Congress is gearing up for the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump on Tuesday as the former President’s new lawyers vociferously denounced the Democrat-led attempt to hold him accountable for fomenting violence. In a 78-page memo filed with the Senate on Monday, Trump’s attorneys made several assertions including that impeaching former Presidents was unconstitutional, claiming Trump’s speech on January 6th was protected by the First Amendment, and that House Representatives did not afford Trump “due process” when they voted to impeach him. They are attempting to make the case that Trump’s speech on the day of the riot is the only part of his speech being linked to the violence and therefore, because the violence was planned days or weeks in advance of his January 6th address he could not be held accountable. But court documents filed in the charges against rioters who breached the U.S. Capitol on January 6th paint a different picture. Many of those accused specifically cited Trump by name before heading to Washington D.C. Most Senate Republicans are closing ranks around Trump making a conviction unlikely.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is close to an agreement with minority leader Mitch McConnell on the rules of the trial and so far, according to Axios, “Impeachment managers and Trump’s attorneys will debate the issue of constitutionality of the trial, which the Senate will vote on at a simple majority threshold on Tuesday.” And then, “Starting Wednesday at noon, impeachment managers and Trump’s lawyers will have up to 16 hours per side for presentations.” Meanwhile a top conservative lawyers name Charles Cooper has broken with the pro-Trump faction of the GOP saying in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, that it is in fact constitutional to try former presidents in impeachment trials. A new Gallup poll released Monday found that a majority of Americans—52%–wants the Senate to convict Trump. 

Those Republicans who have dared to oppose Trump have faced anger from GOP voters. House member Liz Cheney, who has faced calls from her own party to resign for daring to stand up to Trump, has refused to step down. State lawmakers in her home state of Wyoming have voted to censure her. In an interview on Fox News on Sunday she said, “I think that the people in the party are mistaken. They believe that [Black Lives Matter] and Antifa were behind what happened here at the Capitol. That’s just simply not the case, it’s not true.”

In other news, Democrats are fighting with one another over the contours of a Covid economic relief bill. One faction of the liberal party is siding with Republicans over stripping a