pelosi said she would talk to them “in the next few days” about when the Senate might be ready for a trial, indicating the decision could stretch into next week.

Trump told thousands of supporters to “fight like hell” against the election results that Congress was certifying on 6 January just before an angry mob invaded the Capitol and interrupted the count. Five people, including a Capitol police officer, died in the mayhem, and the House impeached the outgoing president a week later, with 10 Republicans joining all Democrats in support.

Pelosi said it would be “harmful to unity” to forget that “people died here on January 6, the attempt to undermine our election, to undermine our democracy, to dishonor our Constitution”.

Following his first impeachment, Trump was acquitted by the Senate in February after his White House legal team, aided by his personal lawyers, aggressively fought the House charges that he had encouraged the president of Ukraine to investigate Biden in exchange for military aid. This time around, Pelosi noted, the House was not seeking to convict the president over private conversations but for a very public insurrection that they experienced themselves and that played out on live television.

“This year the whole world bore witness to the president’s incitement,” Pelosi said.

Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No 2 Senate Democrat, said it was still too early to know how long a trial would take, or if Democrats would want to call witnesses. But he said: “You don’t need to tell us what was going on with the mob scene – we were rushing down the staircase to escape.”

McConnell, who said this week that Trump had “provoked” his supporters before the riot, has not said how he will vote. He told his GOP colleagues that it would be a vote of conscience.

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US

McConnell wants to push Trump’s Senate impeachment trial to mid-February

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has proposed to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial should start in mid-February and laid out the preferred timing during a conference call with Republican colleagues on Thursday, according to multiple sources on the call.

Included in McConnell’s proposal is a deal to begin the Senate proceedings in February so that both sides can properly prepare for Trump’s second impeachment trial, according to multiple people on the call. Schumer could be open to this proposal, giving him more time to confirm President Joe Biden’s Cabinet nominees.

Sen. Mike Rounds who was on the call, said his understanding was that McConnell, R-Ky., briefed the conference before going to Schumer, D-N.Y.

“I think we know that we want to make sure that if the Democrats are going to do this impeachment, that the President has a right to due process. And in order to do that he has to prepare a case, they’ve got to set up the rules and so forth so I think it’d be very difficult to start before then,” Rounds, R-S.D., said.

Senator Mike Braun, R-Ind., also told NBC News that he thinks the trial could begin mid-February.

“Senate Republicans are strongly united behind the principle that the institution of the Senate, the office of the presidency, and former President Trump himself all deserve a full and fair process that respects his rights and the serious factual, legal, and constitutional questions at stake,” McConnell said in a statement on Thursday. “Given the unprecedented speed of the House’s process, our proposed timeline for the initial phases includes a modest and reasonable amount of additional time for both sides to assemble their arguments before the Senate would begin to hear them.”

“At this time of strong political passions, Senate Republicans believe it is absolutely imperative that we do not allow a half-baked process to short-circuit the due process that former President Trump deserves or damage the Senate or the presidency,” the statement said.

Both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Schumer punted on the trial timing question when asked by reporters earlier on Thursday. Pelosi has yet to indicate when she would send the article of impeachment to the Senate, but says “soon.”

“We received Leader McConnell’s proposal that only deals with pre-trial motions late this afternoon. We will review it and discuss it with him,” said Schumer’s spokesman Justin Goodman.

When asked if the president would support moving the impeachment trial to February, White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield reiterated what Biden has previously said, that he will leave it to Senate leadership to determine the mechanics and timing of the trial.

Bedingfield added that Biden wants the Senate to conduct the impeachment trial in a way that allows them to move forward with the Covid-19 relief legislation as quickly as possible.

Leigh Ann Caldwell

Leigh Ann Caldwell is an NBC News correspondent.

Julie Tsirkin

Julie Tsirkin is an associate producer for NBC News’ Capitol Hill team. 

Frank Thorp V

Frank Thorp V is a producer and off-air reporter covering Congress for NBC News, managing coverage of the Senate.

Kristen Welker

Kristen Welker is chief White House correspondent for NBC News.



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