Trump Trial Moves Forward After Senators Clash Over Constitutionality

Representative Joe Neguse, a Colorado Democrat on the team of impeachment managers, highlighted Turley’s work on executive function theory Tuesday as it related over 140 years ago to Secretary of War William Belknap.

After the House of Representatives launched an investigation of claims that he had profited off his position, Belknap tearfully resigned his post before he could be impeached. 

The House went ahead and impeached Belknap anyway, and the Senate eventually acquitted him of his charges. Another vote in the Senate quickly followed, this one finding that, regardless of his former-official status, Belknap’s impeachment was constitutional. 

“Since Belknap was no longer in office at the time of his trial, the Belknap case indicates that resignation from office does not prevent trial on articles of impeachment,” Turley wrote in 1999 for the North Carolina Law Review. 

Turley called Belknap’s impeachment a “corrective measure that helped the system regain legitimacy.”

Trump denies any responsibility for starting the Jan. 6 riot with a speech he gave the morning of — remarks that he now says are protected by the First Amendment. 

This rang hollow Tuesday for impeachment managers.

Unlike Belknap, Trump was not impeached for run-of-the-mill corruption, Neguse noted. Trump was impeached because of a violent insurrection that occurred under his watch and under his encouragement, the former attorney-turned-Colorado lawmaker argued. 

When taking the floor Tuesday in defense of the former president, Trump’s attorney Bruce Castor laid out a circuitous argument, devoting several minutes to a lament of political rancor, which he then tied clumsily to the fall of ancient Greece or Rome before raising questions of constitutional jurisdiction.

“The political pendulum will shift one day and partisan impeachments will become commonplace,” Castor said.

While at some points the former Pennsylvania prosecutor offered his praise for members of the Senate as “gallant” purveyors of the law and servants to their constituents, Castor also accused Democrats of overreacting to the attack.

“The real reason we are here is because Democrats don’t want to face Trump as a political rival again,” said Castor, standing just outside the chamber where blood was shed weeks earlier.

David Schoen, the other of Trump's two attorneys, struck a more vitriolic note, reminiscent of the 45th president’s oratory during his single term.

Accusing impeachment managers of having spliced together fake footage of the Capitol for maximum impact, Schoen said Democrats saw the impeachment trial as their only chance for “partisan politicians to disenfranchise 74 million voters."

“They don’t need to show you movies to show you the riot that happened here. ... This is a process fueled irresponsibly by base hatred,” he said.

Schoen argued from a textual perspective, noting removal from office due to impeachment was a factual and legal impossibility in this case. Conviction without a removal is invalid, he said, arguing only current presidents can be impeached.

“This is the first time that the United States Senate has ever been asked to apply the Constitution’s textual identification of ‘the president’ in the impeachment provisions to anyone other than the sitting president of the United States,” Schoen said. “And of course, most significantly from a textual approach, the term specifically used is ‘the president’ not ‘a president’ and there can be only one president, the incumbent, at a time.” 

Schoen began by saying a great deal of Americans saw the impeachment process for what it was: “a chance by a group of partisan politicians seeking to eliminate Donald Trump from the American political scene and seeking to disenfranchise 74 million plus American voters,” he said. 

“They hated the results of the 2016 election and want to use this impeachment process to further their political agenda,” he said. “These elitists have mocked them for four years.” 

He warned the impeachment trial would tear the country in half, leaving millions of Americans feeling left out of politics. Accusing House impeachment managers of focusing on impeachment “like some sort of blood sport,” Schoen denied that holding Trump accountable for his actions would further unify the nation. 

“It is again for pure, raw, misguided partisanship that makes them believe that playing to our worst instincts somehow is good,” Schoen said. 

He added: “This is a process fueled irresponsibly by base hatred by these House managers and those who gave them their charge and they are willing to sacrifice our national character to advance their hatred and their fear, that one day, they might not be the party in power.”

Schoen further claimed that the Senate lacks jurisdiction to try Trump and that it afforded him no due process before the House voted to impeach, offering no explanation as to why the former president refused the chance to testify in his defense.

Earlier in his term, when impeached the first time for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, Trump also refused to testify and withheld testimony from members of his administration.

The trial will resume Wednesday, with House impeachment managers getting 16 hours over a two-day span to present arguments plus two days allotted for Trump’s defense team. Four hours of additional rounds for questions in writing from either side will then be permitted.

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