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The Democratic leader promises a “full” and “fair” trial of the former president for incitement to insurgency.
The US Senate will move forward with a second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump for “incitement to insurgency” as early as next week, Senate leaders said on Friday.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has informed the Senate that she will forward Trump’s impeachment article to the Senate on Monday, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said.
“Make no mistake, there will be a trial in the United States Senate and there will be a vote on whether to convict the president,” Schumer said in a Senate address.
“It will be a fair trial. It will be a full trial, ”Schumer said.
The House voted 232 votes to 197 on January 13 to remove the former president for “inciting insurgency.”
Thousands of Trump supporters gathered in Washington, DC on January 6 to hear the president speak at a rally. The pro-Trump mob marched on the U.S. Capitol and hundreds stormed police barricades into the halls of Congress. Five people died in the violence.
Pelosi had said on Thursday that moving forward with a Senate impeachment trial of Trump would not hurt the new “unity” President Joe Biden calls for in Washington.
“The point is, the President of the United States has committed an act of incitement to insurgency,” Pelosi told reporters on Capitol Hill the day after Biden was sworn in as president.
Pelosi’s surrender of the impeachment article on Monday would trigger Senate rules requiring him to hold a trial.
Republicans in the Senate appear divided over whether Trump is guilty of incitement. Some have called for Trump’s impeachment while others have touted it as another Democrat partisan attack on the former president that should be rejected.
Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell accused Trump of provoking a crowd on January 6. On Friday, he called for fairness and due process in the conduct of the trial.
“Senate Republicans believe strongly that we need a full and fair process where the former president can mount a defense and the Senate can properly consider the factual, legal and constitutional issues at stake,” McConnell said.
Trump hired South Carolina attorney Butch Bowers to help defend himself, media reported. Bowers is a former Justice Department attorney in the Bush administration and a friend of Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the former president’s main supporters.
Trump had previously been impeached by the House in 2019 for abuse of power and was acquitted in the Senate in 2020 after a trial.
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