The Senate will vote Tuesday on whether former President Donald Trump can be tried after leaving office. The U.S. House’s single article of impeachment against Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol was delivered Monday.
Senators to Vote Whether Trial Is Constitutional
GOP Senator John Barrasso, a member of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s leadership team, said the Senate will hold a Republican-backed vote Tuesday on whether it’s constitutional to hold an impeachment trial of a former president.
“There will be a vote today on the floor of the Senate in terms of whether this should even move forward,” the Wyoming lawmaker said Tuesday morning on “The Hugh Hewitt Show.”
A notice to senators from Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin early Tuesday morning said Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, has reserved floor time to debate the matter and that he could force a vote on a “point of order” shortly after senators are sworn in as jurors in Trump’s impeachment trial at 2:30 p.m. Such a vote would almost certainly fail but would be an early test of Republican sentiment.
Barrasso also said that Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University professor who has taken the position that you can’t try a president who’s out of office, will speak on a caucus call with all Republican senators immediately before the swearing in. McConnell, who hasn’t said yet whether he would convict or acquit Trump, leads those calls.
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