The leader of the Republican majority proposes rules to shorten the times and does not agree to call witnesses
The United States Senate will begin on Tuesday the political trial against US President Donald Trump, which could be the shortest removal process held in the Upper House in more than a century, according to the rules he has proposed the leader of the Republican majority, Senator Mitch McConnell.
In spite of the democratic critics, the leader of the Republicans in the Senate has put on the table some rules for the political trial that will foreseeably be put to the vote on the opening day of this Tuesday and that imply a clear reduction of the time granted to the ‘prosecutors’ of the case – the seven Democratic managers appointed by the House of Representatives – and the legal defense of President Trump.
Both the seven Democratic deputies and the lawyers appointed by Trump, including the White House legal advisor, Pat Cipollone, will have 24 hours in each case to present their opening arguments in the political trial, a time that will be divided between two days consecutive, an agenda that provides that the sessions could be extended more than twelve hours each if each party uses the time allowed.
According to CNN, the rules proposed by McConnell for the Trump political trial suggest that this process in the Upper House, chaired by the president of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, will be resolved in a matter of days, even with the possibility that Everything ends, as Trump expects, before the president delivers his speech on the State of the Union, the most important political speech of the year, on February 4.
In the event that the Senate approves in its session this Tuesday the rules proposed by McConnell, the trial against Trump could become the shortest process held against a US president in the framework of an ‘impeachment’, since that of Democrat Bill Clinton was solved in just over a month (from January 7 to February 12, 1999) and that of also Democrat Andrew Johnson lasted two months (from March 5 to May 1868).
Media attention is now focused on the agenda that the political trial will have, especially if Republicans agree to call for witnesses of alleged Trump environment maneuvers to pressure Ukraine to announce an investigation into Hunter Biden for having worked on the board of directors of a Ukrainian gas company.
BOLTON, WILLING TO DECLARE ABOUT THE MANAGEMENTS IN UKRAINE
While Republicans have been reluctant to call witnesses in the Senate, in an attempt to follow the line set by Trump, who has said he wants a speedy trial, Democrats have made it clear that they want witnesses to appear , starting with John Bolton, the former Trump National Security advisor who refused to appear in the impeachment in the House of Representatives and has now said he would agree to go to the political trial to clarify everything he knows.
Representative of the most conservative wing of the Republican Party, the ‘falcon’ Bolton was one of Trump’s most fervent defenders in the campaign and in his first months at the White House but in 2019 he was relieved of his position for his Trump disagreements on international issues openwork like Venezuela or Afghanistan.
The other high position that Democrats trust will testify in the political trial is Rudy Giuliani, who is at the head of a whole “parallel democracy” promoted by Trump to pursue his interests in Ukraine. Giuliani did not appear in the investigation of the ‘impeachment’ in the House of Representatives and maintains that he has not committed any irregularities, despite the fact that documents have been disseminated that show that he made efforts for Trump presenting himself as his representative as a “private citizen” .
In any case, the question of whether the political trial includes the testimony of witnesses should be settled in a vote in which a simple majority of the 100 senators that make up the Senate will suffice, so that the Democrats could get their claims if they add four parliamentarians Republicans to their 47 votes.
At the moment, only three Republican senators have directly or indirectly expressed doubts about how they could vote on the issue of witnesses, the most significant case being that of Senator Mitt Romney, who has already advanced that he would vote in favor of Bolton appearing in The political judgment.
RECEIVING NEW TESTS
It should also be clarified on Tuesday if the Senate agrees to receive and analyze new evidence of the maneuvers around the US president, particularly Rudy Giuliani, his personal lawyer, after last week Lev Parnas, a New York lawyer’s partner charged with illegal financing, will deliver documents showing that Giuliani requested a meeting with the President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, as the “personal” representative of the president.
The documents also include messages that show that Lev Parnas was commissioned by Giuliani to contact the Ukrainian authorities to force President Zelenski to announce an investigation into Hunter Biden and his father, former US Vice President Joe Biden, ‘a priori’ the main candidate for the Democratic presidential candidacy and, therefore, Trump’s possible rival in the November 2020 elections.
FIRST IMPEACHMENT FROM CLINTON’S
This Tuesday’s session in the Upper House will make clear the rules that will govern the political trial against Trump, a process that is being held in the United States since the then president of the United States, Bill Clinton, who then managed to impose himself in 1999. the presidential and achieved re-election as president.
The political trial will be chaired by the president of the Supreme Court of the United States and the seven deputies appointed by the House of Representatives will act as ‘prosecutors’ of a process in which all senators must act as jurors, regardless of the party in which they act .
The impeachment process encompasses the investigation and voting in the House of Representatives, where Trump was officially disapproved in December, thus becoming the third censored US president, and the political trial in the Upper House, in which, to date , no president has become dismissed.
The process began following a complaint filed by an intelligence officer who considered that the call made by Donald Trump to the president of Ukraine on July 25 was an attempt to pressure him to force him to open an investigation into the Biden, paralyzing until then the handing over 300 million dollars of military aid to Kiev and postponing the invitation for a meeting at the White House.
Trump maintains that he is the victim of a “witch hunt” and that his call was “perfect”, despite the contradictions that have been observed in the Government since the complaint of the anonymous official for the alleged campaign of pressure on Ukraine.
