Former President Donald Trump must be held accountable for the violent siege of the U.S. Capitol.
Trump incited the violent mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 in an attempt to overturn the presidential election and undermine the nation’s democracy. At least five people died, including one Capitol Police officer. Dozens of people have been charged, and Trump was impeached by the U.S. House for a historic second time. Trump was first impeached in 2019 over relations with Ukraine and was acquitted in 2020 by the Senate.
There appears to be little disagreement on Trump’s role in the siege of the Capitol.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell explicitly blamed Trump for the deadly riot at the Capitol, saying the mob was “fed lies” and the president and others “provoked” those intent on overturning Democrat Joe Biden’s election.
“They were provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like,” said McConnell.
Despite a bipartisan rebuke of Trump for his role in the siege, there appears to be reluctance among many Republicans to hold him accountable.
Amid Trump’s historic second impeachment trial, many
Republicans have yet to announce whether they support convicting Trump on the impeachment charge.
Some Republicans want to halt the impeachment trial. Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn is among a growing number of Republicans in Congress publicly casting doubt on the legal ability of the Senate to convict a president no longer in office, though legal scholars differ on the issue.
In December 2019, the Washington Post interviewed six scholars on whether a president can be impeached after he leaves office. “Three believed it was a possible but unsettled question that a former president could face a Senate trial; two others said the Senate lacked such powers; and one scholar believed the Senate could try a former president,” according to an article on the website of the National Constitution Center.
The House impeached Trump on Jan. 13 on the sole charge of incitement of insurrection.
Opening arguments in the Senate impeachment trial for Trump over the Capitol riot will be the week of Feb 8, the first time a former president will face such charges after leaving office.
While no president has been impeached twice and while out of office, what Trump did was also unprecedented.
In pursuing conviction, House impeachment managers will make the case that Trump’s incendiary rhetoric hours before the bloody attack on the Capitol was not isolated, but rather part of an escalating campaign to overturn the November election results. It culminated in Trump’s rally cry to “fight like hell” as Congress was tallying the Electoral College votes to confirm he’d lost to Biden.
Reprinted from the Philadelphia Tribune
About Post Author
