The outcome of former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial is all but certain. He will be, barring a startling development, acquitted on a charge of inciting insurrection. But the proceeding itself will raise a slew of questions about the Republican Party he has led for the last four years.
But the evidence laid out by prosecution and defense, details of the actions of Trump supporters during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, questions raised by senators, and the final vote tally will each offer insight into the direction of a party grappling with its post-Trump direction.
For some conservatives, it represents the last chance at redemption.
“The prosecution has the law, the evidence, and emotion on their side,” said Matt K. Lewis, author of Too Dumb to Fail: How the GOP Betrayed the Reagan Revolution to Win Elections (and How It Can Reclaim Its Conservative Roots).
“What does it say about Republicans if that's not enough to get 17 votes? Republicans have yet another chance to try and redeem themselves and begin earning our respect again. Will they take it? I wouldn't bet on them," said Lewis.
On Tuesday, House impeachment managers began outlining their case against Trump with an argument that their prosecution is constitutional. They opened with a graphic video of the deadly Jan. 6 attack on Congress.
They are unlikely to win over the 17 Republican senators needed to vote with Democrats in favor of conviction. But the style of defense and the way in which GOP senators rally to the 45th president may offer a glimpse of Trump’s continuing hold on the party.
Capitol Breach America the Unstable
Steve Bannon, Trump’s former strategist, and his allies have tried to portray the trial as a battle for the soul of the party — if not the soul of the country.
Frank Gaffney, of the Center for Security Studies, said Trump is not the only one in the dock: “So are tens of millions of us, if the House prosecutors can successfully implicate Trump’s supporters in his alleged seditious conspiracy."
“After all, the stated purpose of Democratic partisans is to prevent Donald Trump from regaining the presidency in 2024," he said. "Consequently, they will not only be vilifying him but using every opportunity to marginalize and suppress like-minded Americans.”
Some allies want Trump’s defense, led by David Schoen and Bruce Castor, to use the Senate to relitigate the president’s false claims of election fraud. They have said they won’t, although their response to the article of impeachment did repeat his claim of a “landslide” victory.
Instead, they are expected to offer a three-pronged defense by arguing: that impeachment is unconstitutional, that Trump’s speech is protected by the First Amendment, and laying out a timeline of events to show that the president’s rally address the same day was not to blame for the violence.
As his legal team’s de facto spokesman, Jason Miller put it this way on Sebastian Gorka's radio show: “What they are trying is ‘cancel culture’ via the constitution.”
Those arguments leave plenty of room for Republican senators to vote for an acquittal on legal points without having to address deeper issues about Trump’s conduct or the direction of the party.
The defense is spelled out in talking points sent by Trump’s team to Republicans.
“The U.S. Senate lacks jurisdiction over the 45th president because he holds no public office from which he can be removed, and the Constitution limits the authority of the Senate in cases of impeachment to removal from office," it says.
Former White House official Steven Groves, now at the Heritage Foundation, said the case for acquittal was based on an absence of due process in the House, the lack of evidence of incitement, and the unconstitutional nature of the trial, rather than politics.
“In the same way that the future of the Democratic Party wasn’t written in stone after Clinton’s impeachment, the Republican Party is not going to be significantly affected by this impeachment trial,” he said. “I just don’t see America’s politics working that way.”
Another former aide said the repercussions would not extend far beyond the Senate floor.
“You get outside of the D.C. bubble and get beyond the hardcore resistance, and you talk to regular people, who might not even like Trump, they think this is political,” he said, which meant few implications for the future direction of the Republican Party.
