An emotional second day of the trial ended in procedural chaos as a Republican senator objected to testimony that cited him as a supply for a dialog former President Donald J. Trump had throughout the Capitol assault that’s at the coronary heart of the case.
In the remaining hour of arguments on Wednesday, Representative David Cicilline, Democrat of Rhode Island and one in all the impeachment managers, spoke of Mr. Trump mistakenly calling Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, in an effort to attain Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama. In describing the name, which was detailed in news reports, Mr. Cicilline asserted that Mr. Lee had stood by as Mr. Trump requested Mr. Tuberville to make further objections to the certification of President Biden’s electoral votes.
As Mr. Cicilline spoke, Mr. Lee might be seen writing furiously on a notepad in giant letters: “This is not what happened.” When Democrats concluded their arguments for the day, Mr. Lee invoked an impeachment rule that enables senators to increase questions throughout the trial, together with about the admissibility of proof, and requested that the statements about him be struck as false.
Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the presiding officer for the impeachment trial, dominated the request as out of order. Mr. Leahy, who consulted with the Senate parliamentarian, pointed to a rule particular to this impeachment trial that enables the House managers to embody components in their oral arguments that weren’t in their unique pretrial submissions.
A visibly outraged Mr. Lee demanded an attraction.
“My point was to strike them because they were false,” he mentioned.
As some lawmakers, together with Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, demanded that Mr. Lee clarify why the description was false, the murmuring and confusion amongst senators and workers quickly derailed the remaining moments of the day’s proceedings.
After a sequence of intense huddles on the ground, the place Mr. Lee might be heard insisting that he didn’t make these statements, Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and the lead impeachment supervisor, agreed to take again the phrases. But he reserved the skill to deliver the situation up once more and litigate it later in the trial.
“We’re going to withdraw it this evening and without any prejudice to the ability to resubmit it, if possible,” Mr. Raskin mentioned. “We can debate it if we need it. But it’s not — this is much ado about nothing, because it’s not critical in any way to our case.”
As Mr. Raskin spoke, Mr. Lee might be heard throughout the Senate chamber making a snide retort: “You’re not the one being cited as a witness, sir.”
