Senate divide hardens as bid to impeach Trump nears

WASHINGTON • US lawmakers on Sunday burrowed into duelling positions over the impending impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump, deepening the schisms in an already divided Senate a day before the House was to deliver its charge to lawmakers.

Senator Mitt Romney, the only Republican who voted to convict Mr Trump in his first impeachment trial, said he believed that the former president had committed an impeachable offence, and that the effort to try him even after he left office was constitutional.

"I believe that what is being alleged and what we saw, which is incitement to insurrection, is an impeachable offence," Mr Romney said on CNN's State Of The Union programme. "If not, what is?"

But even as Mr Romney signalled his openness to convicting Mr Trump, other Senate Republicans made clear that they opposed even the idea of a trial and would try to dismiss the charge before it began.

Taken together, the comments underscored the rift that the riot at the Capitol on Jan 6 and the ensuing fallout have created in the Republican conference, as senators weighed whether they would pay a steeper political price for breaking with the former president or for failing to do so.

Although the House was set to transmit the article of impeachment yesterday, Senate leaders agreed last Friday to delay the trial for two weeks, giving President Joe Biden time to install his Cabinet, and Mr Trump's team time to prepare a defence. But the plan also guarantees that the trial will dominate Mr Biden's first days in office, and it could inflame partisan tensions even as the President is pushing a message of unity.

Some Senate Republicans, including Mr Mitch McConnell, have grown increasingly worried that if they do not intervene to distance themselves from Mr Trump, their ties to the former president could hurt the party's political fortunes for years. Others, skirting the question of whether Mr Trump had committed an impeachable offence, have argued that holding a Senate trial for a president who has already left office would be unconstitutional and would further divide the nation.

Senator Marco Rubio said that holding a trial was "stupid" and "counterproductive", likening it to "taking a bunch of gasoline and pouring it on top of the fire".

"The first chance I get to vote to end this trial, I'll do it because I think it's really bad for America," he said.

In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Mr Rubio compared the transition of power with that of president Richard Nixon.

"In hindsight, I think we would all agree that president (Gerald) Ford's pardon was important for the country to be able to move forward, and history held Richard Nixon quite accountable for what he did as a result," Mr Rubio said.

Asked if he thought Mr Trump had committed an impeachable offence, Senator Mike Rounds called it "a moot point" and argued that pursuing an impeachment trial against a former president would be both unconstitutional and a waste of time.

"If we start working on an impeachment... we've only got a couple of weeks here in which to work actually through and allow this president an opportunity to form a Cabinet," Mr Rounds said on Meet The Press on NBC. "A lot of us would prefer to maybe work through those issues instead."

Democrat Representative Madeleine Dean, one of the impeachment managers who will try the case against Mr Trump, said on Sunday that she expected the trial to "go faster" than his trial last year, which lasted 21 days. "We must remember, I believe, that this impeachment trial, I hope conviction, the ultimate disqualification, are the very first powerful steps towards unity."

NYTIMES