PoliticoSenate votes Trump impeachment trial is constitutional after dramatic first day
- The vote came after prosecutors aired a video featuring shocking images of the Capitol attack, intertwining them with the ex-president’s remarks
- The footage – which included the shooting death of a rioter – forced senators to relive the moments when many of them fled, fearing for their safety
This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Andrew Desiderio and Kyle Cheney on politico.com on February 9, 2021.
The US Senate voted on Tuesday to uphold the Senate’s authority to put Donald Trump on trial for the House’s charge that he incited the January 6 insurrection, sidelining the former president’s primary defence against the House’s impeachment article.
The vote came after a dramatic first day of the trial, which featured a montage of harrowing scenes of violence wrought by Trump’s supporters while Congress was certifying President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. But the final tally reaffirmed the likelihood of Trump’s acquittal, with few Republican senators moved by the House’s arguments and just six voting to declare the proceedings constitutional.
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World shocked by assault on the US Capitol by radical pro-Trump supporters in Washington
It was another reminder that despite the raw emotions lawmakers felt on January 6 and the succeeding days, the House managers face a steep uphill climb to convict Trump on their charge that he incited the riots – a verdict that would require 67 votes of support in an evenly divided Senate.
Still, the vote permits the impeachment trial to move ahead Wednesday, when the House will present its opening arguments. And Democrats secured the support of an additional Republican who previously voted that the trial was unconstitutional, Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. With the 56-44 vote, the senators supported their own ability to try a former president, a case that has won support from legal scholars of all ideologies but that Trump’s team said was unconstitutional.
Senators from both parties acknowledged that they were moved emotionally by the House managers’ video montage. Though the footage has been well-worn since that day, the House’s prosecutors spliced together the most violent and chaotic images, intertwining them with Trump’s own remarks encouraging supporters to march on the Capitol.