Trump impeachment trial could begin on Inauguration Day
Published:Thursday | January 14, 2021 | 12:27 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial could begin on Inauguration Day, just as Democrat Joe Biden takes the oath of office in an extraordinary end to the defeated president’s tenure in the White House.
The trial timeline and schedule are largely set by Senate procedures and will start as soon as the House delivers the article of impeachment.
That could mean starting the trial at 1:00 p.m. on Inauguration Day.
The ceremony at the Capitol starts at noon.
Trump was impeached Wednesday by the House over the deadly Capitol siege, the only president in US history twice impeached after a pro-Trump mob stormed the building.
The attack has left the nation’s capital, and other capital cites, under high security amid threats of more violence around the inauguration.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has not said when she will take the next step to transmit the impeachment article, a sole charge of incitement of insurrection. Some senior Democrats have proposed holding back the article to give Biden and Congress time to focus on his new administration’s priorities.
Biden has said the Senate should be able to split its time and do both.
The impeachment trial will be the first for a president no longer in office.
And, politically, it will force a reckoning among some Republicans who have stood by Trump throughout his presidency and largely allowed him to spread false attacks against the integrity of the 2020 election.
Trump was first impeached by the House in 2019 over his dealings with Ukraine, but the Senate voted in 2020 acquit.
No president has been convicted by the Senate, but Republicans have said that could change in the rapidly shifting political environment as officeholders, donors, big business and others peel away from the defeated president.
Conviction and removal of Trump would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate.
Biden said in a statement after the vote that it was his hope the Senate leadership “will find a way to deal with their Constitutional responsibilities on impeachment while also working on the other urgent business of this nation.”
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