U.S. House delivers article of impeachment against Trump to Senate, triggering trial

Democrats marched the impeachment case against former president Donald Trump to the U.S. Senate on Monday night for the start of his historic trial, but Republican senators were easing off their criticism of Trump and shunning calls to convict him over the deadly siege at the U.S. Capitol.

It's an early sign of Trump's enduring sway over the party.

The House of Representatives prosecutors delivered the sole impeachment charge of "incitement of insurrection," making the ceremonial walk across the Capitol to the Senate.

Republican denunciations of Trump have cooled since the Jan. 6 riot. Instead, Republicans are presenting a tangle of legal arguments against the legitimacy of the trial and questionwhether Trump's repeated demands to overturn President Joe Biden's election really amounted to incitement.

What seemed for some Democrats like an open-shut case that played out for the world on live television, as Trump encouraged a rally mob to "fight like hell" for his presidency, is running into a Republican Party that feels very differently. Not only are there legal concerns, but senators are wary of crossing the former president and his legions of followers who are their voters. Security remains tight at the U.S. Capitol.

Trial begins next month

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said if Congress starts holding impeachment trials of former officials, what's next: "Could we go back and try President Obama?"

Besides, he suggested, Trump has already been held to account. "One way in our system you get punished is losing an election."

Arguments in the Senate trial will begin the week of Feb. 8, and the case against Trump, the first former president to face an impeachment trial, will test a political party still sorting itself out for the post-Trump era.

Republican senators are balancing the demands of deep-pocketed donors who are distancing themselves from Trump and voters who demand loyalty to him. One Republican, Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, announced Monday he would not seek re-election in 2022, citing the polarized political atmosphere.

For Democrats, the tone, tenor and length of the upcoming trial, so early in Biden's presidency, poses its own challenge, forcing them to strike a balance between their vow to hold Trump accountable and their eagerness to deliver on the new administration's priorities following their sweep of control of the House, Senate and White House.

WATCH | Schumer lays out what will happen now:

Senate majority leader lays out impeachment timeline

4 years ago

Duration 1:34

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer lays out the timeline for former U.S. president Donald Trump's second impeachment trial. Opening arguments are scheduled for the week of Feb. 8.

Biden himself told CNN late Monday that the impeachment trial "has to happen." While acknowledging the effect it could have on his agenda, he said there would be "a worse effect if it didn't happen."

But he also said he didn't think enough Republican senators would vote for impeachment to convict, though he addedthe outcome might well have been different if Trump had six months left in his term.

Schumerwarns of 'get-out-of-jail-free card'

In a Monday evening scene reminiscent of just a year ago Trump isthe first president twice impeached the lead prosecutor from the House, this time Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, stood before the Senate to read the House resolution charging "high crimes and misdemeanors."

Earlier, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Republicans appear more eager to argue over trial process than the substance of the impeachment case against Trump, perhaps to avoid casting judgment on the former president's "role in fomenting the despicable attack" on the Capitol.

He said there's only one question "senators of both parties will have to answer before God and their own conscience: Is former president Trump guilty of inciting an insurrection against the United States?"

Failing to conduct the trial would amount to a "get-out-jail-free card" for other officials accused of wrongdoing on their way out the door, Schumer said.

Supreme Court chief justice will not preside

On Monday, it was learned that Chief Justice John Roberts is not expected to preside at the trial, as he did during Trump's first impeachment, potentially affecting the gravitas of the proceedings. The shift is said to be in keeping with protocol because Trump is no longer in office.

Instead, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont,who serves in the largely ceremonial role of Senate president pro-tempore, is set to preside.

Leaders in both parties agreed to a short delay in the proceedings that serves their political and practical interests, even as National Guard troops remain at the Capitol amid security threats on lawmakers ahead of the trial.

The start date gives Trump's new legal team time to prepare its case, while also providing more than a month's distance from the passions of the bloody riot. For the Democratic-led Senate, the intervening weeks provide prime time to confirm some of Biden's key cabinet nominees.

17 Republican senators needed to convict

Democratic Sen. Chris Coonsquestioned how his colleagues who were in the Capitol that day could see the insurrection as anything other than a "stunning violation" of the nation's history of peaceful transfers of power.

"It is a critical moment in American history," Coons said Sunday in an interview.

An early vote to dismiss the trial probably would not succeed, given that Democrats now control the Senate. Still, the mounting Republican opposition to the proceedings indicates that many Republican senators would eventually vote to acquit Trump. Democrats would need the support of 17 Republicans a high bar to convict him.

One by one, Republican senators are explaining their objections to the unprecedented trial and scoffing at the idea of trying to convict Trump now that he's no longer in office.

Rand Paul of Kentucky said that without the chief justice presiding the proceedings are a "sham." Joni Ernst of Iowa said that while Trump "exhibited poor leadership," it's those who assaulted the Capitol who "bear the responsibility." New Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama said Trump is one of the reasons he is in the Senate, so "I'm proud to do everything I can for him."

Republican Sen. Tom Cottonsaid he doesn't believe the Senate has the constitutional authority to convict Trump after he has left office.

"I think a lot of Americans are going to think it's strange that the Senate is spending its time trying to convict and remove from office a man who left office a week ago," hesaid.

Democrats reject that argument, pointing to an 1876 impeachment of a secretary of war who had already resigned, as well asto opinions by many legal scholars. Democrats also say that a reckoning of the first invasion of the Capitol since the War of 1812, perpetrated by rioters egged on by a president as electoral college votes were being tallied, is necessary to ensure such a siege never happens again.

A few Republicansenators have agreed with Democrats, though not close to the number that will be needed to convict Trump.

Republican Sen. Mitt Romneysaid he believes "what is being alleged and what we saw, which is incitement to insurrection, is an impeachable offence."

"If not, what is?" he said.

But Romney, the lone Republican to vote to convict Trump when the Senate acquitted the then-president in last year's trial, appears to be an outlier.