Impeachment Trial: Day 1 Recap
House managers make case for impeachment, Trump attorneys argue that impeaching a former President is unconstitutional, Senate votes to move forward with trial
The second impeachment trial of President Donald Trump began on Tuesday afternoon, with both sides spending a combined four hours debating whether or not it’s constitutional to try a former President. By the end of the afternoon, 6 Republicans joined all of the Democrats in voting to move forward with the proceeding.
The gavel came down at around 1:00PM ET on Tuesday, with Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the Senate President Pro Tempore, serving as the presiding officer. The first speaker was lead Impeachment manager Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who displayed a 13-minute long montage of the Capitol riot, which featured videos of Trump supporters vandalizing the Capitol, Trump’s comments at the rally that preceded the violence at the Capitol, and Republican Senators denouncing the former President’s baseless claims of a rigged election.
The Maryland Democrat, whose son took his own life a week before the insurrection, couldn’t hold back tears while making the case for the trial. His daughter and son-in-law were with him when the violence was unfolding. He said that his daughter told him that she does not want to come back to the Capitol. “Of all the terrible things I saw and I heard on that day, and since then — that one hit me the hardest,“ an emotional Raskin said.
Fellow manager Joe Neguse (D-CO) attempted to make the legal and constitutional case for the trial. He highlighted quotes from several conservative judges and legal analysts refuting the Trump legal team’s belief that it’s not constitutional to impeach a former President. “Presidents can't inflame insurrection in their final weeks and then walk away like nothing happened,” said Neguse. “And yet that is the rule that President Trump asks you to adopt.”
The former President’s attorneys argued against the constitutionality of the impeachment trial. After House Democrats made their case, Pennsylvania-based attorney Bruce Castor kicked off the Trump team’s argument. As noted by the New York Times, Castor refused to prosecute comedian Bill Cosby when he was the District Attorney in Montgomery County, a suburb of Philadelphia. He began his remarks by admitting that he and the rest of President Trump’s attorneys thought that the House impeachment managers’ presentation was “well done.” During his statement, he rarely referenced the events that unfolded on January 6 and argued that impeachment was not necessary because the American people removed Trump from office in last year’s election (even though his client continues to believe that the election was stolen from him).
Attorney David Schoen then took to the podium to continue Castor’s argument. He presented a video montage of several prominent Democrats calling for Trump’s impeachment since the beginning of his presidency, from Maxine Waters, to Alexandria Ocasico-Cortez and even some of the House impeachment managers. He also said that impeaching former officials will set a dangerous precedent and that Democrats are seeking to “disenfranchise” the 74 million Americans who voted for the former President.
Following the opening arguments from both sides, the Senate voted 56-44 to move forward with the impeachment trial. 6 Republican Senators joined the entire Democratic caucus in agreeing with the constitutionality of the trial:
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
Sen Susan Collins (R-ME)
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA)
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT)
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE)
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
Sen. Cassidy’s “yes” vote is a one-eighty from his position at the beginning of the trial. He said that his mind was changed after listening to the constitutionality arguments from both sides. He called Trump’s defense “disorganized” and “random,” and said that they did not talk about the issue at hand. “The House managers did a much better job,” the Louisiana Republican told reporters.
Cassidy was not the only Republican Senator who was unhappy with the former President’s defense team. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), a former judge and state attorney general, told the press that Trump’s lawyers “just rambled on and on.” Though he voted against moving forward with the trial on Tuesday afternoon.
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that the trial will resume on Wednesday at 12:00PM ET.
Amidst all of this, President Biden is attempting to move forward with his agenda and said in the Oval Office on Tuesday that he will not be watching his former rival’s impeachment trial on television. “We’ve already lost over 450,000 people,” he said of the COVID-19 pandemic. “The Senate has their job — I’m sure they are going to conduct themselves well.” He and congressional Democrats are moving forward with their plan to pass a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package by March, when emergency unemployment benefits will run out. Both Democrats and Republicans agree that a prolonged impeachment trial could threaten to derail the new President’s agenda.