Senate Democrats are getting ready to conduct a second impeachment trial for former President Donald Trump on the charge of inciting an insurrection even as they seek to advance the legislative agenda and nominations of the new president.
President Biden has said Trump’s trial “has to happen” but expressed hope that “Senate leadership will find a way to deal with their constitutional responsibilities on impeachment while also working on the other urgent business of this nation.” The White House has otherwise taken a hands-off approach and instead emphasized the nearly $2 trillion COVID-19 relief bill and other legislative priorities.
“Well, the president certainly respects the role Congress has … in determining the pace and the path forward for holding the former president accountable,” press secretary Jen Psaki said in Wednesday’s briefing. She had previously said lawmakers would need to “multitask.” Biden has tried to strike quickly with dozens of executive orders, some of them reversing Trump edicts.
Republicans signaled that the latest impeachment drive was likely to end similarly to the last one, when all but five of them voted against holding the Senate trial in the first place, citing constitutional objections to a post-presidential impeachment, though some said they could still be swayed by the evidence and arguments. Seventeen of them would need to vote to convict Trump in addition to all 50 Democratic senators.
“If you voted that it was unconstitutional, how in the world would you ever vote to convict somebody for this?” Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican who raised the point of order, asked reporters afterward. “This vote indicates it’s over. The trial is over.”
Opposition to Trump remains a unifying force in a Democratic Party otherwise riven by divisions between centrists and liberals, even as many would like to turn public attention toward Biden. The Senate, under Republican control until the day Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were inaugurated, is rushing to make up for lost time on confirming executive branch nominees. Yet Trump’s role in election protests that culminated in an attack on the U.S. Capitol during the Electoral College certification still looms large.
“If holding a president accountable for encouraging the overthrow of our government is not worth taking time on, I am not sure what is,” said Democratic strategist Stefan Hankin. “Clearly, there are 45 GOP senators who care little about our country and Constitution and put their own political fortunes above country.”
Unlike last year’s mostly party-line impeachment, 10 House Republicans voted to send the incitement article to the Senate, and several GOP senators seem likely to favor Trump’s conviction. There may also be a political price to pay for Republicans who continue to defend Trump.
“I am also positive U.S. senators are capable of chewing gum and walking at the same,” Hankin added. “They can, and should, be able to focus on both the impeachment trial as well as the business of moving our country forward.”
Atiba Madyun, a former deputy executive director of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators and author of the book Saving Grace, said the violence at the Capitol was fanned by racism.
“I think that what the Democrats are trying to do with this impeachment is to hold the former president accountable,” Madyun said. “And he should be for the speech he gave … Our national security was weakened by what we saw on Jan. 6.”
Still, Democratic insiders know the party will ultimately be judged by governing success.
“The way that Democrats can hold him accountable is to make him not able to run again and become a political martyr,” Madyun, a strategist who advised Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock’s campaign, said. “It is to get even more than the 81 million people who voted for Biden and flip some statehouses and congressional seats. Focus on doing the work for the American people. Stop making this about politics.”
Trump left office at the conclusion of his term despite blaming voter fraud for his election loss. He is gone but not forgotten. Biden overtly mentioned the “violence” that “sought to shake this Capitol’s very foundation” and indirectly criticized Trump throughout his inaugural address. Trump continued to take shots at his predecessor, President Barack Obama, after arriving at the White House. Obama, in turn, made regular mention of the problems he inherited from President George W. Bush.
Nevertheless, Democrats have a relatively short period of time to put their own mark on Washington before midterm elections next year. The party will be defending historically narrow majorities in both houses of Congress, including a 50-50 deadlocked Senate they control only through Harris’s tiebreaking vote.
“As hard as it is to get elected, it is harder to get legislation passed,” Madyun said.
