The House of Representatives made history Wednesday, impeaching President Trump for a second time, for instigating the insurrection at the Capitol a week ago today.
Trump became the first president ever to be impeached twice. But now the question is - what will the Senate do, and when will it hold a trial?
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday he will not force the Senate to come back early from its recess, which ends next Tuesday, meaning it won’t be possible to hold a trial before then. And it remains unknown how long the House will wait before transmitting the Article of Impeachment to the Senate, for the trial and possible conviction of the president.
UC Hastings Law Professor Rory Little, an expert on constitutional law who clerked at the U-S Supreme Court, said the Constitution does not include any details about those topics whatsoever.
“So the House and Senate probably have as much discretion as you can infer from the Constitution not talking about it,” Little said. “Now whether a trial is even Constitutional after the President is not in office is a question. And that question I think is likely to go to the Supreme Court if/when they start the trial.”
Little said the House does have the ability to wait to continue the process, and said that a trial is not necessarily needed at this point.
“You can just leave him impeached and just leave him on the shelf as the only president to ever be impeached twice,” Little said.
Little noted that, if President Trump were to be convicted, it could disqualify him from holding office in the future.
“The Senate would have to take another vote to disqualify Trump from future office,” Little said. “There are going to be Senators who would secretly love to see him convicted, then disqualified, so that he doesn’t run against them in 2024. There will be Republican senators who secretly, and maybe even publicly, support that conviction in order to get that disqualification judgement after.”
Little said that President Trump could be convicted after the fact that he has left office, but if the Senate opens a trial, Trump’s lawyers could then make a motion to have it dismissed, file a petition to the Supreme Court and challenge it. But of course, nobody knows for sure at this point what is expected, as this has not happened before in the past.
As far as how Americans will remember President Trump’s time in office, Little believes that his double-impeachment is what will overrule his legacy.
“This will no longer be a president where people say ‘well, he did some good things and he did some bad things,’” Little said. “This is going to be a president where the only thing in history books is going to be ‘he was the one who was impeached twice.’”
