If even five or six GOP senators decide that Trump ought to be convicted, it would be the most bipartisan vote of its kind in American history even as it would be well short of the super-majority required to produce an actual conviction.
GOP strategist Alex Conant, a former adviser to Sen. Marco Rubio
Such a vote would underline the deep fissures in a party that is still trying to grapple with the legacy of the 45th president and with his magnetic hold on the party’s grassroots activists.
In recent weeks, battles over the House leadership position of Rep. Liz Cheney
Former President Donald Trump's lawyers will highlight Democrats' hypocrisy in condoning street violence when they present his defense on Friday in the Senate impeachment trial over his alleged incitement of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
The impeachment managers linked the former president’s long effort to undermine the election with statements of insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.
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Trump’s lawyers will now have the floor, and it is expected their defense will be concluded within a single day. If that happens and assuming witnesses are not called the entire proceedings could conclude by Saturday or Sunday.
Trump’s lead lawyers, Bruce Castor and David Schoen, will be hoping to improve on their opening arguments from earlier in the week. Castor’s performance, in particular, was widely panned and was reported to have left the former president irate as he watched at his Florida resort of Mar-a-Lago.
The Trump team doesn’t need to do very much to gain an acquittal for their client. No more than six Republican senators have so far even agreed that the impeachment trial is constitutional. The chance of the necessary number voting to convict 17 Republicans, assuming the Democrats all vote to do so seems vanishingly small.
House Democrats conclude Trump impeachment case, warning of potential violence if Republicans refuse to convict Mike DeBonis, Seung Min Kim
House managers rest case against Trump, argue for conviction
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House Democrats closed their impeachment case against Donald Trump on Thursday by linking his history of incendiary rhetoric and months-long campaign to undermine the November election to the statements of insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and raising the prospect of future violence without a conviction.
The rioters seeking to block the final certification of his defeat swarmed on Trump’s orders, the impeachment managers argued to the Senate, leading to death and destruction, placing hundreds in and around the Capitol in harm’s way, emboldening extremist factions and diminishing America’s standing in the eyes of the world. Convicting Trump and barring him from ever returning to the presidency is the only way to pre