Chief Justice John Roberts Will Not Preside Over Trump Impeachment Trial: Here's Who Will

In a bizarre turn of events U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts will not preside over the the impending impeachment trial of former President Donald J. Trump in the Senate slated to begin in a couple of weeks.

As Reuters reports,

The U.S. Senate’s longest-serving member, Patrick Leahy, is expected to preside over the upcoming impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, a Senate source said on Monday.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts presided at Trump’s first impeachment trial last year, as the Constitution requires in presidential impeachments. But senators can preside when the person being impeached is not the current president of the United States, the Senate source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont who took office in 1975, is the senator with the most seniority in either party.

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Asked by reporters in a Capitol hallway if he could be impartial while presiding over the trial, the 80-year-old Leahy said: “I’ve presided over hundreds of hours in my time in the Senate. I don’t think anybody has ever suggested anything impartial in those hundreds of hours.”

Leahy is the president pro tempore of the Senate, meaning he is empowered to preside over Senate sessions in the absence of Vice President Kamala Harris. However, this duty is usually rotated among senators of the majority party.

Being president pro tempore also makes Leahy, who is the senior member of the Senate judiciary committee, third in line of presidential succession, after the vice president and speaker of the House.

It is hard to imagine who Sen. Leahy could be impartial given he voted to convict Trump on two articles of impeachment last February.

As one might imagine, many GOP senators are not very happy about this turn of events.

Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) argued that the Senate no impeach a former president at all and only Roberts should preside over the trial.

“There’s only one constitutional process for impeachment and it is of the president, not a president,” said Hawley. “It requires the chief justice to preside.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), member of the Judiciary Committee, said the legitimacy of the trial is undermined without the presence of Chief Justice Roberts.

“The Constitution requires that the chief justice preside over the impeachment trial of a president but that’s not what we’re doing. To me that’s indicative of the fact that we’re in uncharted waters,” said Cornyn.

“I just think it looks very petty and vindictive and I understand there are a lot of people who are mad but the process itself already looks like a railroad job,” he said.

Cornyn went on to say that having a Democrat preside over the trial “really undermines the legitimacy.”

Other GOP senators chimed in as well.

“If the chief justice doesn’t preside, I think it’s an illegitimate hearing and really goes to show that it’s not really constitutional to impeach someone who’s not president,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY.).

It would seem Schumer, Pelosi and Dem lawmakers have made this a personal vendetta, moving forward at all costs. This will prove to be a three ring circus and is a complete embarrassment to the U.S. Senate.