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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Maanvi Singh (now), Joan E Greve and Martin Belam (earlier)

US Senate votes Trump impeachment trial is constitutional and will proceed – as it happened

House impeachment managers proceed through the US Capitol building to the Senate chamber on Tuesday in Washington DC.
House impeachment managers proceed through the US Capitol building to the Senate chamber on Tuesday in Washington DC. Photograph: Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times/Rex/Shutterstock

Summary

From Joan E Greve and me:

  • The Senate started the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump. The trial comes a month after the House charged Trump with incitement of insurrection in connection to the 6 January attack on the Capitol. Trump is the first president in US history to be impeached twice.
  • The House impeachment managers started their arguments by playing a video showing the violence and destruction of 6 January. The footage included clips of insurrectionists storming the Capitol, as well as quotes from Trump’s speech to his supporters on 6 January. “And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country any more,” Trump said shortly before the Capitol was stormed.
  • Lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin provided an emotional account of his experience on 6 January. Raskin noted that his daughter and his son-in-law were with him at the Capitol on 6 January, which was a day after the congressman buried his son, Tommy. When Raskin was reunited with his family after the insurrection, his daughter told him, “Dad, I don’t want to come back to the Capitol.” The congressman cried as he recalled his daughter’s words.
  • One of Trump’s lawyers offered a rambling opening argument on why the impeachment trial should be dismissed. Lawyer Bruce Castor acknowledged that the defense team had “changed what we were going to do on account that we thought that the House managers’ presentation was well done”.
  • Trump lawyer David Schoen warned that more violence could occur if the impeachment trial moves forward. Schoen appeared to suggest that the impeachment trial could spark another civil war, saying: “This trial will tear this country apart, perhaps like we have only seen once before in American history.”
  • The Senate voted 56-44 to affirm that the impeachment trial is constitutional. Republican senators Collins, Cassidy, Murkowski, Romney, Sasse, and Toomey all voted with Democrats. Senate leader Mitch McConnell, however, sided with the Trump defense on the question of constitutionality.
  • Republicans were none too impressed with Trump’s defense team. Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said of Trump’s lawyers: “They talked about many things but they didn’t talk about the issue at hand.” Cassidy had voted to dismiss the trial on 27 January, but today voted with Democrats on the question of constitutionality.

Updated

Want more background on the impeachment trial and what to expect?

Listen to the Guardian’s Today in Focus podcast. Anushka Asthana speaks with Lawrence Douglas, an Amherst College professor and Guardian opinion contributor, who explains what kind of defense Trump is planning to mount, and whether any Senate Republicans are likely to vote to convict him. She also interviews the former Democratic senator Russ Feingold, who served during Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial in the 90s ...

Updated

Here is the full video montage from the Capitol insurrection that Democrats presented during the impeachment trial, as part of their evidence alleging the former president incited the mob:

Analysis: Democrats use Trump trial to show sometimes symbolism is the point

Democrats are aware that the trial outcome is a foregone conclusion – another Trump acquittal, barring sensational new evidence – and that the stakes are lower because he has already left office. But sometimes symbolism is the point. The impeachment trial is a test of accountability, stability and rule of law before a global audience.

So in a Capitol building where some windows remain cracked, they observed the solemn rituals and traditions, filing into the Senate chamber beneath the busts of 20 former vice-presidents gazing down from marble plinths in alcoves. This time there were no members of the public in the gallery because of coronavirus precautions.

Just before 1pm, Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, walked in a little unsteadily and stood at his desk. He was approached by Susan Collins, who is expected to vote against Trump and spoke to him animatedly. Then came Tom Cotton, who is expected to vote for Trump’s acquittal, for another deep conversation.

Like a criminal lawyer, Democrats are seeking to appeal to not only the head but also the heart. They are not only prosecutors but also survivors of the rampage, a point brought home with visceral force by Jamie Raskin in a closing argument that had the chamber silent and spellbound on Wednesday.

“And then there was a sound I will never forget,” he recalled. “The sound of pounding on the door like a battering ram. The most haunting sound I ever heard and I will never forget it.”

Raskin’s 25-year-old son, Tommy, a Harvard law student who struggled with depression, took his own life on New Year’s Eve. A day after Tommy was buried on 5 January, the congressman had brought his daughter and a son-in-law to the Capitol for the ratification of Biden’s victory.

He had assured them it would be safe but, after the mob stormed the building, they were hiding under a desk in a barricaded congressional office sending what they thought were final text messages to loved ones. More than an hour later, they were rescued by Capitol police.

Raskin, fighting back tears, said of his 24-year-old daughter: “I told her how sorry I was and I promised her that it would not be like this again the next time she came back to the Capitol with me. And you know what she said? She said, ‘Dad, I don’t want to come back to the Capitol.’”

At that Raskin broke down for a moment, putting fingers to his eyes before regaining his composure. “Of all the terrible, brutal things I saw and I heard on that day and since then, that one hit me the hardest. That and watching someone use an American flag pole, the flag still on it, to spear and pummel one of our police officers – ruthlessly, mercilessly tortured by a pole with a flag on it that he was defending with his very life.”

Democrats were expected on Wednesday to prosecute the case like a criminal trial with more compelling videos and graphic descriptions of that day.

Read more:

Donald Trump is reportedly unhappy with his lawyers’ performance today...

A Trump adviser told the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman that Trump attorney Bruce Castor’s confusing, meandering performance was a “deliberative strategy” designed to lower the emotion in the room, though, I’d counter that a master strategist wouldn’t need to put out a background statement explaining their strategy.

Updated

Cassidy isn’t the only Republican who was displeased with Donald Trump’s defense team.

“The president’s lawyer just rambled on and on,” said senator John Cornyn, a Republican of Texas. “I’ve seen a lot of lawyers and a lot of arguments, and that was not one of the finest I’ve seen.”

Senator Ted Cruz, a Trump loyalist told the Washington Post: “I don’t think the lawyers did the most effective job.”

Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana was none too impressed with Donald Trump’s defense team.

Cassidy told HuffPost’s Igor Bobic: “They talked about many things but they didn’t talk about the issue at hand.”

Cassidy voted with 54 other Republicans on 27 January in a procedural vote dismiss the impeachment charge as unconstitutional, but today defected voted with Democrats on the question of constitutionality.

It still looks unlikely that the requisite 17 Republicans would vote at the end of this to convict Trump, but it’s significant that in what both parties are seeing as a trial with a foregone conclusion, one Republican has already waffled.

Updated

Here are some impeachment trial FAQs, answered:

What is Donald Trump claiming in his defense?

Trump has had trouble assembling a legal team. His usual personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, had to recuse himself because he also gave a speech at the event where the former president is accused of fomenting insurrection. Trump then appears to have fallen out with his first legal team, which was led by Butch Bowers.

Now led by lawyers David Schoen and Bruce L Castor, Trump’s team issued a thinly argued 14-page document last week that said his speech did not amount to a call to storm the Capitol and that his trial was unconstitutional anyway, because he has left office. Trump will not testify personally.

How long will the trial last?

How long the trial will take is not known, but most people believe it will be much shorter than the three-week trial the last time Trump was impeached over his actions over Ukraine, when he was accused of abusing his power and obstructing Congress.

It is unclear yet whether the Senate will vote to allow the legal teams to call witnesses in person, although the trial is highly unusual in that the jury are witnesses, as senators were present in the Capitol and were forced into hiding as the mob invaded the very chamber where the trial will be held. The prosecution team are expected to include video footage and eyewitness testimony from members of Congress while building their case.

Will Trump be found guilty?

On the face of it, it seems unlikely. An impeachment trial requires a two-thirds majority for a conviction. If every senator votes, then at least 17 Republicans would need to vote against their former president to reach the required 67-vote threshold.

Already, 45 senators have supported a motion presented by Kentucky Sen Rand Paul that the process itself is unconstitutional and against holding the trial at all. It would be quite a leap for them in the space of a few weeks to go from saying the trial should not take place, to finding Trump guilty.

For many Republican senators the calculation is political. House Representatives who voted to impeach Trump, such as Republican Liz Cheney, have already faced protest and censure from their state Republican parties over their failure to back Trump, who still has strong grassroots support despite losing November’s election.

Will a second impeachment bar Trump running from office in 2024?

Not necessarily. If he was found guilty, there’s no immediate punishment, since he is no longer in office. The Senate could, with a simple majority vote, bar him from holding federal elective office in the future. With the Senate split 50-50, and the vice-president, Kamala Harris, holding the casting vote, that could pass quite simply.

There is a constitutional argument to be had that the Democrat-controlled Senate might try to do this anyway even if Trump is found not guilty, by invoking section three of the post-civil war 14th amendment to the US constitution. That forbids anyone who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the US from holding federal office, but that is likely to be the subject of a significant legal dispute should it arise.

The trial has now adjourned until noon DC time tomorrow.

In the coming days, each side will present their cases for why Trump should or should not be convicted.

Senator Patrick Leahy, President Pro Tempore.
Senator Patrick Leahy, the Senate president pro tempore. Photograph: Senate Televsion Handout/EPA

• This caption was amended on 10 February 2021 to correct the spelling of Senator Leahy’s surname.

Updated

Senate affirms constitutionality of the impeachment proceedings

The Senate voted 56-44, affirming that the impeachment trial is constitutional.

Republican senators Collins, Cassidy, Murkowski, Romney, Sasse, and Toomey all voted with Democrats. Senate leader Mitch McConnell, however, sided with the Trump defense on the question of constitutionality.

Updated

“The institution of the presidency is at risk,” David Schoen, Trump’s attorney argued, as concluding arguments.

The Senate is now voting on the constitutionality of the proceedings.

Today so far

That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog to cover the rest of the first day of the impeachment trial.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • The Senate started the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump. The trial comes a month after the House charged Trump with incitement of insurrection in connection to the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Trump is the first president in US history to ever be impeached twice.
  • The House impeachment managers started their arguments by playing a video showing the violence and destruction of January 6. The footage included clips of insurrectionists storming the Capitol, as well as quotes from Trump’s speech to his supporters on January 6. “And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” Trump said shortly before the Capitol was stormed.
  • Lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin provided an emotional account of his experience on January 6. Raskin noted that his daughter and his son-in-law were with him at the Capitol on January 6, which was a day after the congressman buried his son, Tommy. When Raskin was reunited with his family after the insurrection, his daughter told him, “Dad, I don’t want to come back to the Capitol.” The congressman cried as he recalled his daughter’s words.
  • One of Trump’s lawyers offered a rambling opening argument on why the impeachment trial should be dismissed. Lawyer Bruce Castor acknowledged that the defense team had “changed what we were going to do on account that we thought that the House managers’ presentation was well done”.
  • Trump lawyer David Schoen warned that more violence could occur if the impeachment trial moves forward. Schoen appeared to suggest that the impeachment trial could spark another civil war, saying, “This trial will tear this country apart, perhaps like we have only seen once before in American history.”

Maanvi will have more updates and analysis on the impeachment trial coming up, so stay tuned.

Some viewers of the impeachment trial wondered why David Schoen, one of Donald Trump’s defense lawyers, kept resting his hand on his head as he took a sip of water while making his opening argument.

Daniel Goldman, the lead counsel of the House inquiry during Trump’s first impeachment, explained it was because Schoen is an observant Jew and must cover his head and say a blessing when he drinks a sip of water.

David Schoen, one of Donald Trump’s lawyers, argued that House Democrats inappropriately delayed the impeachment trial by holding back the article of impeachment.

But it was then-Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell who said he would not bring the chamber back early from recess to start the trial, despite Democratic leader Chuck Schumer’s requests for an emergency session to immediately begin the proceedings.

So it is not accurate to blame Democrats for the delayed start date of the impeachment trial.

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar pushed back against the arguments presented by Donald Trump’s defense team in the impeachment trial.

Omar sent a tweet about the proceedings shortly after the defense team played a video showing Democrats, including Omar, calling for the impeachment of Trump as early as 2017.

“Let’s be clear, we might have all done and said things we regret, but only Trump and the #seditioncaucus words and actions have let to an insurrection of our nation’s Capital, death and bodily harm,” the Democratic congresswoman said. “Don’t let them confuse you.”

Bruce Castor’s bizarre opening argument in defense of Donald Trump could be part of the team’s “deliberative strategy,” a Trump ally is telling reporters, including the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and NBC’s Peter Alexander.

It seems that the defense team was trying to tamper emotions after the House’s impeachment managers appeared in front of the Senate. Castor was “lowering the temperature” before the team went on to “dropping the hammer on the unconstitutional nature of this impeachment witch hunt,” according to an anonymous Trump ally who spoke to Alexander.

It is unclear what part of Castor’s statement was part of this strategy given that he acknowledged moments ago on the Senate floor that the team “changed what we were going to do on account that we thought the House managers presentation was well done.” Perhaps the admission was part of the “deliberative strategy”?

David Schoen criticized the House impeachment managers for playing “movies” to make their case for Donald Trump’s conviction.

The impeachment managers opened their arguments today by playing a video showing the violence and destruction at the Capitol on January 6.

Shortly after Schoen issued his criticism, he played his own video, showing Democrats calling for the impeachment of Trump as early as 2017.

Schoen’s video opened with a clip of Jamie Raskin, the lead impeachment manager, as menacing music played in the background.

Trump lawyer appears to warn of more violence if impeachment trial continues

David Schoen, a member of Donald Trump’s legal team, accused Democrats of abusing the impeachment power to gain a political advantage.

The former president’s lawyer argued Democrats are pursuing impeachment because they are still mad about the results of the 2016 election. (The impeachment managers’ opening argument focused exclusively on the violent insurrection at the Capitol last month, which Trump incited.)

“I promise you that if these proceedings go forward, everyone will look bad,” Schoen said, warning that the trial would “open up new and bigger wounds across the nation”.

Schoen then appeared to suggest that the impeachment trial could spark another civil war, saying, “This trial will tear this country apart, perhaps like we have only seen once before in American history.”

Updated

As he concluded his opening comments, Bruce Castor also bizarrely seemed to suggest Donald Trump should be arrested if the allegations at the heart of the impeachment trial are true.

“A high crime is a felony, and a misdemeanor is a misdemeanor,” Castor said. “After he’s out of office, you go and arrest him. ... The department of justice does know what to do with such people. And so far, I haven’t seen any activity in that direction.”

Bruce Castor closed his opening comments by acknowledging that Donald Trump’s defense team was caught off guard by the strength of the House impeachment managers’ presentation.

The former president’s lawyer said the defense team reshuffled because they thought the managers’ presentation would focus only on the question of Senate jurisdiction rather than recounting the violence and destruction of the January 6 insurrection.

“We have counter-arguments to literally everything they have raised, and you will hear them later in the case,” Castor said.

And with that, he handed things over to another member of Trump’s defense team, David Schoen.

Alan Dershowitz, who served as a member of Donald Trump’s defense team during his first impeachment trial, criticized Bruce Castor’s rambling opening presentation.

“There is no argument. I have no idea what he is doing,” Dershowitz told the conservative outlet Newsmax. “I have no idea why he’s saying what he’s saying.”

Dershowitz said Castor was too focused on “talking nice” to senators rather than making a “constitutional argument” for why the impeachment trial should be dismissed.

“I have no idea what he’s doing. Maybe he’ll bring it home, but right now it doesn’t appear to be effective advocacy,” Dershowitz said. “Boy, it’s not the kind of argument I would have made. I’ll tell you that.”

Trump's defense team warns against punishing political speech

About 20 minutes into his speech, Bruce Castor addressed the January 6 insurrection, pointing to a First Amendment defense for Donald Trump inciting the violence.

“We can’t possibly be suggesting that we punish people for political speech in this country,” the former president’s lawyer told senators.

The impeachment managers preemptively addressed this argument in their final pre-trial brief, which they filed earlier today.

“The First Amendment does not immunize President Trump from impeachment or limit the Senate’s power to protect the Nation from an unfit leader,” the managers wrote in their brief.

They added, “And even assuming the First Amendment applied, it would certainly not protect President Trump’s speech on January 6, which incited lawless action.”

Updated

Bruce Castor, who is leading Donald Trump’s defense team, opened his presentation by praising senator as “patriots” and mentioning that he still gets lost in the Capitol sometimes.

Castor did not directly address the president’s actions on January 6 or argue against the constitutionality of the impeachment trial.

Reporters compared the former president’s lawyer to a college student who did not do the reading before class, joking that Castor would be fired by tweet if Trump still had access to his Twitter account.

The beginning of Bruce Castor’s presentation seemed to be mostly him rambling, which did not escape the attention of those watching the impeachment trial.

Castor, who is leading Donald Trump’s defense team, spent several minutes explaining how senators are different than other Americans. It was very unclear how that issue relates to whether the impeachment trial is constitutional.

The contrast to House impeachment managers’ presentation, which started with a video showing the violence and destruction of the January 6 insurrection, was quite stark.

Trump's legal team argues impeachment trial is unconstitutional

The impeachment trial has now resumed, and Donald Trump’s legal team has started delivering its argument that the trial is unconstitutional.

Lawyer Bruce Castor opened his remarks by acknowledging the “outstanding presentation” offered by the impeachment managers.

Castor also emphasized that he and Trump’s other lawyers denounced the violence at the Capitol on January 6, saying they believed all the insurrectionists involved in the attack should be prosecuted.

Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, was spotted entering the break room for the the former president’s legal team as the impeachment trial took a brief recess.

Reporters in the Oval Office asked Joe Biden if he will be watching this afternoon’s impeachment proceedings taking place in the Senate, to which Biden gave another non-answer as the White House continues to take a hands-off stance toward Donald Trump’s impeachment.

“I have a job. … Children are going to bed hungry, a lot of families are food insecure. They are in trouble,” Biden said. “That’s my job. The Senate has their job and they are about to begin it and I am sure they are going to conduct themselves well. ... That’s all I am going to say about impeachment.”

While Biden has made brief comments on Trump’s impeachment, saying at the end of January that he thinks “it has to happen”, Biden and his administration have been taking care to not say much of anything about impeachment over the last few weeks, often refusing to take questions from reporters about their thoughts on the trial.

Biden’s strategy around impeachment, as a Politico headline puts it, is “sit back and STFU”, with political strategists saying that Biden’s team likely wants to see the president focused on responding to Covid-19 rather than messy politics.

“Part of what they’re trying to do here is say ‘it’s a new day it’s a new administration,” said Karen Finney, a Democratic strategist, told Politico. “They’re not going to use the White House and the tools of the presidency to engage in politics.”

The impeachment trial is now taking a 10-minute break, after the House impeachment managers rested their case on the constitutionality of the Senate trial.

When the trial resumes, Donald Trump’s legal team will present its argument that the trial is unconstitutional because the president has already left office.

The impeachment managers preemptively pushed back against that argument, saying there is no “January exception” allowing presidents to commit impeachable offenses during their final days in office.

Raskin provides emotional account of January 6 insurrection

Lead impeachment manager Jamie Rakin became emotional as he recounted how he was separated from his family during the Capitol insurrection.

Raskin had brought his daughter, Tabitha, and his son-in-law, Hank, to the Capitol on January 6 to witness the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. It was the day after the burial of Raskin’s son, Tommy.

When the family was reunited after the insurrectionists were expelled from the Capitol, Raskin said he promised his daughter “it would not be like this again” when she returned.

Raskin said his daughter told him, “Dad, I don’t want to come back to the Capitol.” The congressman cried as he recalled his daughter’s words.

Updated

Lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin reminded senators that this trial was personal for every member of the Capitol Hill community, who witnessed the January 6 insurrection.

“I hope this trial reminds American how personal democracy is,” Raskin said.

The Democratic congressman noted his youngest daughter, Tabitha, and his son-in-law, Hank, were with him at the Capitol on January 6.

“It was the day after we buried her brother, our son Tommy -- the saddest day of our lives,” Raskin said.

The congressman said he assured his family they would be safe at the Capitol. When they were reunited after the insurrection, he had to apologize to them for being wrong.

Impeachment manager David Cicilline noted that Donald Trump continued to spread his baseless claims of widespread election fraud in the hours after a violent mob stormed the Capitol.

On the evening of January 6, Trump wrote in a tweet, “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”

“Every time I read that tweet, it chills me to the core,” Cicilline said. “The president of the United States sided with the insurrectionists.”

The Democratic congressman added, “Given all that, it’s no wonder that President Trump would rather talk about jurisdiction and a supposed ‘January exception’ rather than talk about what happened on January 6. Make no mistake: his arguments are dead wrong.”

Impeachment manager Joe Neguse closed his opening remarks by reflecting on his own experience on January 6, as a violent mob stormed the Capitol.

“What you experienced that day, what we experienced that day, what our country experienced that day is the Framers’ worst nightmare come to life,” Neguse said.

The Democratic congressman argued the violence and destruction of that day underscored the urgent need to hold Donald Trump accountable for his actions.

“Presidents can’t inflame insurrection in their final weeks and then walk away like nothing happened,” Neguse said. “And yet that is the rule that President Trump asks you to adopt. I urge you — we urge you — to decline his request, to vindicate the Constitution.”

A New York Times reporter noted that the acoustics of the Senate chamber amplified the sounds of impeachment managers’ video showing the violence of January 6.

“The sounds of the montage seemed to echo a lot more in the chamber, filling it with the screams and yells of the mob,” reporter Emily Cochrane wrote in a pool report. “When the video concluded, it was silent in the chamber.”

If you missed impeachment managers’ opening presentation, C-SPAN has uploaded the full video that lead manager Jamie Raskin played:

Democratic Senator Cory Booker covered his eyes when the impeachment managers’ video of the January 6 insurrection showed one rioter being shot, a Politico reporter noted.

Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat of West Virginia, also shook his head when the video cut to Donald Trump telling the insurrectionists, “We love you. You’re very special.”

Congressman Joe Neguse, the youngest impeachment manager in history, has now taken over to make the argument for the constitutionality of today’s trial.

Donald Trump’s lawyers have tried to argue that the impeachment trial is unconstitutional because the president has already completed his term and thus cannot be removed from office.

Neguse noted that many legal scholars have said impeachment can apply to former officials, and indeed there have been past instances of former officials being impeached, although this is the first time a former president has been impeached.

“There is no January exception to the impeachment power” allowing presidents to commit impeachable offenses during their final days in office, Neguse told senators.

Updated

Jamie Raskin, the lead impeachment manager, insisted the Senate absolutely has jurisdiction to convict Donald Trump and block him from seeking federal office again.

Trump’s legal team has argued that the Senate has no jurisdiction to conduct an impeachment trial because the former president has already left office, but Raskin pushed back against that theory.

Raskin said the Framers included the mechanism of impeachment in the Constitution because they feared a leader would seek to subvert democracy in the exact way that Trump attempted to.

“President Trump may not know much about the Framers, but they knew a lot about him,” Raskin said.

After the video concluded, lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin said the footage from January 6 made it clear that Donald Trump had violated his oath of office.

The video included a clip of Trump telling the insurrectionists on January 6, “We love you. You’re very special.”

“You ask what a high crime and misdemeanor is under our Constitution? That’s a high crime and misdemeanor,” Raskin said. “If that’s not an impeachable offense, then there’s no such thing.”

As the impeachment managers played a video showing the violent events of January 6, congressional reporters reflected on the emotional toll of the trial for Capitol Hill employees, who now must relive the trauma of that day.

Impeachment managers play videos from Capitol insurrection

Lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin has kicked off today’s debate, saying his team’s case will be based on the facts of the January 6 insurrection.

“You will not be hearing extended lectures from me, because our case is based on cold hard facts,” Raskin, a Democratic congressman from Maryland, told senators.

Raskin warned that the insurrection could provide a preview of America’s future if Donald Trump is not held accountable by the Senate.

Raskin then played a video showing some of the violence and destruction that occurred at the Capitol last month. The video included clips of insurrectionists breaking through Capitol barricades, as well as quotes from Trump’s speech that day.

“And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” Trump said shortly before the Capitol was stormed.

Updated

Eleven Republican senators voted against adopting the bipartisan resolution that outlines rules for how the impeachment trial will be conducted.

Senators Ted Cruz of Texas, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mike Lee of Utah, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Marco Rubio of Florida, Rick Scott of Florida, Tim Scott of South Carolina and Tommy Tuberville voted against the resolution.

The rules were negotiated by Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and minority leader Mitch McConnell, and they were agreed to by Donald Trump’s own legal team.

The vote underscores how likely an acquittal is, given that it would take 17 Republicans (along with every Democrat in the Senate) to convict Trump.

The Senate is now voting on the bipartisan rules resolution outlining how the impeachment trial will be conducted.

The rules were negotiated by Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and minority leader Mitch McConnell, and most members are expected to support the resolution.

The trial will begin today with a debate over the constitutionality of the trial, followed by a vote on that issue.

The Senate voted late last month on the constitutionality of the trial, and 45 Republican senators supported dismissing the trial.

Updated

Senator Patrick Leahy, who is presiding over the impeachment trial, promised to handle the proceedings in a fair manner for all parties.

“I did not ask or seek to preside over this trial,” Leahy said in a letter to his Senate colleagues. “My intention and solemn obligation is to conduct this trial with fairness to all.”

Supreme court Chief Justice John Roberts presided over Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial, but he chose not to do so this time because Trump has already left office.

Second impeachment trial of Donald Trump begins

The second impeachment trial of Donald Trump has now begun, with Senator Patrick Leahy opening the proceedings.

The Senate will hear arguments from the impeachment managers and the former president’s defense team over the next several days.

The blog will have updates and analysis on the trial, so stay tuned.

Updated

Jen Psaki deflected questions about Joe Biden’s opinion of the impeachment trial, which will begin in just a couple minutes.

The White House press secretary reiterated that the president will not be watching the trial and will not be airing his thoughts on the proceedings, instead leaving the matter up to the Senate.

“Joe Biden is the president. He’s not a pundit,” Psaki said.

The House impeachment managers are now walking to the Senate chamber, where the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump will take place.

The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, is holding her daily briefing, as we await the start of the Senate impeachment trial.

Psaki said that Joe Biden would meet with members of White House coronavirus response team in the Oval Office today.

The president and the health experts will discuss “next steps in shutting down the virus and getting life back to normal,” Psaki said.

Community health centers to receive one million vaccine doses, White House says

Community health centers across the country, many of which serve minority and low-income communities, will receive one million doses of vaccines from the White House, said Jeff Zients, the White House Covid-19 response coordinator, in a press briefing this afternoon.

The White House plans to give 250 federally qualified community health centers across all 50 states and territories enough doses to vaccinate 500,000 in the coming weeks.

Marcella Nunez-Smith, chair of Joe Biden’s Covid health equity task force, said that the White House hopes to connect with hard-to-reach populations, including those experiencing homelessness, agricultural workers and people living in public housing, by having community centers distribute the vaccine.

Community health centers across the US serve 30 million people, two-third of who are at or below the federal poverty line and identify with racial ethnic minorities. Centers will be able to start to order vaccines as soon as next week, Nunez-Smith said.

Zients also said that vaccine distribution is up 5% compared to last week and is up 28% since Biden came into office, with states receiving 11m doses each week.

Report on US election finds no significant fraud, slams Trump

The election arm of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), has brought out its final report on the US presidential election, concluding that it was well organised under the circumstances and there was no significant fraud.

The report also found that Donald Trump’s rhetoric and refusal to accept defeat undermined public faith in democratic institutions, and warned the US has long-term problems with providing equal voting rights for all.

As is routine for OSCE member states, its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) sent a team out to observe the run-up, election day itself and the aftermath. Its report notes that voting infrastructure in the US is chronically underfunded, and the extra $400m disbursed to deal with the challenge of voting in a pandemic was insufficient.

A total of 101 million Americans, 64% of all 2020 voters, cast an early ballot, but despite that unprecedented number, the report found that “early voting was generally well organised and implemented professionally”.

“The number and scale of substantiated cases of fraud associated to absentee ballots were negligible,” it said.

One of the main problems with the election and its aftermath, according to the findings, was the incumbent president.

“On many occasions, President Trump created an impression of refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, claiming that the electoral process was systematically rigged,” the report said.

“Such statements by an incumbent president weaken public confidence in state institutions and were perceived by many as increasing the potential for politically motivated violence after the elections.”

The ODIHR report did not take an explicit view on Trump’s role in inciting the Capitol riot, on 6 January and for which he was impeached a second time. But it noted that at his rally immediately beforehand, Trump “persisted in his accusations that the election had been stolen, urging his supporters to pressure representatives to overturn the counting of electoral college votes.”

The ODIHR was most scathing about the state of voting rights in the US. It notes that after the supreme court invalidated key parts of the Voting Rights Act, “some states enacted laws which effectively compromised voting rights for some disadvantaged groups”.

An estimated 5.2 million citizens are effectively disenfranchised due to a criminal conviction, even though half have served their sentences.

The report concluded: “These restrictions on the voting rights of ex-felons and felons contravene principles of universal suffrage and the principle of proportionality in the restriction of rights, as provided for by OSCE commitments and other international standards.”

Further reading from Sam Levine:

Updated

Today so far

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • The second impeachment trial of Donald Trump will soon begin. The Senate is expected to hold another vote on the constitutionality of the trial today, before the impeachment managers and the former president’s legal team start presenting their arguments on whether Trump should be convicted for incitement of insurrection.
  • The impeachment managers will present new evidence in the trial, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer told reporters this morning. “The evidence will be powerful. The evidence, some of it, will be new,” Schumer said, urging senators to “approach the trial with the gravity it deserves”.
  • The impeachment managers filed their final pre-trial brief, dismissing arguments from Trump’s legal team. “President Trump’s pre-trial brief confirms that he has no good defense of his incitement of an insurrection against the Nation he swore an oath to protect,” the managers wrote in the brief. “President Trump’s conduct on January 6 was the paradigm of an impeachable offense.”

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

The Senate now plans to continue with the impeachment trial on Saturday, Sunday and Monday (which is a federal holiday).

One of Donald Trump’s defense attorneys, David Schoen, had requested that the trial adjourn on Friday night to allow him to recognize the Sabbath.

Senate leaders had planned to accommodate that request, but Schoen dropped the matter yesterday. The Senate will now convene on Saturday, although Schoen will not work that day.

If the impeachment managers want to call witnesses, the Senate will hold a vote to determine whether they will be allowed to do so.

But if no witnesses are called, it’s possible the impeachment trial could wrap up by Sunday or Monday, given that the president’s defense team is not expected to use all of its 16 hours to present its case.

Joe Biden will participate in a CNN town hall on the coronavirus pandemic when he visits Milwaukee, Wisconsin, next week, the network announced.

The White House announced earlier this morning that Biden would visit Wisconsin next Tuesday, marking the president’s first official trip since taking office.

CNN has more details on the event:

The ‘CNN Presidential Town Hall with Joe Biden’ will air live from the Pabst Theater on February 16 at 8 p.m. ET, the network announced Tuesday. ...

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper will moderate the town hall. A CNN spokesperson said an invitation-only, socially distanced audience will be present and will follow Wisconsin’s guidance and regulations to ensure a safe event.

The President is expected to field questions on a number of issues as his administration, lawmakers and business leaders debate how to defeat the coronavirus, while trying to bring a sense of normalcy back to people’s lives.

The event comes as Biden and congressional Democratic leaders attempt to pass the president’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package.

The impeachment managers also dismissed arguments from Donald Trump’s defense team that the former president’s baseless claims of widespread election fraud, which incited the January 6 insurrection, were protected by the First Amendment.

“Accepting President Trump’s argument would mean that Congress could not impeach a President who burned an American flag on national television, or who spoke at a Ku Klux Klan rally in a white hood, or who wore a swastika while leading a march through a Jewish neighborhood—all of which is expression protected by the First Amendment but would obviously be grounds for impeachment,” the managers wrote in their brief.

“The First Amendment does not immunize President Trump from impeachment or limit the Senate’s power to protect the Nation from an unfit leader.”

The managers then go on to note the criminal activity seen during the Capitol insurrection, which resulted in five deaths. The managers write, “And even assuming the First Amendment applied, it would certainly not protect President Trump’s speech on January 6, which incited lawless action.”

In their new legal brief, the House impeachment managers argued an acquittal for Donald Trump would set a dangerous precedent for the future of American democracy.

“There can be no doubt that President Trump is singularly responsible for inciting the violent insurrection that followed his speech,” the managers said of the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

“The Framers of our Constitution designed the impeachment power to protect against a President who would subvert our democracy to keep himself in power. ... President Trump’s conduct on January 6 was the paradigm of an impeachable offense.”

Impeachment managers say 'Trump’s guilt is obvious'

The House impeachment managers have filed a reply to the pre-trial brief from Donald Trump’s legal team, which defended the former president’s actions on January 6 and argued the Senate did not have jurisdiction to hold this impeachment trial.

“President Trump’s pre-trial brief confirms that he has no good defense of his incitement of an insurrection against the Nation he swore an oath to protect,” the managers wrote.

“President Trump now studiously ignores all that preceded his speech and provided meaning and context to his statements, asking the Senate to do the same and focus only on a handful of his remarks in isolation.”

The managers argued the former president’s defense team is turning to process complaints about the constitutionality of the trial because his actions on January 6 are indefensible.

“Because President Trump’s guilt is obvious, he seeks to evade responsibility for inciting the January 6 insurrection by arguing that the Senate lacks jurisdiction to convict officials after they leave office,” the managers wrote.

“President Trump’s jurisdictional argument is both wrong as a matter of constitutional law and dangerous as a matter of Senate practice. It would leave the Senate powerless to hold Presidents accountable for misconduct committed near the end of their terms.”

Senator Bernie Sanders is expected to support the nomination of Neera Tanden to lead the office of management and budget, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Journal reports:

To win Senate approval, Ms. Tanden’s nomination will need 51 votes. Democrats control 50 seats in the chamber and Vice President Kamala Harris can break a tie. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats, is expected to support her nomination, despite past disagreements with Ms. Tanden, according to a person familiar with his thinking.

Sanders and Tanden have long had a tense relationship, dating back to Tanden’s loyal support of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary.

In 2019, Sanders wrote a letter to the Center for American Progress, which Tanden leads, accusing her of “maligning my staff and supporters and belittling progressive ideas”.

Some of Sanders’ allies expressed disappointment about Tanden’s nomination, but the senator has apparently decided to put aside any of his own concerns and support her confirmation.

Given the very narrow Democratic majority in the Senate and widespread Republican opposition to Tanden, Democrats need every vote to get her nomination across the finish line.

Over at Neera Tanden’s confirmation hearing, Senate Republicans are citing some of the liberal think tank leader’s tweets to raise questions about her qualifications to helm the office of management and budget.

Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma noted Tanden has previously tweeted that Republicans are “criminally ignorant,” “corrupt” and “the worst”.

The recitation of Tanden’s tweets struck some reporters as hypocritical, given that Republican lawmakers frequently claimed not to have seen Donald Trump’s controversial tweet of the day during his presidency.

CNN anchor Jake Tapper also noted that Trump himself sent some rather insulting tweets about fellow Republicans:

Impeachment managers will present new evidence in trial, Schumer says

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer is holding a press conference, about two hours before the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump is set to begin.

“The Senate has a solemn responsibility to try and hold Donald Trump accountable for the most serious charges ever levied against a president,” Schumer said. “When you have such a serious charge, sweeping it under the rug will not bring unity.”

The Democratic leader noted that the House impeachment managers would present new evidence in favor of Trump’s conviction for incitement of insurrection.

“The evidence will be powerful. The evidence, some of it, will be new,” Schumer said, urging senators to “approach the trial with the gravity it deserves”.

Schumer also emphasized that the trial would not prevent congressional Democrats from moving forward with Joe Biden’s coronavirus relief pacakge.

“To the pundits who said we can’t do both at once, we say you are wrong. We can and we are,” Schumer said.

Updated

Biden to travel to Wisconsin next week

The White House has announced that Joe Biden will travel to Wisconsin next Tuesday, marking one of his first official trips since becoming president last month.

The White House did not provide any additional details about the trip.

This will mark the president’s first visit to Wisconsin since late October, when Biden held a rally in the battleground state days before the November election.

The Wisconsin visit will also be Biden’s first domestic trip since taking office, with the exception of his weekend spent in his home state of Delaware.

Biden returns to the White House on Monday after a weekend in Delaware.
Biden returns to the White House on Monday after a weekend in Delaware. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

Updated

Neera Tanden, Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the office of management and budget, is testifying at the first of two confirmation hearings this morning.

Tanden, who has served as president of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress since 2011, has been criticized by Republican lawmakers for her past tweets attacking them.

“I know there have been some concerns about some of my past language on social media,” Tanden told the Senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee. “I regret that language and take responsibility for it.”

But those comments did not seem to persuade Rob Portman, the top Republican on the panel. Portman opened his comments by criticizing “the tone, content and aggressive partisanship” of Tanden’s social media posts, arguing they could make it hard for serve as OMB director.

Tanden’s nomination is unlikely to attract much Republican support, but with Democrats in control of the Senate, she is still likely to win confirmation.

As Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial gets underway, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will hold a meeting on the coronavirus relief package at the White House.

The president and the vice-president will be joined by treasury secretary Janet Yellen and several business leaders.

Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, and Tom Donohue, the CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce, will be in attendance, as well as the CEOs of Walmart, Gap and Lowe’s.

The meeting comes as Democrats debate whether to attempt to include a $15 minimum wage hike in the coronavirus relief bill. Bernie Sanders, the new chairman of the Senate budget committee, has pushed for incorporating the minimum wage proposal into the relief legislation.

But some Democratic leaders, including Biden, have signaled that they don’t believe a minimum wage increase will meet the requirements of reconciliation to be included in the relief package. The Senate parliamentarian is expected to issue a ruling on the matter.

The prosecution is expected to brandish dramatic footage of the violence at the Capitol on 6 January. The trial is set to strike a sharp contrast of tone with Donald Trump’s first trial in early 2020, at which prosecutors used documents, emails and testimony to tell a complicated story about a Trump pressure campaign in Ukraine.

This time the alleged crime scene is much closer to home – in the very chamber where the trial will play out, which was invaded by Trump supporters moments after members of Congress and staff had been evacuated.

With a majority of Americans expressing horror and outrage at the attack on the Capitol, the allegations against Trump could land much more powerfully with the public than did the story of his seeking political favors from Ukraine in return for official acts.

The impeachment trial will begin with a vote on whether the proceedings are constitutional, given that Donald Trump has already left office.

The former president and his allies, including some Republican senators, have argued the Senate does not have jurisdiction to convict Trump because he is no longer president and thus cannot be removed from office.

Trump’s lawyers wrote in a legal brief filed yesterday, “[T]he Senate is being asked to do something patently ridiculous: try a private citizen in a process that is designed to remove him from an office that he no longer holds.”

But the House impeachment managers have pushed back against this argument, saying the Constitution does not provide any “January Exception” for lame-duck presidents who commit impeachable offenses.

It’s also worth noting that a conviction could prevent Trump from seeking federal office again, so this is not simply a mater of removing someone from office.

The vote on the constitutionality of the trial will be a repeat of an earlier vote in the Senate. When senators voted on the issue late last month, 45 Republican senators supported dismissing the trial.

This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Martin Belam.

The second impeachment trial of Donald Trump begins today, as the Senate prepares to decide whether the former president should be convicted for incitement of insurrection.

The House approved the article of impeachment against Trump last month, just days after a violent mob stormed the Capitol, resulting in five deaths.

Seventeen Senate Republicans would have to vote with Democrats in order to convict Trump, and that seems unlikely to happen.

But it is possible that a handful of Senate Republicans will vote to convict the former president, which would represent a rather stark contrast from Trump’s first impeachment trial, when Mitt Romney was the only Republican senator to support conviction.

The trial is set to start in about four hours, so stay tuned for more updates and analysis as we prepare for the proceedings.

Updated

Tucked inside Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan is a seemingly radical notion that children should not grow up in poverty, says Josh Boak at the Associated Press.

Congressional Democrats are now sketching out that vision more fully by proposing to temporarily raise the child tax credit, now at a maximum of $2,000, to as much as $3,600 per child annually. Their plan would also make the credit fully available to the poorest families, instead of restricting it based on the parents’ tax liability.

“The Democratic plan would likely mark the most significant step in the fight against child poverty since LBJ’s Great Society,” said Daniel Hemel, a law professor at the University of Chicago, who noted that a family with two school-age children and no income would get $6,000 under the proposal.

Biden has pitched his rescue plan as an immediate response to the pandemic, but the child tax credit expansion might end up seeding the kind of lasting change that tends to bring a political fight. Some conservatives say the plan would discourage parents from working and would not reduce poverty as a result. But liberals view it as an investment in children that needs to stay in place to ultimately improve people’s lives and the economy.

In a Friday speech about his full Covid-19 relief proposal, Biden said the spending would ultimately lead to durable economic gains. His plan includes funding for school reopenings, child care and other programs to help the youngest Americans.

“The simple truth is, if we make these investments now, with interest rates at historic lows, we’ll generate more growth, higher incomes, a stronger economy and our nation’s finances will be in a stronger position as well,” Biden said.

“This is a really bold idea,” said C. Nicole Mason, CEO of the liberal Institute for Women’s Policy Research. “Things that we wouldn’t have been talking about as possible a year before the pandemic are suddenly on the table — and this is one of those things.”

Supporters of the package also see a return to grappling with big ideas about poverty that has not occurred for decades. The child tax credit is possibly the start of a larger transformation in how the government addresses child poverty.

“A one-year improvement is great, and it puts the architecture in place,” said Michelle Dallafior, senior vice president for the advocacy group First Focus on Children. “But we need to keep doing more and build something permanent. ... No child should live in poverty.”

In her speech to the House last week while trying to avoid being thrown off her committee assignments, Marjorie Taylor Greene said that she “was allowed to believe things that weren’t true”. She appears to be at that same game again this morning, as Politico reporter Kyle Cheney has just pointed out about her latest tweetstorm.

Perhaps it would be helpful for Taylor Greene to read this piece put together this morning for Newsweek by Ewan Palmer, which claims to list every capitol rioter who has said that Donald Trump incited them. For example, Texas-based real estate agent Jennifer Ryan:

“I just want people to know I’m a normal person, that I listen to my president who told me to go to the Capitol,” Ryan told a Dallas news station KTVT.

On 6 January , Ryan posted a video on her Facebook stating, “We’re gonna go down and storm the capitol.” She later posted a photo of herself in front of a broken window at the Capitol building on Twitter with the caption: “Window at the capital [sic]. And if the news doesn’t stop lying about us we’re going to come after their studios next.”

Read more here: Newsweek – Every Capitol rioter who has said Donald Trump incited them

Donald Trump vetoed a series of brutal attack ads in the 2020 election campaign that targeted Joe Biden’s behavior towards women, because he was afraid of opening his own “can of worms”.

Biden has been criticized for touching and hugging women in ways widely deemed inappropriate, behavior he has said was not meant to be “disrespectful” and complaints to which he said he would “listen respectfully”. In early 2020, he faced a claim that he sexually assaulted a former aide. He forcefully denied it.

Trump famously boasted he was allowed to “grab” women “by the pussy”. He has been accused of sexual harassment or assault by no fewer than 25 women. He forcefully denies all such claims. But some have landed him in court and his former attorney Michael Cohen was convicted of violations of campaign finance law over hush money payments made to women before the 2016 election.

The news site Axios reported on Monday night on campaign ads it said were considered by Trump but which proved “so far-fetched even he vetoed them”.

One, titled “Predator”, showed Kamala Harris, Biden’s running mate who is now the first woman to be vice-president, saying: “I know a predator when I see one.”

The clip included quotes from Tara Reade, the former aide who accused Biden of assault, and Lucy Flores, a former Nevada state politician who in 2019 told CNN Biden’s behaviour towards women including her was “disqualifying”.

But Trump “never wanted to run the predator or women’s-style ads against Biden”, Axios reported an unnamed campaign source as saying, “because he was afraid he was going to open up his own can of worms”. Axios said a second unnamed source confirmed the story.

Read more of Martin Pengelly’s report here: Trump vetoed ads attacking Biden’s record on women to avoid ‘can of worms’

We know that Donald Trump won’t be appearing in person at his second impeachment trial this week. But will he be watching it? Apparently so, at least according to Jacqueline Alemany at the Washington Post, who has spoken to Trump spokesman Jason Miller. She writes:

Unlike his successor, cable news hound Trump, who is camped out in his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach is expected to turn on the television “at some point.”

But that doesn’t mean Team Trump is all that worried about how the trial will play out — at least not publicly.

“I mean, they already had that vote two weeks ago where 45 Republican senators said it was unconstitutional right off the bat and nothing has been presented or proven to change any minds since then,” Miller told us. “Democrats are nowhere near getting enough votes — he will be acquitted next week. This is a simple charade to inflict political damage to Trump.”

Miller proceeded to call the potential for a vote to permanently disqualify Trump from holding future office “dead on arrival.”

One practical outcome of the Biden administrations push to reverse the isolationist policies of the Trump era. Reuters report this morning that an official has told a World Health Organization meeting today that the US would shift its status from observer to participant in a programme to boost Covid-19 testing, diagnostics and vaccines.

“We want to underscore the commitment of the United States to multilateralism and our common cause to respond this pandemic and improve global public health,” Colin L. McIff, acting director at the Office of Global Affairs in the US Department of Health and Human Services, said at the WHO virtual meeting.

The meeting in Geneva aims to help fill a $27 billion funding gap for the WHO-backed programme, called the Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator Facilitation Council, that is aimed at broadening global access to Covid-19 fighting tools.

That Trump legal team defense testimony we are expecting to probably start on Friday might not last as long as we thought, according to NBC News White House correspondent Monica Alba who has just tweeted this nugget.

A bill that would likely ban almost all abortions in South Carolina is expected to move closer to final approval today, report Associated Press.

The state’s House Judiciary Committee is meeting to discuss the “South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act.” The bill has already passed the Senate and the governor promises he will sign it.

The proposal would require doctors to use an ultrasound to try to detect a fetal heartbeat if they think pregnant women are at least eight weeks along. If they find a heartbeat, and the pregnancy is not the result of rape or incest, they can’t perform the abortion unless the mother’s life is in danger. A fetal heartbeat can be detected as soon as six weeks after conception and before many women know they are pregnant.

Republican lawmakers plan no more public hearings on the bill.

In committee meetings, lawmakers typically discuss bills and sometimes make changes. But this abortion ban has already been passed by the House several times in the past before failing in the Senate.

If the committee approves the bill at their meeting Tuesday afternoon it will head to the full House, which passed a similar bill 70-31 in 2019. About a dozen other states have passed similar bills, although they are tied up in court challenges.

Republicans were able finally to get the proposal through the South Carolina Senate after flipping three seats from Democrats in the 2020 elections.

At Associated Press, Mary Clare Jalonick has singled out her things to watch over the next few days during Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial. She identifies among them:

The effort to dismiss – Tuesday’s proceedings will begin with a debate to dismiss the trial before it even begins. It is expected to fail. Democrats point to the opinion of many legal scholars — including conservatives — who say the trial is valid under the constitution. They also point to an 1876 impeachment trial of a secretary of war who had resigned and note that Trump was impeached before he left office. Trump’s lawyers dismiss that precedent and say language in the Constitution is on their side.

16 hours of arguments each – Democrats are expected to try and take advantage of the senators’ own experiences, tapping into their emotions as they describe in detail — and show on video — what happened as the mob broke through police barriers, injured law enforcement officers, ransacked the Capitol and hunted for lawmakers. The carnage led to five deaths. Defense arguments are likely to begin Friday. Trump’s lawyers have made clear that they will not only argue against the trial on process grounds, but also present a full-throated defense of Trump’s actions that day and why they believe he did not incite the riot. The lawyers argue that Trump’s words “fight like hell” did not mean to literally fight, that the rioters acted on their own accord.

The Republicans to watch – Democrats appear to have little chance of persuading the 17 Republicans they need to find Trump guilty. Five Republican senators voted with Democrats two weeks ago not to dismiss the trial on constitutional grounds. Additionally some GOP senators who voted in favor of the effort to dismiss, such as Rob Portman of Ohio and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, have said they are coming into the trial with an open mind. Democrats are likely to focus, too, on senators who are retiring in 2022 and will have less to lose politically if they vote to convict.

In January, over 39,000 people detained across America became the first incarcerated recipients of the Covid-19 vaccine in the United States.

But when the majority of the 2.3 million incarcerated Americans will receive the vaccine depends largely on where they are detained – in a federal prison, state prison or county jail – and the jurisdiction’s unique vaccine prioritization plans, many of which have been in flux over the last few months in no small part due to politicization of the issue from lawmakers and the public alike.

“The stakes are extremely high,” says Renaldo Hudson, who was recently released from the Illinois department of corrections after 37 years of incarceration. “Most states do not have death sentences. But being incarcerated can be a death sentence if you die inside. They’re putting people in body bags.”

On most days of the pandemic, the largest Covid-19 outbreaks in this country have been in prisons and jails. In December, the National Commission on Covid-19 and Criminal Justice found that the Covid-19 mortality rate in prisons was twice as high as for the general population, with four times as many positive cases overall. In some states, the mortality rate in prisons is over seven times as high as it is among the state’s general population.

“We have no protection,” says James Swansey, who was incarcerated at Statesville prison for most of the pandemic. “For months, we would see people sent out of the penitentiary to the hospital and we would get word back that such-and-such died and that such-and-such died. The same dude that we were just talking with the other day is no longer with us. We need a voice, we need somebody that’s going to fight for us.”

Vaccination in jails and prisons doesn’t just affect those inside. Vendors and staff working in jails and prisons travel in and out of detention facilities every day, potentially carrying the virus from these incubation sites to communities across the country. Additionally, thousands of people are released from jails and prisons daily, most without receiving a Covid-19 test before release.

Read more of Kiran Misra’s report here: ‘A death sentence’ – US prisons could receive Covid vaccines last despite being hotspots

Yesterday there were 89,727 new coronavirus cases and 1,596 Covid deaths in the US, according to the latest Johns Hopkins University figures. It is the second day in a row that the number of new cases has been recorded at lower than 100,000.

Hospitalization levels continued to fall, with 80,055 people in hospital with Covid across the US.

32.6 million have now received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine.

However, as Ben Kesslen reported for NBC overnight, there are concerns from experts over how some states are reacting to the lower numbers:

In Iowa, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds lifted the state’s partial mask mandate on Friday. She also said businesses no longer have to limit the number of customers or enforce social distancing. The Des Moines Register’s editorial board called the move “inexplicable and irresponsible.”

Reynolds isn’t acting alone. Democratic and Republican governors alike have been loosening restrictions. The moves come as the most-recent seven-day average for new cases in the US is 119,509 for the past week. The last time that figure was that low was 9 November, near the beginning of the latest surge. The current new case numbers still far surpass the spring and summer highs.

“I have some concern it’s premature” to loosen restrictions, said Dr. Justin Lessler, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Lessler said the very restrictions in place are what is allowing Covid-19 infection rates to decline. “When we remove interventions, we frequently see resurgences,” he said, advising caution if states want to see continued decline. “When new variants come along, the stepping back that may have been OK before is not OK anymore because of the more transmissible variants.”

Scott Wong and Mike Lillis write for the Hill this morning that the Democrats impeachment strategy is to go for emotion.

The nine House impeachment managers plan to avoid any long or abstract legal analysis in favor of efforts to tell the “gripping and spellbinding story” of how Trump incited the deadly insurrection at the Capitol on 6 January.

That strategy, they believe, carries at least two advantages: It keeps the message simple and easily digestible for the TV audience; and it allows the prosecution to wrap up quickly so that Democrats can get on with the ambitious legislative agenda of the nascent Biden administration, starting with another massive round of Covid-19 relief.

Not only were the Senate jurors eyewitness to — and victims of — the Capitol siege, but countless hours of videotaped footage of the rampage have been circulating incessantly in the weeks since the violent attack, captivating a country that remains sharply divided over who bears the blame.

Democratic prosecutors will rely heavily on that trove of video evidence, including portions of Trump’s “Save America” speech outside the White House just moments before the siege. They’ll argue that his instructions to “fight like hell” incited his followers to sack the Capitol that day. The managers are also expected to present senators with video clips of insurrectionists hunting for lawmakers and attacking police.

Read more here: The Hill – Democrats to go for emotion at Trump trial

If you were looking for something to lighten the mood…

The US ambassador to Vietnam has recorded an original rap and music video ahead of Tet, the lunar new year, risking inevitable ridicule by styling himself as “the boy from Hanoi”.

“I’m from Nebraska. I’m not a big city boy,” raps Dan Kritenbrink in the song, released on the US embassy in Hanoi’s Facebook group. “Then three years ago I moved to Hanoi.”

He goes on to sip tea, walk the streets with an entourage, which includes bona fide Vietnamese rapper Wowy, and check a sheet of paper that appears to contain the lyrics.

One Twitter user called the track a “full assault on the art of rap” but conceded that Kritenbrink “seems genuine and sincere”.

“I’m assuming it’s intentionally awful,” wrote another, though he admitted that he himself was “no rap connoisseur”.

Facebook commenters were more forgiving, calling the song “so cute”, “super cute” and “too cute”.

Paola Rosa-Aquino writes this morning on how Biden’s new conservation corps stirs hopes of a nature-focused hiring spree:

Nearly a century ago, the US faced unemployment at 25% and environmental woes such as flooding along major rivers and extensive deforestation. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt decided to tackle these emergencies simultaneously by creating the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) as part of his New Deal.

Through its nine-year existence, Roosevelt’s “Tree Army” put an impressive 3 million jobless Americans to work. All in all, CCC enrollees planted more than 3bn trees, paved 125,000 miles of roadways, erected 3,000 fire lookouts, and spent 6m workdays fighting forest fires. The artifacts from this ambitious effort – from trails and structures dotting the Grand Canyon national park or the Pacific Coast Trail – are beloved today.

Now, as the ongoing pandemic has wrought the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression, Roosevelt’s public jobs programs are back in the spotlight. As part his recent climate policy spree, Biden announced the establishment of a “Civilian Climate Corps Initiative” that could harness the energy of the very generation that must face – and solve – the climate crisis by putting them to work in well-paying conservation jobs.

After Biden’s omnibus executive order, the heads of the Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture and other departments have 90 days to present their plan to “mobilize the next generation of conservation and resilience workers”, a step toward fulfilling Biden’s promise to get the US on track to conserve 30% of lands and oceans by 2030.

“We’re really excited that the Biden administration is taking this on,” said Mary Ellen Sprenkel, head of the National Association of Service and Conservation Corps, a loose association of about 135 corps organizations across the country that already provides young adults and veterans with work on public lands and in rural and urban communities. “Some of our programs have quite a bit of experience in doing this, and hopefully we’ll be called upon to help develop and implement the initiative.”

Far beyond just planting trees, a new conservation corps could pour money into tackling a bevy of other environmental problems, too. According to Biden’s website, projects will include working to mitigate wildfire risks, protect watershed health, and improve outdoor recreation access. Sprenkel thinks the effort could also include more activities at the community level, like urban agriculture projects and work retrofitting buildings to be more energy-efficient.

Read more of Paola Rosa-Aquino’s report here: Biden’s new conservation corps stirs hopes of nature-focused hiring spree

South Korea’s new foreign minister said today he was confident about coordinating North Korea policy with the United States despite earlier signs of differences.

Reuters report that Chung Eui-yong, 74, took office as South Korea’s top diplomat this week, having been president Moon Jae-in’s first national security adviser until last year. In that role, Chung helped facilitate Moon’s summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and sought to meditate between Pyongyang and Washington.

Chung expressed confidence in coordinating with the new Biden administration, saying an early denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula is a shared goal.

“Resolving the issue a very key task that can no longer be postponed,” Chung told reporters. “Basically there is no big difference in the two sides’ positions. Given the solid alliance, I believe there won’t be major problems coordinating even if there are slight differences.”

Biden has not announced any new North Korea policy, but said during a presidential debate in October he would meet Kim only if he agreed to “draw down” the country’s nuclear capacity.

South Korea’s Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun told Reuters that the two sides should pursue an interim deal including a halt to the North’s nuclear activity and a cut in its programmes in return for some sanctions relief.

North Korea had offered to abolish its main nuclear facility in exchange for the lifting of key UN sanctions, but the United States said Pyongyang should also hand over its nuclear weapons and bomb fuel.

Obviously there’s a lot more to it than this, but essentially if you are arguing that it is unconstitutional to impeach a president after they have left office, you are basically arguing that they can commit as many “high crimes and misdemeanors” as they like in their last few days in office, and there’s nothing Congress can do to hold them accountable for that. Even the most originalist of constitutionalists must surely think that isn’t what was intended.

Stephen Collinson at CNN has put the issue slightly more analytically here:

The simple question posed by Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial is whether a president who loses reelection can get away with a violent coup attempt in a desperate bid to stay in power.

The answer contained in the former commander-in-chief’s likely acquittal for inciting a deadly mob assault on the Capitol will echo through generations and may influence the outcome of some unknowable future test of US democracy.

By arguing that the trial is unconstitutional, politically motivated and an infringement of his free speech rights, Trump’s defense will resurface a core theme of his tenure that a president is all-powerful and immune from censure for anti-democratic behavior rooted in a volcanic, autocratic temperament.

A majority of Senate Republicans have indicated that they will not wrestle with Trump’s behavior but will take refuge in a questionable argument that a President who was impeached while in office for seditious behavior cannot be tried after returning to private life.

But Democratic House impeachment managers will argue that if whipping up a rebellion against the peaceful transfer of US power is not an impeachable offense, nothing is. The prosecution case will unveil evidence of the horror unfolding in the Capitol that will make clear that the US political system was forced right to the brink. While the managers will likely fail to secure a prohibition on Trump serving in federal office in future, they hope to so damn him in public perception that a political comeback in 2024 will be impossible.

Read more here: CNN – Trump’s trial set to rock Washington and echo through the ages

The New York Times’ Giovanni Russonello has written in their On Politics newsletter that it isn’t just Donald Trump on trial this week in the Senate – there is also a reckoning for conservative media outlets. He notes:

This might ultimately have a much bigger impact on the future of American politics than anything that happens to Trump as an individual. In recent weeks, two voting-technology companies have each filed 10-figure lawsuits against Trump’s lawyers and his allies in the media, claiming they spread falsehoods that did tangible harm.

The impact was immediate. Newsmax, an ultraconservative TV station that has expanded its popularity by lining up to the right of Fox News, cut off an interview with the MyPillow founder Mike Lindell last week as he attacked Dominion — something that commentators had done on the station many times before. Then, over the weekend, Fox Business sidelined Lou Dobbs, one of Trump’s fiercest TV news defenders and a defendant named in the Smartmatic lawsuit.

Jonathan Peters, a media law professor at the University of Georgia, said that unlike many libel lawsuits, the Dominion and Smartmatic cases do not appear to be publicity stunts; they have a firm legal basis. Because the suits seem to be serious, Peters said, “this is a corrective for companies and individuals being sued — and for those not being sued it is a shot across the bow.”

But in a media landscape permanently altered by polarization, and by Trump’s indifference to facts, Fox News and other conservative broadcasters face significant competition from popular YouTubers and Twitter users, who have much more leeway to express potentially harmful views.

Here are (probably) the answers to the two biggest questions you have about Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial – will he be found guilty and will it stop him running from office again?

Will Trump be found guilty?

On the face of it, it seems unlikely. An impeachment trial requires a two-thirds majority for a conviction. If every senator votes, then at least 17 Republicans would need to vote against their former president to reach the required 67-vote threshold.

Already, 45 senators have supported an earlier motion presented by Kentucky Sen Rand Paul that the process itself is unconstitutional and against holding the trial at all. It would be quite a leap for them in the space of a few weeks to go from saying the trial should not take place, to finding Trump guilty.

For many Republican senators the calculation is political. House Representatives who voted to impeach Trump, such as Republican Liz Cheney, have already faced protest and censure from their state Republican parties over their failure to back Trump, who still has strong grassroots support despite losing November’s election.

Will a second impeachment bar Trump running from office in 2024?

Not necessarily. If he was found guilty, there’s no immediate punishment, since he is no longer in office. The Senate could, with a simple majority vote, bar him from holding federal elective office in the future. With the Senate split 50-50, and the vice-president, Kamala Harris, holding the casting vote, that could pass quite simply.

There is a constitutional argument to be had that the Democrat-controlled Senate might try to do this anyway even if Trump is found not guilty, by invoking section three of the post-civil war 14th amendment to the US constitution. That forbids anyone who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the US from holding federal office, but that is likely to be the subject of a significant legal dispute should it arise.

Biden administration to remove nearly all Trump-appointed US attorneys

It’s not all about the impeachment trial today. President Joe Biden will be meeting in the Oval office to discuss his Covid economy recovery plans with vice president Kamala Harris and treasury secretary Janet Yellen. There’s also this news from NBC this morning, that the Biden administration plans a sweep-out of Trump-era appointments:

The Biden administration will begin removing all Senate-confirmed US attorneys appointed during the Trump administration, with two exceptions, a senior Justice Department official said.

The process, which is not uncommon, could start as early as today. They will be asked to resign.

John Durham will remain in place to investigate the origins of the Russia probe, but not as US attorney for the district of Connecticut, the official said. He was appointed as a special counsel and given extra protections for the inquiry by Attorney General William Barr last fall.

David Weiss, US attorney for Delaware, will also remain in place. Hunter Biden, the president’s son, said in December that federal officials in Delaware were investigating his taxes.

In 2017, Donald Trump abruptly ordered the resignation of 46 US attorneys who were holdovers from the Obama administration.

Read more here: NBC News – Biden’s Justice Department to ask nearly all Trump-era US attorneys to resign

One unusual aspect of what is going to be a highly unusual set of proceedings in the Senate is that the chamber where the case will be held is also the scene of the crime – and many Senators will be acting as both jurors and eyewitnesses to the events. The US Capitol still bears the consequences of 6 January, with heightened security in place for today’s events. As CNN report:

Members of the National Guard still patrol the exterior of the Capitol complex – in some cases along 8-foot, non-scalable fences topped by razor wire.

Within the halls of the building, all nine House Democratic impeachment managers are flanked by a security detail as they walk to votes and take meetings around the Capitol.

Enhanced security measures around the US Capitol will remain in place due to the ongoing potential for violence by domestic extremists, in part due to the heightened political tension surrounding the trial itself. Access to the Senate will also be tightly regulated, as it was during Trump’s first impeachment trial.

Federal law enforcement officials say they are not currently tracking any “specific and credible” threats to the Capitol surrounding the Senate impeachment trial, which is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, but relevant agencies, including the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, remain on high alert. They’re using all the tools at their disposal to avoid the security and intelligence failures that occurred leading up to the January 6 Capitol attack.

The FBI continues to conduct surveillance on a number of people in the US, monitoring for any signs that they are planning something specific around the impeachment trial and in the weeks that follow, according to a law enforcement official. Law enforcement officials have also reached out to some of the suspects in an effort to discourage them from facilitating unrest or violence, the official said.

Read more here: CNN – Security at US Capitol on high alert for Trump impeachment trial

Trump impeachment trial schedule and structure

Yesterday Senate officials released more details on the structure of impeachment proceedings, which will begin at 1pm EST (1800 GMT) today. From the office of majority leader Chuck Schumer:

  • On Tuesday, there will be up to four hours equally divided between the impeachment managers and Donald Trump’s counsel to present arguments on the constitutionality of the trial. The Senate will then vote on whether it has jurisdiction to try the former president, and if a simple majority votes in favor (as expected), the trial will proceed.
  • Starting Wednesday at noon EST, there will be up to 16 hours per side for impeachment managers and Trump’s team to present their case. Each side must use their time over no more than two days, and each day’s presentation cannot exceed eight hours.
  • After both presentations, senators will have a total of four hours to question both parties.
  • There will then be two hours for arguments on whether to consider motions to subpoena witnesses and documents.
  • If the Senate votes in favor of subpoenas, both parties will then be allowed to depose witnesses and conduct discovery.
  • There will then be four hours of closing arguments before deliberations and a vote on the article of impeachment.
  • No trial proceedings will occur Friday after 5pm or on Saturday, but will continue on the afternoon of Sunday 14 February.

Donald Trump's second impeachment trial set to begin in US Senate

The second impeachment trial of Donald Trump will begin later today in the US Senate, with the former president facing a charge of “incitement of insurrection” after his supporters stormed the US Capitol last month and engaged in clashes that left five people dead.

The prosecution is expected to brandish dramatic footage of the violence at the Capitol on 6 January. The trial is set to strike a sharp contrast of tone with Trump’s first trial in early 2020, at which prosecutors used documents, emails and testimony to tell a complicated story about a Trump pressure campaign in Ukraine.

This time the alleged crime scene is much closer to home – in the very chamber where the trial will play out, which was invaded by Trump supporters moments after members of Congress and staff had been evacuated.

The US Capitol Building is stormed by a pro-Trump mob on January 6.
The US Capitol Building is stormed by a pro-Trump mob on January 6. Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters

With a majority of Americans expressing horror and outrage at the attack on the Capitol, the allegations against Trump could land much more powerfully with the public than did the story of his seeking political favors from Ukraine in return for official acts.

Seeking to defuse the incendiary potential of the footage that Democrats are preparing to air on the Senate floor, defense lawyers for Trump on Monday made the extraordinary claim that presenting the events of the attack would amount to “a brazen attempt to glorify violence”.

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer delivers remarks during a Congressional tribute to the late Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, killed by a pro-Trump mob in the US Capitol on 6 January.
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer delivers remarks during a Congressional tribute to the late Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, killed by a pro-Trump mob in the US Capitol on 6 January. Photograph: Kevin Dietsch/AFP/Getty Images

The defense team, led by Bruce Castor, a former county prosecutor from Pennsylvania, also argued in a legal brief that the Senate does not have jurisdiction to try Trump, because he has already left office. Additionally they claimed that Trump’s speeches and tweets whipping up a frenzy about false election fraud did not amount to incitement and were protected under the first amendment.

The prosecutors are led by Jamie Raskin of Maryland. The core of their argument, laid out in an 80-page brief submitted last week, documents statements Trump made and tweeted, from “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” to “Election Rigged & Stolen” to “they’re not taking this White House. We’re going to fight like hell, I’ll tell you right now” to “So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue!”

Dozens of the nearly 140 people who have been charged so far in relation with the Capitol attack have argued as part of their criminal defenses that they stormed the building because the president told them to.

Read more of Tom McCarthy’s report: Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial set to begin in US Senate

Welcome to our live coverage of US politics on the day Donald Trump makes history as the only US president to face a second Senate impeachment trial. It’s mostly going to be procedural today about whether the trial is itself constitutional. Here’s where we are, and what we can expect…

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