As the House readies to send over the article to the Senate, the contours of Trump’s second trial are starting to take shape
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.
The impeachment trial officially gets in motion Monday evening when the House impeachment managers will walk the impeachment article to the Senate, even though the substance of the trial has been put off for another two weeks.
The likelihood that Leahy will oversee the trial has raised questions about whether he will also be eligible to vote, but constitutional experts say that nothing would stop him from doing so.
“He’s a sitting senator, he still gets to vote. Nothing in the Constitution would preclude him from voting,” said Frank Bowman, a University of Missouri law professor who has written extensively about impeachment.
The scheduling leading up to the trial’s arguments was resolved Friday after a week’s worth of uncertainty over when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would send the article to the Senate, thanks to a deal reached between Senate leaders.
There are still many questions about the looming impeachment trial, including how long the trial will go and whether any witnesses will be called.
The House impeachment managers will walk the article from the House to the Senate on Monday evening, and Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the lead impeachment manager, will read the article on the floor. On Tuesday, senators will be sworn in for the trial as jurors. Then there will be a two-week period for pre-trial briefs, and the trial itself will get underway the week of February 8.
“I think the trial is stupid, I think it’s counterproductive. We already have a flaming fire in this country, it’s like taking a bunch of gasoline and pouring it on top of the fire,” Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“It was a dual attack on our capitol in a joint session of congress on the very day we were completing our constitutional obligation to certify the electors,” said Rep. Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania, one of the nine Democratic House impeachment managers. “It is an extraordinarily heinous presidential crime, and we must move forward.”
“I believe that what is being alleged and what we saw, which is incitement to insurrection, is an impeachable offense. If not, what is?” Romney said of Trump’s actions inciting the pro-Trump mob that attacked the Capitol.
On Sunday, Leahy hinted at the prospect that he would preside, saying it was a “real possibility” and that he’d been preparing in case he had to take on the role.
“I can’t tell you how many hundreds of hours my staff and I have gone over the Constitution procedure, because it appears I may well be the one presiding over the trial,” Leahy said on MSNBC.
This story and headline have been updated with additional developments Monday.
CNN’s Manu Raju and Joan Biskupic contributed to this report.
