Estimates: The former president will be released from the indictment • Details of Trump's conversation with a senior Republican in the House of Representatives about the riots in the Capitol were allegedly revealed
The Senate, today
Photo:
AP
The Senate today (Saturday) reached the decisive stage in the Trump trial:
after a last-minute turnaround in which lawmakers approved a new stage of summoning witnesses, the prosecution and defense agreed to settle for one written testimony and move on to the sentencing stage.
Trump is set to emerge entitled from the only charge filed against him for his alleged role in the January 6 break-in at Capitol Hill: "Incitement to Uprising."
The acquittal was expected because the Democrats (as of the time the article was published) were very far from recruiting the majority needed for a conviction (67 senators).
Also, the vast majority of Republican senators in the Senate - including leader Mitch McConnell - have sided with the former president, despite criticism from some of them.
Senate approves summoning witnesses to Trump trial // Photo: Reuters
What led to the temporary delay in the trial were the details that were allegedly revealed about the conversation that senior Republican in the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy had with Trump, in the midst of the severe riots on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6.
The person who revealed the details, which have not yet been verified by McCarthy himself, is Republican Rep. Jamie Herrera Butler, who claimed that McCarthy tried in vain to get the president to come out against the rioters, who tried - and even managed for a while - to interrupt the meeting Joe Biden has been named president-elect and election winner.
Butler said in a conversation between McCarthy and Trump, the Republican legislature urged the president to do something and come out strongly against his supporters who stormed Capitol Hill, but Trump denied that they were connected to him and even blamed the radical left-wing organization Antifa.
The riots on Capitol Hill: Crowds erupted in Congress // Archive photo: Reuters
McCarthy, Herrera argued, vehemently denied Trump's claim, and in response the former president said, "Well, then probably the resentment of these people in the face of the election results is greater than your displeasure with the results."
After this accusation was made, CNN reported, McCarthy told Trump that at the moment he was actually breaking into his office and breaking windows, and even sent Trump a juicy curse while saying, "Who do you think you're talking to?"
Herrera's remarks, which were among the 10 Republicans in the House who supported the Senate indictment against Trump in the face of his alleged involvement in the violence, echoed across Washington, and soon there was a rift among Democrats in the Senate to stop the trial to summon her to testify.
Eventually, after the Senate approved the summoning of witnesses, the two parties decided not to summon witnesses but to settle for written testimony on Herrera's part, allowing the Senate to advance to the final arguments stage of the trial and vote on the verdict.
Trump before the vote on the electorate: "We won by knockout, we will not give up" // Archive photo: Reuters
Either way, Trump's entourage continued to defend his conduct during the events, arguing that his call to "fight" the election results is protected under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which sanctifies freedom of expression.
Lawyers have even shown a video with a number of cases in which senior Democrats and other leftists call on protesters to "fight" and even go on a rampage.
Trump's lawyers stressed that supporters who stormed Capitol Hill gathered there and began chanting violent slogans even before Trump's speech in question, so he is not the motivator.
"If you look at the schedule of events, the criminals on Capitol Hill were not at Trump's rally in front of the White House and therefore could not even hear his words - they were already in front of Capitol Hill, and they had already planned the attack on this building (Capitol Building - EL ), "Attorney Bruce Castor said in the Senate on Friday.
Trump protests in Capitol: "You have to go home, we do not want anyone to get hurt" // From Twitter
Former Gov. Nicki Haley, who was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Trump and considered a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2024, also came out strongly against Trump over the weekend.
In an interview with Politico over the weekend, she was quoted as saying that "Trump did not live up to our expectations, he went the way he was not supposed to go and we should not have followed him or listened to him. It must not be allowed to happen again."
However, she said the impeachment process is a "waste of time" and agreed that there are still many Republican voters who "love" the president and do not intend to abandon him.
In the event of a conviction (which, as stated, will probably not happen), Trump will become the first president convicted in a dismissal trial (although as stated he will not be dismissed, because he has already ceased to serve).
In addition, a conviction will lead to another vote on his permanent removal from any federal position in the U.S., which would have prevented him from serving as president again. In any case, Trump is the first president so far to be nominated twice in the Senate.