Republican senators signal opposition to convicting Trump

WASHINGTON • Senate Republicans rallied against trying former United States president Donald Trump for "incitement of insurrection" at the Capitol, with only five members of his party joining Democrats in a vote to go forward with his impeachment trial.

By a vote of 55-45, the Senate on Tuesday narrowly killed a Republican effort to dismiss the proceeding as unconstitutional because Mr Trump is no longer in office.

But the numbers show that loyal Republicans are again poised to spare him from conviction, this time despite his role in stirring up a mob that violently targeted lawmakers on Jan 6 as Congress met to finalise the election results.

"I think it's pretty obvious from the vote today that it is extraordinarily unlikely that the president will be convicted," said Senator Susan Collins of Maine, one of the five Republicans who voted to proceed to trial. "Just do the maths."

Kentucky's Republican Senator Rand Paul raised a point of order to hold a vote on the constitutionality of the impeachment trial as Mr Trump has left office.

After the vote, Mr Paul said "that 45 senators agreed that this sham of a 'trial' is unconstitutional... This 'trial' is dead on arrival in the Senate".

It would take two-thirds of the 100 senators - 67 votes - to attain a conviction, meaning 17 Republicans would have to cross party lines to side with the 50 Democrats in finding Mr Trump guilty.

If they did, an additional vote to disqualify him from ever holding office again would take a simple majority.

Aside from Ms Collins, the only Republicans who joined Democrats in voting to reject the constitutional objection and proceed to trial were Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania.

All five had previously said they were open to hearing the House's impeachment case, which was adopted in a bipartisan vote a week after the Capitol attack.

The House of Representatives on Monday presented a single article of impeachment to the upper chamber accusing Mr Trump of inciting the storming of the Capitol on Jan 6, setting in motion the first-ever impeachment trial of a former president.

The trial of Mr Trump, who was impeached by the Democratic-majority House for an unprecedented second time, is to begin from the week of Feb 8.

With the facts of the case still spilling forth and the meat of the trial delayed for two weeks, senators could change their views.

Several Republicans who voted on Tuesday to uphold the constitutional challenge, which would have effectively killed the impeachment trial, later rushed to clarify that they remained open-minded about the trial.

In the weeks since the attack, Mr Trump has made no apology for his actions, including spreading falsehoods about election fraud and urging his supporters gathered outside the White House to march to the Capitol, confront members of Congress formalising his election loss and "fight like hell".

But most agreed that whatever window of possibility there had been for bipartisan condemnation of Mr Trump was closing fast.

Mr Trump - who received 74 million votes in his loss to Mr Joe Biden in the US presidential race on Nov 3 and is reportedly sitting on US$70 million (S$93 million) in campaign funds - wants Republican senators to consider their own futures before they dare to cross him.

His main way of applying pressure while out of office is to threaten disloyal legislators with support for their challengers in party primary votes ahead of the 2022 mid-term elections.

Mr Trump's endorsement on Monday of his former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in her bid to become governor of Arkansas was a first flexing of political muscle.

Meanwhile, Mr Patrick Leahy, the 80-year-old Democrat senator presiding over the impeachment trial, was hospitalised after Tuesday's proceedings during which he sounded hoarse and unwell as lawmakers were sworn in as jurors.

Senator Leahy was released from hospital in the evening after undergoing health checks.

NYTIMES, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESS