The United States Senate is ready to issue a verdict this Saturday on the charge against former President Donald Trump for inciting insurrection before the assault on the Capitol on January 6, and everything indicates that he will be acquitted in the absence of Republican votes necessary, although this process could well have ended his expectations to stand again in the White House elections in 2024.
In a show of confidence, Trump’s attorneys used only about three of the 16 allotted hours on Friday to defend their client, arguing that the impeachment was “absurd” and amounted to a “culture of constitutional cancellation” aimed at silencing both the former president and his millions of supporters.
The trial resumes in less than three hours, after just five days of development. Trump’s attorney, Bruce Castor, has indicated that he does not intend to call any witnesses, and neither has the other party. After a procedural vote, both parties will have the opportunity to present final arguments.
The Senate could then deliberate behind closed doors, prior to the final, public vote on the indictment.
The verdict will reflect the political polarization of the nation that has marked the beginning of the process, when only six Republicans joined the 48 Senate Democrats and two independents to validate the constitutional nature of the trial. The remaining Republicans took the position that a president cannot be tried on impeachment charges after leaving office.
Thus, the Democrats do not wait for more than five or six votes of the 17 they need to condemn Trump and disqualify him from whatever public office he decides to run for.
However, multiple Republican senators consider that the new impeachment is the end of Trump’s aspirations for a possible second candidacy for the White House in 2024, even if he is acquitted of this procedure.
The senators consulted by ‘The Hill’, including those in favor of acquitting the president, consider that the evidence presented by the lawyers of the Democratic Party in his case for insurrection against the former president of the United States is sufficient to prevent Trump from running again and they venture the implementation of a distancing from the tycoon over the next three years.
While the Republican Party has been almost invariably in favor of Trump’s acquittal, new videos of Trump’s supporters’ assault on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6 has caused consternation among some senators. Supporters of the president actively persecuted some legislators and insulted security agents with shouts of “pigs” and “traitors.”
All this after the Democrats reproduced the words of the former president immediately before the raid, during a speech in front of the Capitol. “If you do not fight as if there were no tomorrow, you will be left without a country,” the president snapped. One of the Republican senators believes that the images only confirm “the kind of cretin Donald Trump is.”
“Actually, the Democrats are doing us a favor,” says the senator. “They are showing that Trump does not have the necessary qualifications to run for the White House again,” he adds, not to mention that these images will drive the aforementioned distancing from the former president within the Republican Party, who has acted for four years at his command. full service.
