The impeachment process for former President Donald Trump will be sent to the Senate on Monday (25), said Chuck Summer, Democratic House leader.
With that, Trump’s impeachment will resume. The process was approved in record time on January 13 in the House, but the obstacle must be confirmed by the Senate.
The former president is accused of starting an insurgency against the US government because his supporters invaded Congress on January 6 in an attempt to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. Trump was trying to reverse the election result, which he lost.
The decision to send the case rests with the mayor, Democrat Nancy Pelosi. Summer said she told him it would be done on Monday (25).
“The House will return the impeachment article to the Senate. The Senate will conduct Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. It will be a full and fair trial,” Summer told the Senate. We are a family business.
Although the Republican has already left office on Wednesday (20), the process continues to judge whether he should lose his political rights. If that happens, he will not be able to run for president in 2024.
There has been debate among Democrats over whether to postpone referral of the case to the Senate, so as not to distract from the early days of the Biden administration and disrupt important votes, such as the nomination of members of the Senate. new government and an economic aid program.
The Republican leader of this House, Mitch McConnell, had proposed that the dispatch be made in mid-February, to give more time to the defense of Trump.
Although McConnell has made no public statement as to whether he will vote for or against, he has told relatives, according to the US press, that he believes the president has committed impeachment offenses – and that the process could be good to facilitate his expulsion from the broken one.
Since the Senate conviction requires a two-thirds majority, Trump will only be impeached if at least 17 Republicans agree. There are currently 50 Senators voting with Democrats and 50 Republicans in the House. The two Democratic senators elected by Georgia have already taken office.
The constitution does not set a deadline for the completion of the impeachment, leaving the possibility that action could continue after Trump leaves the White House. However, there is a risk that the case ends up in court.
According to the impeachment request, Trump “has deliberately made statements which encouraged illegal actions” and “will remain a threat to national security, democracy and the constitution if allowed to remain in office.”
“At the president’s request, members of the crowd he addressed … raped and vandalized the Capitol, injured and killed security teams, threatened members of Congress and the vice-president, and are engaged in violent, murderous and destructive and seditious acts, ”the document says.
The letter also quotes Trump’s lines, such as “if you don’t really fight, you won’t have a country anymore,” and mentions his efforts to subvert the election he lost, such as the phone call to Georgia secretary of state, who he asked to “find votes” to change the result, in addition to repeated and baseless claims that Biden’s victory was the result of widespread election fraud .
“In all of this, President Trump has seriously endangered the security of the United States and its government institutions. He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power and endangered an arm of government. He therefore betrayed his reliability as president, to the obvious detriment of the American people, ”the text indicates.
This is the second impeachment process Trump faces. In February 2020, he was acquitted by senators with 52 votes against and 48 in favor of the charge of abuse of power, and 53 to 47 for obstructing Congress. He was prosecuted for pressuring the Ukrainian president to investigate the actions of Joe Biden’s son in that country.