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Senate Trial – January 17, 2021TrueNewsBlog – TNB
By: Staff(Truenewsblog) – Veteran Republican Karl Rove warned that if President Trump chooses his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to defend him in the Senate impeachment trial, it would backfire on him.
Rove, who served as deputy chief of staff under President George W. Bush, said he believes Giuliani’s claims on voter fraud in the aftermath of the 2020 election hurt his credibility, and his role in an impeachment defense would drive more GOP senators to convict Trump.”With the Rudy Giuliani defense, there is a strong likelihood that more than 17 Republicans will because essentially that argument is, this was justified,” Rove said on Fox News Sunday. “The attack on the Capitol and the attempt to end the congressional hearing on certifying the election was justified because all these charges are true. Frankly, they are not.”
The House impeached Trump last week on a charge of “incitement of insurrection” regarding the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 that left five people dead, including one U.S. Capitol Police officer.
Ten House Republicans voted for Trump’s impeachment, making him the first U.S. president in history to be impeached twice.
Trump’s first impeachment was related to a 2019 phone call he made to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that was described by some lawmakers as a pressure campaign to have him investigate then-presidential hopeful Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Trump was impeached by the House but later acquitted by the Senate in early 2020. At the time, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney was the only GOP senator to vote in favor of one of the articles of impeachment against Trump, becoming the first senator ever to vote for the impeachment of a president from a shared party.
Convicting Trump in the Senate requires a two-thirds vote, or 67 senators. The Senate will be split 50-50 with Democrats and the two independents who caucus with them, having a tie-breaker in Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. By the time of a Senate trial, Trump will already be out of office and succeeded by Biden.
Republicans, such as Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, have said if Republicans vote to convict Trump, it would have major consequences for the party. Rove touched on the divisions within the party, suggesting it would be years before it could come back together.
“It needs to rebuild. It needs to find a way to take the traditional Republican coalition and bring in and keep as much of the Trump voters, ordinary voters who cared about him taking on the establishment and taking on the elites on the East and West Coast,” Rove said. “But the Republican Party, let’s not kid ourselves, it is in the midst of a civil war.”
