Trump is guilty of inciting unrest
On January 13, 2021, the US House of Representatives launched constitutional impeachment measures against Donald Trump. The Democratic House of Representatives approved the proposal by 232-197, and 10 Republicans also voted to hold the then ruling president accountable. The riots started on January 6, 2021: Donald Trump accused of inciting the revolt when his supporters surrounded the Capitol building after his speech. Five people were killed as a result of the attack on the US legislature, including a Trump supporter who was shot by police and a police officer who was wounded in a clash with protesters.
Donald Trump resigned from the US presidency on January 20, and a Senate hearing has yet to take place.
In the end, the Senate must convict the president with a two-thirds majority for the measures to have any consequences.
The situation is unusual, but not unprecedented at all. The impeachment process was essentially invented to remove the incumbent president from his chair, and Donald Trump has been slowly handing power to Joe Biden for three weeks now. In the case of the outgoing president, there was no such trial, but the Senate trial to impeach Secretary of War William Warknapp (this position was abolished in 1947) took place months after his resignation. Belknap was acquitted anyway.
The trial itself is expected to be short, only a few hours, and Donald Trump will not attend. The House plans to file eighty-page indictments and video evidence, as well as testimonies, but senators often decided in advance that they would vote, as many of them were in person during the Capitol siege, and after the vote. Joe Biden’s $ 1900 billion bailout package is expected to be negotiated, which is what Senators from both parties want to push for.
Incidentally, Trump’s impeachment process began early in 2019, when he was finally acquitted after 3 weeks of trial.
Can Trump be banned from the presidency?
The primary purpose of the impeachment process is to remove the incumbent president from power, and this has already happened in Trump’s case.
If Trump is found guilty, there will be another vote on whether he will be barred from taking the presidency in the future.
For that to happen, 51 senators would have to decide to impose the ban, so if they vote two-thirds of Trump’s guilt, they will likely be barred from the presidency.
Trump had previously indicated that he would run in the 2024 presidential election, so this project is sure to fall into a well if impeachment succeeds:
However, the chances of Donald Trump being convicted are slim. There are currently 50 Democrats and 50 Republican politicians in the Senate, so in addition to all Democratic Senators, 17 Republicans must vote for Donald Trump.
On January 26, Republican senators actually tried to block the trial before it ever took place: Forty-five of the 50 senators voted in favor of the motion, arguing that impeaching a former president was unconstitutional, making the trial unnecessary. Although many senators have indicated that support for the proposal does not necessarily indicate that they will not vote to move Trump, There is very little chance that the 12 senators who voted to shoot at the trial will vote in favor of Trump’s conviction.
So Trump will likely be bailed out for a second time, followed by Biden’s massive bailout package being discussed.
Cover photo: Win McNamee / Getty Images
