Posted on 01/25/2021 12:07:20 PM PST by BlackFemaleArmyColonel
Updated at 2:57 p.m. ET
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., will preside over former President Donald Trump's trial in the Senate, a Senate source tells NPR. Leahy, 80, is the president pro tempore of the Senate, a constitutional role given to the longest-serving lawmaker in the majority party. The president pro tempore is third in the line of presidential succession, after the vice president and House speaker.
"I have presided over hundreds of hours in my time in the Senate," Leahy told reporters. "I don't think anybody has ever suggested I was anything but impartial in those hundreds of hours."
Leahy added: "I'm not presenting the evidence. I am making sure that procedures are followed. I don't think there's any senator who over the 40-plus years I've been here that would say that I am anything but impartial in voting on procedure."
Chief Justice John Roberts presided over President Trump's first impeachment trial, but now that Trump is a former president, Roberts is not constitutionally obligated to preside.
House impeachment managers will deliver the article of impeachment to the Senate Monday evening, and the trial is scheduled to begin the week of Feb. 8.
On Jan. 13, Trump became the only president in U.S. history to be impeached twice by the U.S. House of Representatives. House Democrats brought one article of impeachment — "incitement of insurrection" — related to remarks he made to a crowd loyal to him Jan. 6 that resulted in a fatal riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump, the first one-term president since George H.W. Bush in the 1990s, lost the November election to Biden, but has repeatedly and baselessly challenged the results citing little or false evidence.
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
Does that demented clown even know how to string a five word sentence together anymore?
Just in case you thought this was not going to be a Stalinist Show Trial to convict the innocent. Is Pelosi going to be his defense attorney?
I cant recall a time when I have ever seen him speaking on TV when he wasnt drunk.
An impartial judge???
This time I plan to double my impeachment watching which will amount to zero mins.
An illegal, unconstitutional joke.
Even the Trump hating John Roberts passed on this clown show,
They don’t call him Leaky Leahy for nothing.
> a constitutional role given to the longest-serving lawmaker in the majority party <
Which pretty much guarantees that the president pro tempore will be very old, very tired, and very out of touch with the average American.
It wouldn’t be so bad except that the president pro tempore is relatively high in the presidential line of succession. What a dumb rule that was.
Lots of old White guys in the swamp. Imagine that?!
This is going to be fun. This clown car of morons will run itself into the ditch.
WTF - THIS IS WHAT THE CITIZENS SHOULD RIOT OVER! Sorry but this kind of sh*t is becoming outrageous - our government has gone stark raving MAD! They need to all be arrested before sundown! EVIL LOONY and crazy as hell! Unsafe and unwise Bastards!
Kabuki theater with heavy Stalinist show trial overtones — exactly what all those people under the grass at Arlington National Cemetery valued enough to offer up their lives to defend. The Capitol crew just thought 1/6 was scary...
If not clear before, it is clear now that this is an unlawful Bill of Attainder.
It’s not even pretending to be an impeachment any longer, they’re just making it up.
i do not understand how a trial can proceed without Roberts.
in any case, if i were trump, i would just refuse to participate.
In almost every other career people want to retire in their 60s to spend time doing the things they normally couldn’t do while working, except politics, where certain people seem to want to just stay in power for their life until they practically die in office.
More Kabuki theater that is absolutely un-Constitutional. These people need to be charged with abuse of office and treason.
Apparently Robert’s believes he can’t be tried. But I don’t see how he can decide that unilaterally. It will need to be decided by the full court.
Isn’t it cute how they act like there is still a Constitution and that they are following it?
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