Day 20: Bid for Schools & Impeachment
While Biden continues to float his trillion dollar relief plan, including $130 billion to safely reopen schools, the Senate met to vote on the constitutionality of former president Trump’s second impeachment trial.
The timing is everything.
Since the House impeached Trump in the days following the disruption of the January 6th election certification, the Senate first has to vote whether or not they can sit for an impeachment trial — to determine if he ought to be acquitted or convicted and perhaps disqualified from campaigning for office again — now that he’s no longer president.
The debate opened with prosecutors presenting a harrowing video of the day of the insurrection, the crescendo of events culminating with the bromantic Tweet from then-president Trump, “Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”
“People died that day,” Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said wearily, punctuating the solemnity of the opening argument with one moment of laughter as he promised to still count his daughter’s new husband as “son,” although they had eloped. It was during a pandemic, the Congressman noted.
He then teared up as he recounted how his daughter was with him in the Capitol building during the riot, and after that, she said, she didn’t want to visit again.
“Repugnant,” agreed defense lawyer Bruce Castor Jr. about the violence that day. He acknowledged that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick Lies in Honor “not too far away” from the proceedings.
Castor then asserted that “the people” have already convicted Trump in a sense, and have “removed him from office” by voting for Biden, although Trump disputed this claim even during the mob attack.
Congressional members seeking to go forward with a trial, said Castor, were acting out of “fear” of Trump campaigning and winning again.
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016.
David Schoen, Castor’s fellow defense lawyer warned that a trial would further divide the nation and that the world would watch “in glee” at the “disenfranchisement” of the 74 million who voted for Trump. The trial, Schoen said, would deny Trump his due process.
There is no “January exception,” argued Representative Joe Neguse (D-CO) of the timing. “…[P]residents can’t commit grave offenses in their final days and escape any congressional response.”
Ultimately the Senate voted 56-44 in favor of the trial, scheduled to begin tomorrow.
“We’ve already lost over 450,000 people,” Biden said elsewhere, rejecting the opportunity to shift focus from the pandemic to the debate. “… A lot of people are food insecure — that’s my job. The senate has their job.”