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The US House of Representatives sent an indictment against Donald Trump to the Senate on Monday evening, to formally begin the constitutional indictment trial. According to the accusation rules, the prosecution is represented by the House of Representatives, and the trial is conducted by the Senate. There, two-thirds of the senators can vote against the only president now.
This gives Donald Trump another historic first. After he was the first president in American history to be indicted twice in the last week of his presidency – previously the total of the president’s charges were twice in nearly a quarter of a thousand years of US history – he is now the first president to be tried after his departure … there is little chance of a conviction:
Although the Georgia Democratic by-elections on January 5 resulted in the Democrats winning the smallest majority in the Senate, successful impeachment requires the support of two-thirds of the senators.
While it will be almost certain that Republican senators will vote this time to convict Trump – moderate Republican Senators Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski have condemned Donald Trump’s role in the January 6 riots – it is still unlikely that at least 17 Republicans will vote against Senate. previous president.
If only because Republicans, under Trump, have ousted the House of Representatives and then the presidency and majorities in the Senate over the past two and a half years, then Trump remains hugely popular among party voters. This means that its supporters could represent a serious inconvenience to senators who may run for re-election within two years.
The fact that the Democratic House of Representatives actually sent out the indictment on Monday makes the job of Joe Biden, the Democratic president inaugurated last week, somewhat more difficult. The Senate will now be linked to litigation rather than its legislative program, a subject that is expected to divide the body on the basis of party affiliation, as it may need inter-party cooperation anyway in the near future. The president said diplomatically on Monday that the action “must happen”.