As the impeachment of President Donald Trump moves from the House of Representatives to the U.S. Senate for trial, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., warned the upper chamber is in danger of damaging its reputation if it allows the process to become a game of “political ping pong.”
In an interview with VTDigger on Wednesday, Leahy expressed frustration with the president and how Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has decided to set up the impeachment trial.
“We are supposed to be the conscience of the nation. We ought to act like that,” Leahy said.
“I am the dean of the Senate, and I have seen good senators and not so good senators in both parties, but when you take an oath, you ought to follow that oath and the Senate is going to be severely damaged if it turns this into political ping pong,” he said.
McConnell has pushed for guidelines to the impeachment trial that dismiss Democrats’ demands that new evidence be introduced and key witnesses testify. McConnell has said the framework for Trump’s impeachment trial closely mirrors former President Bill Clinton’s trial.
“We have the votes once the impeachment trial has begun to pass a resolution essentially the same — very similar — to the 100 to nothing vote in the Clinton trial,” McConnell told reporters last week.
“All we’re doing here is saying we’re going to get started in exactly the same way that 100 senators agreed to 20 years ago,” he added.
Leahy bristled Wednesday when asked if McConnell was repeating the process used for Clinton.
“If he is trying to mirror what happened with the Clinton trial I have yet to see that,” Leahy said. “In the Clinton trial we had all the key witnesses testify under oath at length in front of the grand jury and before the special counsel, including the president himself.”
“There is absolutely no mirroring or duplication of that here,” Leahy said.
Leahy said he is concerned McConnell’s decision to block new evidence and witnesses from testifying could damage the U.S. Constitution, the office of the president, and the U.S. Senate.
“It would seem like a simple thing to say, ‘why not get all the facts’ — especially if we are talking about any way trying to influence or subvert an election in the oldest existing democracy,” Leahy said. “That should give everybody pause, no matter what party you belong to.”
Leahy’s comments come as the House passed the two articles of impeachment to the Senate Wednesday afternoon, and as McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced new restrictions and guidelines for lawmakers, staff, journalists and the public to follow during the impeachment trial.
Senate rules include a moratorium on the use of electronic devices in the chamber, a ban on standing and speaking on the floor and limited access to the floor for staffers, according to the New York Times.
It is expected that on Thursday U.S. Chief Justice John Robert will be sworn in before he then swears in the senators. At that point the chamber will vote on the resolution setting up the framework for the trial.
Trump must then officially be “summoned” — according to Senate rules — and given the chance to respond to the two charges of impeachment against him. The Senate is expected to then break for the long weekend before beginning the trial in earnest on Tuesday, Jan. 21.
“We will be able to go through some preliminary steps this week … which would give us the ability to start the actual trial next Tuesday,” McConnell said on Jan. 14.
The Senate Republican leader added he would address the issue of potential witnesses at “the appropriate time,” and that “both sides will call witnesses they want to hear from.”
