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| Trump accused of using power and blocking Congress (Reuters) |
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell proposed the procedural rules that will be adopted to try President Donald Trump, which begins today with the Senate.
According to the proposed measures, McConnell will grant both White House advisers and the House Prosecutor a 24-hour, two-day period to provide opening arguments.
This is followed by 16 hours of questions and answers, followed by a four-hour discussion session, and then a vote on whether listening to witnesses is necessary, or requesting new information.
Commenting on the Republican draft resolution, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in a tweet that McConnell was clearly determined to make obtaining witnesses and documents more difficult.
Schumer yesterday accused McConnell of delaying procedures and evading summoning witnesses as part of the president's parliamentary trial.
On the other hand, Trump's lawyers yesterday called on the Senate charged with his trial to acquit him "immediately".
Lawyers wrote - in a 110-page memo handed to Congress - that this trial constituted a "serious deviation from the constitution", and that "the Senate should reject the indictment and immediately absolve the president."
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"We are trying to prove that these charges are clearly unfounded, which means that there is no need even to move forward, and it can be rejected from the start ... The process is illegal from the beginning," said one of the sources close to the lawyers.
He added, "The president did not commit any bad act," considering that any witness heard during the House investigation did not confirm direct accusations against Trump.
It is noteworthy that President Trump is accused of asking Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, the most likely Democratic candidate to compete in the November presidential elections, and that he pressed Kiev on condition that this investigation be launched to release vital military aid to Kiev.
This is why the House of Representatives - dominated by Democrats - accused him last December of abusing power and obstructing the work of Congress, taking on him not to cooperate with the parliamentary investigation.
However, Mitch McConnell - who asserts that he is "in full coordination" with the White House - seems willing to pass the trial without witnesses, and not to exceed two weeks.
McConnell announced a four-page draft resolution - as Al-Jazeera correspondent Muhammad al-Minshawi says - and it includes preliminary rules for conducting the trial, and the decision needs a majority of 51 votes to pass it.
The most important thing in the decision is to give each of the accusation and defense teams 24 hours divided by two days each to present their arguments, to call for a vote to call new witnesses, and for the pleadings to start at 1:00 pm tomorrow, Wednesday.
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