Trump, a Republican, stands little chance of being convicted and removed from office by the Republican-controlled Senate.
WASHINGTON: US lawmakers who control the fate of President Donald Trump left Washington for a holiday break on Friday with no agreement over how they will handle the Senate trial to consider his impeachment charges in January.
Trump, a Republican, stands little chance of being convicted and removed from office by the Republican-controlled Senate, which will weigh the two impeachment charges that were passed on Wednesday by the Democratic-led House of Representatives.
Republicans and Democrats are at loggerheads over how the trial will play out. Democrats want to call top Trump aides as witnesses, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has not yet sent the impeachment package to the Senate, a bid to increase pressure on Republicans in the upper chamber.
Many Republican lawmakers prefer a quick trial to get the matter behind them, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has dismissed the idea of calling witnesses. Some Republicans suggested Democrats were delaying because they had a weak case.
“Hypocritical to argue this is a solemn constitutional duty and POTUS is an imminent threat to democracy and then sit on the articles. No one is fooled,” Senator John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said on Twitter. Democrats have argued that impeachment was an urgent matter because Trump represented a threat to democracy, particularly the integrity of the 2020 election.
The House will not be able to send over the impeachment articles until it reconvenes on Jan. 7, at the earliest, according to a Democratic congressional aide. The Senate is due to return on Jan. 3 but will not hold votes until Jan. 6, according to McConnell. No matter the outcome, Democrats have ensured that Trump will go down in history as one of only three US presidents to be impeached, following Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 as he faced impeachment. Trump, 73, is accused of abusing his power by holding back $391 million in security aid to Ukraine in an effort to get Kiev to announce a corruption investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination to face Trump in the November 2020 election.
The president is also charged with obstruction of Congress for directing administration officials and agencies not to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry.
Trump says he did nothing wrong and has dismissed his impeachment as a partisan bid to undo his 2016 election win.