Washington DC.- It is a duty that John Roberts undoubtedly does not want but cannot avoid.
The Constitution requires that when a president is subjected to a political trial (in English, impeachment ), " the president of the Supreme Court shall preside ."
Roberts will be the third to assume that responsibility after Salmon P. Chase presided over the trial in the Senate of Andrew Johnson in 1868, and William Rehnquist that of Bill Clinton in 1999.
Roberts will not take more than a few minutes to reach the Capitol, which is located across the street from the Supreme Court, leaving a court that seeks to drive nonpartisanly to enter the highly charged political atmosphere of the Senate. But the televised image of him sitting in the chair of the presiding officer will be misleading: he will actually have little control over what happens.
Roberts' role will be more that of a master of ceremonies than of a judge in a trial.
" He has no maximum authority over almost nothing, " said Frank Bowman, a political trial expert at the University of Missouri Law School.
Senate rules say that Roberts, as president of the trial, can decide on key issues, for example, evidence , including "issues of relevance, materiality and redundancy." But whatever you decide can be revoked immediately by a simple majority vote.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, has emphasized that Roberts is unlikely to issue substantial decisions on his own . "I would anticipate that the president of the court would not make any decisions," McConnell said. "I would simply submit a motion to the body [of senators] and we would vote."
For that reason, senators are not simply jurors of a trial that decides on the facts. They also decide legal issues, such as what evidence can be admitted, which is usually the job of a magistrate in the judicial system.
Low decision power
Roberts will have some responsibilities. He can call order in the Senate and decide when to suspend the session . And he will read aloud any written question presented by the senators, who will not be allowed to speak while the trial is ongoing. But he will repeatedly go to the Senate official in charge of applying the rules that govern that parliamentary body, Elizabeth MacDonough.
Bowman said that House of Representatives prosecutors, of a Democratic majority, can try to pressure Roberts to rule on the admissibility of the evidence. "If you are forced to decide, I think you would make an honest effort to apply the normal rules of judicial relevance ," Bowman said. "But I imagine that he will try to avoid being put in that situation."
In addition, Roberts could cast a tie-break vote , a role usually played by the vice president, who can act as president during regular Senate procedures. The rules do not explicitly grant the president of the Supreme Court that authority, but Chase decided two draws in votes when he presided over Johnson's political trial, so there are some precedents.
Roberts' work will probably be more complicated than the one Rehnquist faced. Before the Clinton trial began, the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, Republican Trent Lott of Mississippi and Democrat Tom Daschle of South Dakota, drew up the rules together, sticking to those adopted for the Johnson trial. No spirit of bipartisanship has guided the preparation for the trial of President Donald Trump.
Republican leaders and Democrats have been at a standstill in the call for witnesses. Many Republican senators have said they would prefer a speedy trial, and McConnell has said he has enough votes to proceed without first calling the witnesses, a process that, according to him, would be similar to what happened at the Clinton trial.
However, Democrats are demanding the testimony of key Trump Administration witnesses who have refused to testify, a situation that differs from the procedures for the Clinton trial. Minority leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, is pushing for former national security advisor John Bolton, the head of the White House interim cabinet, Mick Mulvaney, Mulvaney's chief advisor and a senior official of the White House Budget Office testify about Trump's negotiations in Ukraine.
The disagreement led the president of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, to delay the sending of articles (accusations) of political trial to the Senate, preventing her from starting a speedy trial. But the pressure has increased within his own party and Pelosi said on Friday that he could send them as soon as this week after consulting with his committee on Tuesday.
A rare opportunity to see Roberts in action
Many Americans will look at Roberts for the first time during the political trial, as the judge tends to avoid being the center of attention and is rarely seen in action, except in presidential inaugurations, when he administers the oath of office. He will turn 65 on January 27 and was nominated to be president of the Supreme Court in 2005 by President George W. Bush as successor to Rehnquist, for whom he served as legal assistant.
Roberts told senators at his confirmation hearing that, as a judge, he would strive to be a neutral arbitrator. "I will remember that it is my job to sing balls and strikes, not throw or hit, " he said.
He became the youngest president of the Supreme Court in more than 200 years and soon angered many conservatives by writing the decision that saved President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). But after Obama criticized a Supreme Court decision during a State of the Union speech - in front of his judges - Roberts wondered why they even bothered to attend.
"To the extent that the State of the Union has become a political rally, I am not sure why we are there," he said.
Roberts also clashed with Trump , after the president tweeted criticism of who he described as an Obama judge. In an unusual public response, Roberts said: "We have no Obama or Trump judges, Bush or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges who do their best to give the same rights to those who appear before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be grateful for. "
The president of the court will strive to show the same sense of independence by presiding over Trump's political trial, but the limits of his role will give him little opportunity to do so.
Reflecting on his own experience as president during a political trial process, Rehnquist paraphrased a phrase from Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera "Iolanthe": "I didn't do anything in particular, and I did very well."