Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., will preside over former President Donald Trump’s trial in the Senate, a Senate source tells NPR. Leahy, 80, is the president pro tempore of the Senate, a constitutional role given to the longest-serving lawmaker in the majority party. The president pro tempore is third in the line of presidential succession, after the vice president and House speaker.

“I have presided over hundreds of hours in my time in the Senate,” Leahy told reporters. “I don’t think anybody has ever suggested I was anything but impartial in those hundreds of hours.”

Leahy added: “I’m not presenting the evidence. I am making sure that procedures are followed. I don’t think there’s any senator who over the 40-plus years I’ve been here that would say that I am anything but impartial in voting on procedure.”

Chief Justice John Roberts presided over President Trump’s first impeachment trial, but now that Trump is a former president, Roberts is not constitutionally obligated to preside.

GOPUSA Editor’s Note: There is not a lot of agreement over the constitutional requirement of who presides over the impeachment trial of a former president. The following 2 articles may shed some light:
Reports: Chief Justice John Roberts Will Not Preside At Upcoming Trump Senate Trial

Impeachment Problem? Chief Justice Roberts May Not Have Constitutional Authority To Preside At Trial Of FORMER President

House impeachment managers will deliver the article of impeachment to the Senate Monday evening, and the trial is scheduled to begin the week of Feb. 8.

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GOPUSA Editor’s Note: Please keep in mind that this is a mainstream media story with the typical lean to the left. We publish the story for the purpose of informing our readers. Most conservatives do not read mainstream media stories but this is what other Americans are hearing and believing.
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On Jan. 13, Trump became the only president in U.S. history to be impeached twice by the U.S. House of Representatives. House Democrats brought one article of impeachment – “incitement of insurrection” – related to remarks he made to a crowd loyal to him Jan. 6 that resulted in a fatal riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Trump, the first one-term president since George H.W. Bush in the 1990s, lost the November election to Biden, but has repeatedly and baselessly challenged the results citing little or false evidence.

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