Trump’s impeachment trial begins
The US Senate voted 56-44 to continue with the impeachment trial of Donald Trump. The vote, which was on the technical issue of whether it was constitutional to impeach Trump after he left office, saw 6 Republicans join all 50 Democrats in voting to continue the trial.
This was one more than the five Republicans who previously voted for a continuation of the trial, with Bill Cassidy joining the ranks of Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Ben Sasse, and Pat Toomey.
However, since impeachment requires a two thirds majority – 67 votes – it still seems extremely unlikely Trump will be convicted.
With no impeachment looking fairly certain from the get go, Democrats seem to be settling for the next best thing – using the impeachment trial as a club to further batter Trump’s reputation. Indeed, while one should not underestimate the depths of Democratic outrage driving this process, there is also a canny political edge to this move.
Opinion polls shows that Trump’s approval rating dropped sharply in the weeks following the storming of Capitol Hill. An impeachment trial which places his culpability in inciting the mob front and centre is a good way to try and cement some lasting damage before Trump’s all but inevitable run in 2024.
On this battle for public opinion, Democrats seem to have struck their first blows well. The trial opened with a disturbing 13 minute video which intercut footage of the inflammatory speech Trump gave to his supporters on the day and the the storming of the Capitol. The story it told was one that built clear causal links between Trump’s statements – telling his supporters to go to the Capitol, to deal with fraud “under different rules”, and to “fight like hell” – and the mob’s actions.
When the video ended, Jamie Raskin, the Democrats’ lead impeachment manager, stated the case plainly: “You ask what a high crime and misdemeanour is under our Constitution? That’s a high crime and misdemeanour”. Later he would provide his own moving account of the day and the terror he had felt when he realised that his family – who he’d brought along assuring them of their safety just one day after his son’s funeral – was in danger.
Trump’s legal team did not muster an effective response. The first speech, by Bruce Castor, was met with rather frank bafflement. As Castor, with odd candour, admitted in the speech itself the Trump team had reshuffled its speaking order as it had been caught off guard by the strength of the Democrat’s opening. However, it is hard to see how Castor’s frankly weird ad-libbed response helped as he veered ramblings on how senators are different from other Americans, to joking complaints about getting lost in the Capitol building, and finally a bizarre suggestion that if Trump was truly guilty, surely the Department of Justice could just arrest him.
Even Trump supporters seemed baffled. Alan Dershowitz who was on Trump’s legal team during the first impeachment, responded on live TV: “There is no argument. I have no idea what he is doing, I have no idea why he’s saying what he’s saying.”
After that came David Schoen. Theoretically, this was the meat of Trump’s first line of legal defence – that Trump couldn’t be impeached after leaving office. However, there were plenty of theatrics as Schoen accused the Democrats of pursuing a political vendetta ever since their 2016 election showing a video of Democrats calling for impeachment as early as 2017 – his own earlier criticism of the Democrats for playing “movies” apparently forgotten. Meanwhile, his most striking statement -“This trial will tear this country apart, perhaps like we have only seen once before in American history”- sounded more like a threat than a plea for calm.
Even Ted Cruz, a staunch Trump ally, admitted to the Washington Post, “I don’t think the lawyers did the most effective job.” Meanwhile, Cassidy flatly stated that the sheer shoddiness of Trump’s defence prompted him to change his mind and vote with Democrats affirming the trial’s constitutionality.
Indeed, the trial is putting Republicans in a rather uncomfortable place. The move by the majority to continue to vote against Trump’s impeachment protects them from attacks from within the party but also means they are nailing their colours to his sinking national brand. Meanwhile, the six defections means the intra-Republican tensions over Trump look set to keep smouldering.
In terms of what all this means practically, the Democrats have seen a few hopes dashed, but are by no means down. Successful impeachment, and the prospect of using it to ban Trump from running for office again, looks dead in the water. However, the 14th Amendment, which bans those who have engaged in insurrection from holding office, offers another avenue for Democrats to pursue if they are determined.
Meanwhile, in the broader war for public opinion they might well come out on top. The consensus following the first impeachment trial was that it backfired on the Democrats. The scandal was complex and hard to follow, and voters were left with the impression Democrats were pursuing political vendettas over governance. Democrats seem determined to avoid a repeat of this. Focusing on the storming of the Capitol provides a clear scandal to rally around and even as impeachment rages, they are pushing ahead with moves to quickly pass a new coronavirus relief bill. Meanwhile, Joe Biden has emphasised that he’s focusing on dealing with the ongoing pandemic crisis. Properly handled Democrats might lose the impeachment, but still count the trial as a qualified success.