Dive into the background of the 9 impeachment managers Speaker Nancy Pelosi selected to current the case to the Senate in the second impeachment trial of former President Donald J. Trump, and a standard thread will emerge: deep expertise in the legislation.
All geared up with legislation levels, the 9 managers embrace Democrats who served as notable characters in Mr. Trump’s first impeachment trial and a few who’ve spoken out forcefully towards Mr. Trump in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.
Previous impeachment trials have proven that the function of impeachment supervisor can deliver useful recognition to representatives and elevate their political profile. Lindsey Graham, now the senior senator from South Carolina, served as an impeachment supervisor in the Senate trial of President Bill Clinton. Representative Adam Schiff of California served as the lead supervisor in Mr. Trump’s first impeachment trial.
The six males and three girls whom Ms. Pelosi selected replicate the geographic and demographic range inside the Democratic caucus.
Here are the 9 House Democrats who will prosecute the former president:
Maryland
Jamie Raskin
Representative Jamie Raskin, who started drafting the article of impeachment towards President Trump mere hours after insurrectionists descended on the Capitol on Jan. 6, will function lead impeachment supervisor. His function will make him the lead prosecutor in the Senate trial.
Mr. Raskin, as a graduate of Harvard Law School and a former constitutional legislation professor at American University, has turn into identified amongst House Democrats as a go-to knowledgeable on constitutional legislation. Heavily influenced by the liberal politics of his father, Marcus Raskin, who was a famous antiwar activist, Mr. Raskin has displayed a ardour for the Constitution and American historical past.
Mr. Raskin serves on outstanding House committees: the House Rules Committee, which units the phrases of debate in the House; the House Judiciary Committee; and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.
Aside from contributing to the article of impeachment, Mr. Raskin additionally wrote the decision that known as on former Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the twenty fifth Amendment to alleviate Mr. Trump of presidential powers.
Mr. Raskin’s involvement as lead impeachment supervisor comes as he is dealing with the latest lack of his son, Tommy, who died of suicide on New Year’s Eve. Just a day after his son’s funeral, Mr. Raskin arrived at the Capitol to certify Electoral College outcomes. By the finish of the day, he had overtly denounced the assault on the Capitol and recalled the phrases of Thomas Paine, for whom his son was named: “In the monarchies, the king is the law. But in the democracies, the law will be king.”
Colorado
Diana DeGette
Representative Diana DeGette, first elected to the House in 1996, is no stranger to impeachment proceedings. In 2019, she presided over the House debate to question Mr. Trump, and now as one in all the impeachment managers appointed to prosecute the former president, she may have the probability to additional flex her deep expertise in the House.
“No one is above the law in this country, not even former presidents,” Ms. DeGette wrote on Twitter on Monday.
Ms. DeGette obtained her legislation diploma from New York University in 1982. Before her time in Congress, she was a lawyer centered on civil rights, and she or he later served two phrases as a state consultant in Colorado.
While in Congress, she has made well being coverage and reproductive rights her legislative priorities. She was a co-author of the 21st Century Cures Act, signed into legislation in 2016, which was supposed to speed up biomedical analysis and product growth and to advertise effectivity in bringing improvements to the therapy of sufferers.
Representative David Cicilline, one in all the co-authors of the article of impeachment introduced towards Mr. Trump this month, is a member of the House Judiciary Committee and labored to research Mr. Trump throughout the impeachment in 2019. He has additionally helped oversee different investigations of Mr. Trump and his advisers, equivalent to an inquiry into the risk of marketing campaign finance violations.
Mr. Cicilline leads the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law and has been a staunch watchdog of massive tech corporations like Amazon, Google and Facebook. Before his election to Congress, Mr. Cicilline labored as a public defender in the District of Columbia and served two phrases as mayor of Providence, R.I., and 4 phrases in the Rhode Island House of Representatives.
In an op-ed for The New York Times, Mr. Cicilline held Mr. Trump accountable for inciting violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and mentioned the impeachment cost was supposed to “defend the integrity of the republic.”
“The president must be held accountable,” Mr. Cicilline wrote. “That can happen only by impeaching him for a second time and convicting him in the Senate.”
Texas
Joaquin Castro
As a member of the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees, Representative Joaquin Castro has made identified his dedication to seeing the former president tried and convicted.
Mr. Castro, who voted to question Mr. Trump in 2019, sat in on hearings as a member of the Intelligence committee throughout the former president’s first impeachment inquiry and through public questioning forward of the drafting of impeachment articles.
A Harvard-educated lawyer, Mr. Castro labored in non-public follow earlier than his days in Congress and beforehand served 5 phrases in the Texas Legislature. He led the Hispanic Caucus throughout the 116th Congress and has been an outspoken opponent of the Trump administration’s immigration insurance policies.
California
Eric Swalwell
Since being elected to Congress in 2012, Representative Eric Swalwell has helped examine proof towards Mr. Trump throughout the first impeachment and can now lean on his expertise as a former prosecutor in his function as an impeachment supervisor.
As a member of the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees, he performed an energetic function in the 2019 impeachment proceedings, serving to draft a subpoena that led to former particular counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s testifying earlier than Congress, which prompted Democrats to name for impeachment.
In his ebook, “Endgame: Inside the Impeachment of Donald J. Trump,” Mr. Swalwell chronicled his private account of Mr. Trump’s impeachment. Outside of impeachment, Mr. Swalwell has steadily criticized Mr. Trump’s management, equivalent to his method to local weather change as wildfires ravaged components of California final 12 months.
Mr. Swalwell attended legislation faculty at the University of Maryland and returned to California to work as a prosecutor in the Alameda County district legal professional’s workplace. He briefly ran for president in 2019 earlier than dropping out of the race to hunt a fifth time period in Congress.
On Monday, Mr. Swalwell conveyed a sobering tone as he posted a photo on Twitter of Democrats delivering the article of impeachment to the Senate.
“My prayer for our country is that no one ever walks this path again,” he wrote.
California
Ted Lieu
On Jan. 6, hours after the Capitol assault that resulted in 5 deaths, Representative Ted Lieu had three solutions for the way politicians ought to transfer ahead after certifying the Electoral College outcomes: Impeach Mr. Trump, invoke the twenty fifth Amendment or have Mr. Trump resign.
“Congress cannot just go home like nothing happened,” he wrote on Twitter.
Mr. Lieu, who drafted the article together with Mr. Cicilline and Mr. Raskin, has been unrelenting in his criticism of Mr. Trump, usually calling out the president on Twitter, making Mr. Lieu’s account a preferred attraction for Democrats.
His appointment as an impeachment supervisor comes after his election to the House in 2014. He serves on the House Judiciary Committee and the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Before his election to Congress, he studied laptop science and political science at Stanford University and graduated with a legislation diploma from Georgetown University. He later joined the Air Force and served in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. He presently serves as a colonel in the reserves.
Mr. Lieu is a former member of the California State Assembly and the State Senate.
Virgin Islands
Stacey Plaskett
Although Delegate Stacey Plaskett couldn’t vote to question Mr. Trump, she is going to now have the ability to make the case towards him in his Senate trial in her function as an impeachment supervisor. (Because she represents a U.S. territory, Ms. Plaskett is not permitted to forged votes on the House ground.)
Before being elected to Congress, she served as an assistant district legal professional in the Bronx and a political appointee to the Justice Department.
Ms. Plaskett was born in Brooklyn to oldsters from the Virgin Islands and graduated from American University’s Washington College of Law. After residing in New York and Washington, she moved to the Virgin Islands and labored in the non-public sector.
In response to being named an impeachment supervisor, Ms. Plaskett mentioned she was “honored” and “humbled” to be given the duty.
“Donald J. Trump has been and continues to be a clear and present danger to our republic, to our Constitution, and to the people of this nation,” she said in a statement on Jan. 12. “I will do my duty and defend our blessed country.”
Colorado
Joe Neguse
Elected to the House in 2018, Representative Joe Neguse is the youngest and has the shortest tenure of the 9 members chosen to prosecute Mr. Trump.
In 2019, shortly after his election to Congress, he supported Mr. Trump’s first impeachment. In a statement about his appointment as an impeachment manager, Mr. Neguse mentioned that Mr. Trump’s perpetuation of “harmful misinformation about the integrity of election results” had contributed to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6.
Mr. Neguse serves as a member of the House Judiciary Committee and the House’s Progressive Caucus.
Mr. Neguse’s dad and mom fled Eritrea virtually 4 many years in the past and got here to the United States as refugees. They ultimately settled in Colorado to boost Mr. Neguse and his sister. Mr. Neguse is a graduate of the University of Colorado Law School and served on the college’s Board of Regents. He later led the state’s shopper safety company.
Pennsylvania
Madeleine Dean
A proponent of the first impeachment inquiry towards Mr. Trump, Representative Madeleine Dean was fast to endorse a second impeachment after she and her colleagues had holed up in the House gallery on Jan. 6 as insurrectionists threatened to invade the House chamber.
Ms. Dean is serving her second time period in the House and is a member of the Judiciary Committee.
Before her time in Congress, she served in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and earned a legislation diploma from Widener University. After opening a non-public follow, she went on to work as an assistant professor at La Salle University, the place she taught writing and ethics.
On Monday, she wrote on Twitter that bringing forth the article of impeachment towards Mr. Trump would assist the nation heal after the Capitol riot.
“That’s what this is about — healing the wound of this insurrection and holding the former President accountable for his actions,” she wrote.
Reporting was contributed by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Zach Montague, Emily Cochrane and Aishvarya Kavi.
