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-Article last amended: Jan 29 at 16:05:00 UTC (history) |
Wednesday, January 29, 2020
Today, United States Senators submitted written questions to managers from the House for use in the ongoing trial for the impeachment of the sitting president, Donald J. Trump.
The two major U.S. political parties, Democrats and Republicans, have agreed to take turns asking questions today, and tomorrow too if necessary. Written questions will be organized, formatted, and handed to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts to read aloud. Each team, the prosecution and defense, will have five minutes each to answer each question, as in the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton in 1999.
In the United States, impeachment hearings are not structured in the same way as criminal trials. First, House managers made a case to the Senate for why President Trump should be removed from office and, last week, Trump’s own legal team made their case for why he should not, but neither side called or cross-examined witnesses. On Friday, after the question and answer section, the Senate is scheduled to vote on whether to allow witnesses to testify and documents to be subpoenaed.
Donald Trump is accused of misusing his power as President in an attempt to manipulate the upcoming 2020 presidential election. Specifically, there are recorded phone conversations in which he appears to withhold promised military aid from Ukraine until they agree to hold a public investigation of Hunter Biden. Biden’s father, former Vice President Joe Biden, was at the time a front runner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination and considered likely to be Trump’s opponent in 2020.
If the Senate votes to impeach Trump, he would be removed from office and has the option of barring him from holding office again. Impeachment does not automatically incur any other punishment. Two thirds of the hundred-person Senate must vote to impeach or else the president remains in office. The U.S. Constitution says a president can be impeached for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
While two previous U.S. Presidents have been impeached, Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson, none have ever been removed from office. President Richard Nixon resigned before impeachment began.