Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial opens in Senate

An unprecedented situation, the 100 senators who serve as jurors were thus the witnesses, and victims, of the attack. After a prayer, they took their places for this doubly historic trial. It is indeed the first time that a former American president is targeted by an impeachment procedure after having left the White House. And on January 13, the real estate mogul had already become the first president to be hit twice with an impeachment in the House of Representatives, this time for inciting insurgency.

New evidence expected on the Democratic side

The strong images of this violence, which left five dead, and Donald Trump’s speech to his supporters a few minutes earlier will occupy a central role in the accusation of the Democrats, who have promised new evidence. National guards in the venerable corridors, high barriers protecting the Capitol: the unprecedented security measures recall the violence, and the shock, caused by the assault

The Constitution requires a two-thirds majority for a guilty verdict. Even if Republican senators have sharply criticized the role of the 45^e US president in this violence, it seems unlikely that 17 of them will join their voices to the 50 Democrats in condemning the billionaire, still very popular with his base. One thing unites the two camps: they want to go fast, and a final vote could take place as early as the beginning of next week. Republicans because they don’t want to dwell on a streak that divides their ranks; Democrats because they want the Senate to be able to quickly focus on their priority again: approving Joe Biden’s candidates and laws. Presenting himself as a unifier of a bruised America, the latter takes care to stay away from this procedure. The new president is not going to comment on the arguments, moreover he does not look at them, underlined once again Tuesday the spokesperson of the White House Jen Psaki.

“Overwhelming evidence” of Donald Trump’s guilt

It is a legal debate on the constitutionality of the trial which will occupy the afternoon on Tuesday: each camp has two hours to deliver its arguments and the senators will then vote to say whether they deem themselves competent. This point is at the heart of the arguments of Donald Trump’s lawyers, David Schoen and Bruce Castor, for whom it is “absurd and unconstitutional to conduct an impeachment trial against a private citizen”. An argument repeated by many Republican senators. A simple excuse to avoid having to judge on the merits the conduct “despicable” of Donald Trump and therefore “to alienate the supporters of the president,” thundered the leader of the Democratic majority in the Senate, Chuck Schumer.

For the Democratic “prosecutors”, there is “overwhelming evidence” of the guilt of the billionaire, responsible according to them for “the worst violation of the Constitution ever committed by an American president”. They recall his months spent denying his defeat to Joe Biden, denouncing, against all evidence, “massive” electoral fraud. And his long speech to the thousands of supporters gathered on January 6 in Washington, even as parliamentarians gathered on Capitol Hill to confirm the Democrat’s victory.

“You will never take back our country by being weak. You have to show strength, ”he said to the white-hot crowd in front of the White House, before calling to go to the Capitol to make“ your voice heard in a peaceful and patriotic way ”. But for his lawyers, “President Trump did not urge anyone to commit illegal acts.” To say that he could be responsible for the violence of a “small group of criminals” who “absolutely misunderstood” is “simply absurd”, they wrote on Monday. Donald Trump “refuses to accept responsibility for his actions”, retorted Democratic prosecutors Tuesday shortly before the opening of the trial.