Lawmakers spend more on personal security in wake of insurrection
thehill.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thehill.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
House Democrats call on Biden to add Medicare-related provisions to economic plan
thehill.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thehill.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
ADVERTISEMENT
Trump’s lawyers will now have the floor, and it is expected their defense will be concluded within a single day. If that happens and assuming witnesses are not called the entire proceedings could conclude by Saturday or Sunday.
Trump’s lead lawyers, Bruce Castor and David Schoen, will be hoping to improve on their opening arguments from earlier in the week. Castor’s performance, in particular, was widely panned and was reported to have left the former president irate as he watched at his Florida resort of Mar-a-Lago.
The Trump team doesn’t need to do very much to gain an acquittal for their client. No more than six Republican senators have so far even agreed that the impeachment trial is constitutional. The chance of the necessary number voting to convict 17 Republicans, assuming the Democrats all vote to do so seems vanishingly small.
A number of Republican senators arrived a few minutes late to the start of the second day of the trial. One reporter counted 33 seats empty when the proceeding started at noon. The chamber didn’t fill up until about 12:20 p.m.
ADVERTISEMENT
Paul wasn’t seen on the floor for most of the first hour and a half of arguments though he was spotted in the cloakroom raising up his arms and appearing to speak loudly.
NBC reporter Garrett Haake, who was in the chamber, said the impeachment managers struggled with “the intractable nature of trying to get some of the folks in the room to actually engage with the material and be present and take this seriously.”