The Senate voted Tuesday to proceed with the impeachment trial against former President Donald Trump, with six Republicans joining all Democrats.
The 56-44 vote rejected an argument from Trump’s lawyers that it is unconstitutional to try a former president, a debate that took up much of the first day of arguments from the House impeachment managers and Trump’s legal team.
Voting alongside all Senate Democrats were Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Mitt Romney, R-Utah, Ben Sasse, R-Neb., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Bill Cassidy, R-La.
Trump’s second impeachment trial kicked off earlier Tuesday afternoon with a jarring 20-minute video montage of the devastating events of the Capitol riots, forcing the chamber of senators to relive some of the most intense moments from Jan. 6, some of which occurred at the very desks at which they were sitting.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the Democrats’ lead impeachment manager, told lawmakers that their case was based on “cold, hard facts” before playing the reel.
The video showed rioters smashing windows and overrunning barriers until they breached the Capitol building, hurling expletives at Capitol Police officers and stalking lawmakers still in the chamber.
Shots of the rioters were interspersed with scenes of Trump encouraging his supporters while speaking at the Jan. 6 rally and a video posted to Twitter.
The former president can be heard telling his supporters that “we will stop the steal,” and falsely claiming that “we won this election,” before telling them, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol” and telling them, “you’ll never take back our country with weakness.” In the video posted to Twitter, Trump tells his supporters, who at that moment were still trashing the nation’s symbol of government, that he loves them and they are “very special.”
The riots left five people dead, including a Capitol Police officer. Another two officers died by suicide in the weeks after the violence.
Twitter eventually flagged Trump’s tweets for spreading false election claims and posing “a risk of violence,” and took away his account.
The sounds of the video montage echoed through the chamber, filling the air with the haunting chants and screams of the mob, including many expletives almost never heard on the Senate floor. When the video concluded, the room was silent.
Raskin, resuming his remarks, then said Trump was responsible for the historic destruction within the Capitol.
“You ask what a high crime and misdemeanor is under our Constitution? That’s a high crime and misdemeanor,” he said. Brimming with emotion, Raskin later recalled some of the moments from the riot that moved him the most, including seeing images and reports of violence that included rioters in Trump paraphernalia shoving and punching Capitol Police officers, gouging their eyes and beating them with flagpoles.
“This cannot be the future,” said he, holding back tears.
Impeachment managers then proceeded with their arguments supporting the constitutionality of the trial.
Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., another impeachment manager, outlined Democrats’ legal justification for trying a former president, saying the Senate had both a legal and ethical obligation to hear the case.
“If Congress were just to stand completely aside in the face of such an extraordinary crime against the republic, it would invite future presidents to use their power without any fear of accountability,” Neguse said. “Presidents can’t inflame insurrection in their final weeks and then walk away like nothing happened.”
Trump’s defense began with a meandering, nearly hour-long speech from lawyer Bruce Castor that failed to address the crux of the House managers’ arguments, particularly those related to the constitutionality of the trial.
Castor noted that he had not directly rebutted the House manager’s arguments, telling senators that the legal team does have responses they would soon hear. The attorney suggested that the former president’s legal team was caught off guard by the strength of the House managers’ presentation, noting they believed the day’s proceedings would focus solely on jurisdictional questions.
“I’ll be quite frank with you, we changed what we were going to do on the count that we thought the House managers’ presentation was well done,” he said, before handing over to David Schoen, another member of the Trump legal team.
Schoen followed with a more focused presentation on the constitutionality of the trial that decried cancel culture, invoked the Civil War and warned the trial “puts the institution of the presidency at risk.”
“They tell us that we have to have this impeachment trial such as it is to bring about unity. But they don’t want unity. And they know this so-called trial will tear this country in half,” he said, adding, “This trial will tear this country apart, perhaps like we have only seen once before in our history.”
Following the proceedings, Republican lawmakers and Trump allies criticized the Trump team’s performance. One Trump ally told NBC News Castor wasted time on “irrelevant topics,” with the source expressing the belief that Trump is unlikely to be pleased with the attorney’s effort.
Toomey told reporters after the vote he believed the House managers’ arguments in favor of the trial were “persuasive and well-grounded in the Constitution and precedent,” adding that Trump’s defense “had a weaker case to start with, and I don’t think it was very persuasive.”
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said he felt Castor “just rambled on and on.”
“I’ve seen a lot of lawyers and a lot of arguments and that was not one of the finest I’ve seen,” he added.
Trump is the first president to be impeached twice by the House, and he will be the first former president to be put on trial in the Senate. Tuesday’s vote affirming the constitutionality of the proceeding sets the stage for the Senate to start consideration of the “incitement of insurrection” article of impeachment on Wednesday.
While 45 Republican senators voted last month in favor of a measure that argued the proceedings were unconstitutional, some of them said they simply wanted a debate on the issue so their vote may not indicate how they view the issue. Cassidy was the only senator among those 45 Republicans to vote in favor of the trial’s constitutionality on Tuesday.
Explaining his vote, Cassidy told reporters later Tuesday, “The House managers were focused. They were organized. They relied upon both precedent, the constitution and legal scholars. They made a compelling reason. President Trump’s team were disorganized. They did everything they could but to talk about the question at hand. And when they talked about it, they kind of glided over, almost as if they were embarrassed of their arguments.”
He added, “I’m an impartial juror, and one side is doing a great job, and the other side is doing a terrible job, on the issue at hand, as an impartial juror, I’m going to vote for the side that did the good job.” He said had not made up his mind on whether or not to convict Trump.
Earlier Tuesday, a senior aide on the impeachment manager team said the case that House Democrats had built against Trump in his second impeachment trial would resemble a “violent crime criminal prosecution” — a plan the eye-popping video opening appeared to corroborate.
In their presentation this week, the managers will attempt to show that Trump spent weeks laying the groundwork for the riot, and that after he saw what was happening “he incited it further,” an aide said.
Opening arguments are expected to begin at noon on Wednesday, with House managers going first, followed by the attorneys for the president.
Each side will have 16 hours to make its presentation, shorter than the 24 hours allotted for Trump’s first trial and then-President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial.
The expectation is that Trump’s defense team will most likely not use its full 16 hours, according to two sources familiar with the legal strategy. This is subject to change but reflects the current thinking and outward optimism from the Trump lawyers heading into the trial. The sources believe that House impeachment managers will use all of their allotted time.
Speaking at a news conference Tuesday morning, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., urged his Republican colleagues to “pay careful attention to the evidence.”
“When you have such a serious charge, sweeping it under the rug will not bring unity; it will keep the sore open, and the wounds open,” Schumer said. “The Senate has a solemn responsibility to try to hold Donald Trump accountable for the most serious charges ever, ever levied against a president.”
The trial is expected to last into the weekend and next week, and each trial day is expected to take roughly eight hours — meaning it would go until at least 8 p.m. ET most days, but later if they take breaks.
When opening arguments are done, senators will be able to question the two sides for four hours by submitting written questions to Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the president pro-tempore of the Senate, who will preside over trial and who will read them aloud.
The managers could then have a debate and a vote on calling witnesses or subpoenaing documents. If no witnesses or documents are called, the two sides would move on to closing arguments, which would last a total of four hours, and then vote on whether to convict.