Can Donald Duck conviction second time round?

Washington: US President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial could begin on Inauguration Day, just as Joe Biden takes the oath of office. The trial timeline and schedule are largely set by Senate procedures and will start as soon as the House delivers the article of impeachment. That could mean starting the trial at 1 pm on Inauguration Day. The ceremony at the Capitol starts at noon.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has not said when she will take the next step to transmit the impeachment article, a sole charge of incitement of insurrection, to the Senate. Some senior Democrats have proposed holding back the article to give Biden and Congress time to focus on his new administration’s priorities.

Trump was impeached by the US House of Representatives for a historic second time, charged with “incitement of insurrection” over the deadly mob siege of the US Capitol in a swift and stunning collapse of his final days in office. With the Capitol secured by armed National Guard troops inside and out, the House voted 232-197 on Wednesday to impeach Trump. The proceedings moved at lightning speed, with lawmakers voting just one week after violent pro-Trump loyalists stormed the Capitol, egged on by the president’s calls for them to “fight like hell” against the election results.

Ten Republicans fled Trump, joining Democrats who said he needed to be held accountable and warned ominously of a “clear and present danger” if Congress should leave him unchecked before Biden’s inauguration January 20. Trump is the only US president to be twice impeached. None has been convicted by the Senate, but Republicans said that could change in the rapidly shifting political environment as officeholders, donors, big business and others peel away from the defeated president.

But the swift impeachment is unlikely to lead to Trump’s ouster before Biden takes office. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, rejected Democratic calls for a quick impeachment trial, saying there was no way to finish it before Trump leaves office. The soonest McConnell would start an impeachment trial is next Tuesday, the day before Trump is set to leave the White House, his office said. The legislation is also intended to prevent Trump from ever running again.

That raised the prospect of a bitter trial in the Senate weighing on Biden’s first days in the White House. “I hope that the Senate leadership will find a way to deal with their Constitutional responsibilities on impeachment while also working on the other urgent business of this nation,” Biden said in a statement on Wednesday night. Holed up at the White House, watching the proceedings on TV, Trump later released a video statement in which he made no mention at all of the impeachment but appealed to his supporters to refrain from any further violence or disruption of Biden’s inauguration.





Source link

Leave a comment