House delivers Trump indictment on Monday and rejects GOP bid for delay
The Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives will deliver an indictment for former President Donald Trump to the Senate on Monday and reject Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s request for a delay.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who ousted McConnell as leader of the House after Democrats won two Georgia by-elections this month, announced the move on the Senate floor but did not say when Trump’s second trial would begin.
“The House will submit the constitutional article to the Senate. The Senate will conduct a trial against the persecution of Donald Trump. It will be a full trial. It will be a fair trial,” Schumer said on the Senate floor on Friday.
It came the morning after McConnell asked the House to postpone the charges until next Thursday and agree not to start the trial until mid-February to give Trump more time to prepare a defense against the charge he encouraged to revolt his supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6.
“This accusation began with an unparalleled rapid and minimal process in the House,” McConnell said on Friday. “The sequel cannot be an inadequate Senate process that denies former President Trump his due process or harms the Senate or the Presidency itself.”
The movements come when Schumer and McConnell are fighting to claim control in a 50-50 chamber where Democrats now have a razor-sharp majority thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris’ vote.
The trial could distract from Democratic President Joe Biden’s efforts to push an ambitious legislative agenda through Congress, including nearly $ 2 trillion in new Covid-19 relief for Americans and American companies, as well as the need to confirm his cabinet candidates.
Trump last week became the first president in U.S. history to be charged twice, and when the Senate meets for his trial, the first president to be tried after leaving office will be his alleged role in urging his supporters to storm the Capitol. in an attack that left five dead.
Ten House Republicans joined the Democrats on January 13 to accuse him. The support of at least 17 Senate Republicans would be needed to convict him; a separate vote would then be needed to ban him from running again.
Such a vote could signal that leading Republicans were anxious to remove Trump as the de facto leader of his party. he has said he can try to run again in 2024.
Trump’s fate may ultimately be due to McConnell, whose position is likely to affect other Republican lawmakers. The Republic of Kentucky said this week that the mob was “fed with lies” and “provoked by the president and other powerful people.”
(REUTERS)
