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Democrats objected Tuesday to the rules Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has set for President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial proceedings at the Capitol, the Associated Press reported.
“This is not a process for a fair trial, this is the process for a rigged trial,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee leading the prosecution, told media members. He called it a “cover-up.”
Republican senators, who hold the majority, are falling in line behind McConnell’s plan, which the chamber will debate and vote on Tuesday. Democrats warned that McConnell’s rules package could force midnight sessions that would keep most Americans in the dark and create a sham proceeding.
“The McConnell rules see m to be designed by President Trump for President Trump,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader. He vowed to call for a series of votes to amend the rules and demand testimony and documents, but it seemed unlikely Republicans would break from the party to join Democrats. “This is a historic moment. … The eyes of America are watching. Republican senators must rise to the occasion.”
McConnell had promised to set rules similar to the last impeachment trial, of President Bill Clinton in 1999, according to AP: “But his resolution diverged in key ways. “On the night before the trial, he offered a compressed calendar as Trump’s lawyers argued for swift rejection of the ‘flimsy’ charges in a trial that never should have happened.”
“All of this is a dangerous perversion of the Constitution that the Senate should swiftly and roundly condemn,” the president’s lawyers wrote in their first full filing Monday. “The articles should be rejected and the president should immediately be acquitted.”
The Constitution empowers the House to impeach a president and the Senate to reach the final verdict by convening as an impeachment court for a trial.
