GOP LOSES BID TO DECLARE TRUMP IMPEACHMENT UNCONSTITUTIONAL

All but five Senate Republicans voted in favor of an effort to dismiss Donald Trump’s historic second impeachment trial on Tuesday (Wednesday, January 27, 2021, in Manila), making clear a conviction of the former president for “incitement of insurrection” after the deadly Capitol siege on Jan. 6 is unlikely.

While the Republicans did not succeed in ending the trial before it began, the test vote made clear that Trump still has enormous sway over his party as he becomes the first former president to be tried for impeachment.

Many Republicans have criticized Trump’s role in the attack — before which he told his supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat — but most of them have rushed to defend him in the trial, Lisa Mascaro and Mary Clare Jalonick reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Sen. Patrick Leahy, 80, who will preside over the impeachment trial, was was examined by the Capitol’s attending physician, who recommended he be taken to the hospital out of an abundance of caution, he said.

Leahy presided over the trial’s first procedural vote, a 55-45 tally that saw the Senate set aside an objection from Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul that would have declared the impeachment proceedings unconstitutional and dismissed the trial.

The vote means the trial on Trump’s impeachment will begin as scheduled the week of Feb. 8.

The House impeached him Jan. 13, just a week after the deadly insurrection in which five people died.

What seemed for some Democrats like an open-and-shut case that played out for the world on live television is running into a Republican Party that feels very different.

Not only do senators say they have legal concerns, but they are wary of crossing the former president and his legions of followers.

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