With the House set to send the article of impeachment against President Trump over to the Senate sometime today, Americans remain split on whether the former president should be convicted for inspiring an attempted insurrection back on January 6. With the debate over when the trial will start still ongoing, this move by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will formally trigger the workings of the Senate to begin taking up the impeachment issue and layout an anticipated schedule of proceedings.
Even so, Americans remain divided (shocker) over the issue, with just over fifty percent favoring a conviction by the U.S. Senate, according to a recent poll from Reuters/Ipsos:
The national public opinion poll, conducted on Wednesday and Thursday, found that 51% of Americans think Trump should be found guilty for inciting the deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Another 37% said Trump should not be convicted and the remaining 12% said they were unsure.
If you’re doing the math at home, that’s 51% explicitly in favor of a conviction, and 49% opposing a conviction or simply undecided. In that respect, it’s possible that the Senate trial could sway these results in one way or the other. Some Americans may be waiting to hear a legal argument as to why the former President should be convicted. Others may simply be over the entire ordeal, too busy with the necessities of daily life and the trappings of Covid-19 disruptions to care.
One thing that the poll does show a little more clarity on, however, is that more respondents favor the idea that the former president should be barred from running in the future:
When asked about the former Republican president’s political future, 55% said Trump should not be allowed to hold elected office again, while 34% said he should be allowed to do so and 11% said they were unsure.
If the Senate votes to convict Trump, it would need to hold a second vote to bar him from holding office again.
There clearly is a patch in the middle who doesn’t think an impeachment conviction is necessary so long as Trump remains off the ballot in future elections. It seems impossible to guarantee one without the other since the Senate can only prohibit Donald Trump from running again with a formal vote after he is convicted on the impeachment article.
The formal transmission of the article of impeachment from the Hosue to the Senate may be the last of the Trump impeachment in the news for a couple of weeks, according to CNN:
There are still many questions about the looming impeachment trial, including who will preside, how long the trial will go and whether any witnesses will be called.
But part of the schedule itself was resolved after a week’s worth of uncertainty over when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would send the article to the Senate, thanks to a deal reached between Senate leaders on Friday.
Under the agreement, Trump’s legal team and the House managers will have two weeks to exchange pre-trial briefs after the article is transmitted to the Senate on Monday.
The question of who will preside over the trial remains uncertain as the constitution isn’t clear about the impeachment of a president no longer in office. It could be Chief Justice John Roberts as it was for the first Trump impeachment trial, or it could be Vice President Kamala Harris, according to Roll Call:
The Constitution states, “When the President of the United States is tried the Chief Justice shall preside.” Roberts presided over Trump’s first impeachment trial a year ago, just the third such trial in history.
But what happens when Trump leaves office on Jan. 20 — before the trial starts — and becomes a former president of the United States? Must the chief justice still preside over the trial? Could he choose to do so?
Or does role that fall to the presiding officer of the Senate, the new vice president, Kamala Harris? Or can the Senate have its president pro tempore, at that time Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, preside? Or can the Senate pick an alternate presiding officer under a special order?
Constitutional and congressional experts have no certain answer.
It’s 2021, but “unprecedented times” is already the theme of the year. Asking the question of whether a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is the person to preside over the second impeachment trial of a former president isn’t something often discussed in legal circles.
In the meantime, the House, Senate, and President Biden will be picking up the Covid-19 relief bill for debate as the year slowly grinds forward.
