A year after a first historic impeachment trial, Donald Trump finds himself again Tuesday in the position of accused in the Senate, whose elected officials will have to say whether he encouraged the murderous assault on the Capitol.
To convict him in his absence, it will take a vote of two-thirds of the 100 members of the Senate, which makes his acquittal likely.
The violence of the attack on January 6, when elected officials certified Joe Biden’s presidential victory, aroused such dread that Democrats reactivated the impeachment process, even though Donald Trump’s tenure touched on its end.
From the 13th, the House of Representatives, controlled by the Democrats, indicted him for “inciting insurrection”, a second “impeachment” marking him again with the seal of infamy, which is not happened to no other president before him. Neither has been tried after leaving power.
The Republican billionaire and his allies are also relying on his departure from the White House on January 20 to argue that the trial is unconstitutional: the senators can, according to them, dismiss a sitting president, but not judge a simple citizen.
The Democratic accusation retorts that a former minister has already been tried in this context, and that Donald Trump must be condemned to make him ineligible and to “dissuade the next presidents from provoking violence in order to remain in power”.
During the trial, his lawyers should focus most of their arguments on this legal debate, to avoid having to defend the fiery tweets and diatribes of their client.
Most Republican senators should also hide behind this argument to vote acquittal without having to comment on the merits.
“Powder magazine”
Like a year ago, when he was tried for “abuse of power” for asking Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden’s son, Donald Trump has every chance of avoiding conviction. For him to be found guilty, 17 Republican senators would have to join the 50 Democrats, which seems unlikely at this stage.
The former real estate mogul, however, has a lot to lose in the trial, which will be televised live throughout the United States.
Even though it retains a strong supporter base, the attack on the Capitol has eroded its popularity. He who, at 74, cherishes the idea of a new candidacy in 2024, therefore has no interest in seeing the episode played and replayed in the enclosure of the Senate.
However, the elected Democrats who will bring the accusation against him do not intend to stick to the legal debate.
In a document summarizing their argument, they set the tone: Donald Trump “created a powder keg, lit a match and then sought to personally profit from the chaos that followed,” they wrote.
They should therefore come back at length to the events that shook American democracy.
” Of the force “
After two months of a gruesome crusade against the verdict of the ballot box, Donald Trump called on his supporters to demonstrate in Washington on the day Congress was to record the victory of his rival.
Posing again, against all evidence, as a victim of “massive fraud”, he launched to the crowd: “You will never take back our country by being weak. You have to show strength ”.
Moments later, hundreds of men and women forced their way into the Capitol, sowing fear and chaos. Five people, including a policeman beaten with a fire extinguisher, were killed in the attack.
It will take several hours for Donald Trump to ask his supporters to “go home”, in a video where he also tells them: “We love you”.
To recall the scale of the tragedy, Democratic prosecutors could ask to hear witnesses, in particular members of the police.
But it is not certain that the senators, who will have to validate the framework of the trial on Tuesday (duration, schedules, hearings …), accept.
The Republicans do not want to dwell on this episode which causes division within them.
And the Democrats have no interest either in dragging out a trial that prevents them from devoting themselves to their priorities: supporting the action of Joe Biden by voting his bills.
