WASHINGTON: The US Senate began hearing final arguments on Saturday (Feb 13) in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump as the top Republican senator said he would vote to acquit the former president of inciting the deadly Jan 6 assault on the Capitol.
Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's decision means Trump is all but certain to be acquitted by the Senate of the charge of inciting an insurrection by his supporters.
Before moving to final arguments, the proceedings were interrupted for a few hours after House prosecutors, in a surprise move, said they wanted to call witnesses at the trial.
House impeachment manager Jamie Raskin said he wanted to call a Republican lawmaker as a witness but eventually agreed with Trump's defense lawyers just to have her testimony entered into evidence.
Trump's lawyers had threatened in response to call witnesses of their own, including Vice President Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, and others.
READ: Democrats argue Trump planted seeds of Capitol attack with false election claims
READ: Bar Trump from holding office again, impeachment managers urge Senate
The Senate voted 55-45 to allow witnesses but senators, House prosecutors and defense lawyers then hammered out an agreement allowing the trial to proceed to closing arguments.
Closing arguments kicked off after the decision about the 55-45 vote in favor of witnesses, which had unsettled members of the Senate.
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who earlier this week was one of just six in his party to vote that the trial should continue, threw up his hands when asked if he had expected Saturday's vote on witnesses.
"Shelby says he's seen three of these and this is the craziest," he said, referencing Senator Richard Shelby whose 34-year tenure included the 1998 impeachment of former Democratic President Bill Clinton and Trump's first impeachment trial.
The Senate floor appeared chaotic during and after the vote. Senators clustered together in apparent confusion and Senators Ron Johnson and Mitt Romney engaged in a heated conversation.
The four hours of final arguments will be split equally between both sides with the House prosecutors going first.
A vote on whether to acquit or convict the 74-year-old former Republican president is expected later Saturday afternoon.
Raskin had wanted Representative Jamie Herrera Beutler to testify after she released a statement about the events of Jan 6.
Herrera Beutler, a Republican from Washington state, was one of 10 Republican lawmakers who voted to impeach Trump in the House of Representatives.
In her statement, she said Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had called Trump while the attack was ongoing and implored him to call off the rioters.
"When McCarthy finally reached the president on Jan 6 and asked him to publicly and forcefully call off the riot, the president initially repeated the falsehood that it was Antifa that had breached the Capitol," Herrera Beutler said.
"McCarthy refuted that and told the president that these were Trump supporters," the congresswoman said.
"That's when, according to McCarthy, the president said: 'Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,'" she said.
READ: Commentary: The real reason behind impeaching Trump isn't the insurrection
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A CLOSE CALL
Trump was impeached by the Democratic-controlled House on Jan 13 for inciting the attack on the US Capitol by his supporters, who were seeking to block congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden's Nov 3 election victory.
A conviction in the 100-member Senate - which is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans - would require a two-thirds majority and appears highly unlikely after McConnell said he would vote to acquit.
"While a close call, I am persuaded that impeachments are a tool primarily of removal and therefore we lack jurisdiction," McConnell said in an email to his Republican colleagues.
"The Constitution makes perfectly clear that Presidential criminal misconduct while in office can be prosecuted after the President has left office," he said. "Given these conclusions, I will vote to acquit."
READ: Another trial for the ages: Senate to judge Trump over Capitol riot
Trump's defense lawyers argued on Friday that the former president bears no responsibility for the attack on Congress and wrapped up their presentation in just three hours.
This followed two days of evidence from Democratic impeachment managers centered around harrowing video footage of the mob assault on the Capitol.
Trump's defense lawyers called the impeachment unconstitutional and an "act of political vengeance."
They argued that Trump's rally speech near the White House that preceded the Jan 6 attack, when he told supporters to "fight," was merely rhetorical.
Seeking to turn the table on the Democrats' powerful use of video evidence, defence lawyers played their own compilations showing Democratic lawmakers at different times using the word "fight."
House impeachment managers charge that after losing to Biden, Trump deliberately stoked tension with a campaign of lies claiming there had been mass voter fraud.
On Jan 6 he staged a fiery rally near the White House, calling on the crowd to march on Congress, which was in the process of certifying Biden's victory.
The mob then stormed the Capitol, disrupting the certification. Five people, including a police officer and a woman shot during the unrest, died in the mayhem.
The trial has highlighted the extraordinary danger lawmakers faced on Jan 6, when Trump urged his followers to march on the Capitol and "get wild" in an effort to overturn his election loss. Then-Vice President Mike Pence and lawmakers had to be rushed into hiding for safety. Five people died in the chaos.
Trump's words that day followed months in which he repeated false claims that Biden's victory was the result of widespread fraud.
When the impeachment article reached the Senate, only six Republicans voted with Democrats to move forward with the trial, rejecting an argument made by other Republican senators that the Constitution does not allow Congress to impeach a president who has already left office.
Security-camera footage shown at the trial showed rioters came perilously close to lawmakers and Pence as they were evacuated from the Senate and House chambers.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMidGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNoYW5uZWxuZXdzYXNpYS5jb20vbmV3cy93b3JsZC91cy10cnVtcC1pbXBlYWNobWVudC10cmlhbC1zZW5hdGUtZmluYWwtYXJndW1lbnRzLXZvdGUtd2l0bmVzc2VzLTE0MTg4NjUy0gEA?oc=5
2021-02-13 18:33:45Z
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