President-elect Joe Biden already faces the daunting task of steering a newly announced $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill through a closely divided Congress as the pandemic and its economic fallout grow.
Now Biden will have to do it with President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial beginning potentially as soon as his first day in office.
The confluence of events amounts to one of the most politically and logistically complicated openings to a new administration in modern history, requiring Biden to try to move the country into a post-Trump era even as senators debate Trump's most divisive acts.
“It’s going to be incredibly challenging,” said former Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor, a Democrat. “There's only so much bandwidth in the Congress.”
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who will have a significant role to play in ushering Biden’s agenda through the Senate as chair of the Budget Committee, underscored how much is on Democrats' plate during Biden's first few months in office.
“We don’t have the time to spend an enormous amount of time on impeachment, and then we’re going to go to Biden’s nominees and then we have to deal with legislation,” the independent senator said. “We’re going to have to move simultaneously in a whole bunch of areas.”
Biden has so far stayed largely out of public deliberations over Trump's impeachment for inciting a riot. After the House vote, Biden was forceful in denouncing the violent attack on the Capitol that precipitated the impeachment charge, but he also said he’d work as president to ensure Americans “stand together as a nation” — and called on the Senate to “find a way to deal with their constitutional responsibilities on impeachment while also working on the other urgent business of this nation.”
His hands-off approach to the matter is in keeping with his stance throughout the campaign and into his transition, even as Trump’s ever-growing controversies have overwhelmed the news cycle.
Biden took his time in endorsing the first impeachment of Trump in 2019, only expressing support for the move weeks after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi launched the formal effort. Decades before, when Richard Nixon was impeached, Biden cautioned his Senate colleagues to consider the weight of the moment and give Nixon a fair trial.
Democrats on Capitol Hill say they largely want to see Biden continue his even-keeled approach and focus on his agenda, rather than on impeachment, once he enters office.
“President-elect Biden has a big job. So let him do his job — and let the Senate do their work,” said California Rep. Barbara Lee, a Democrat.
But once the proceedings start, it’s certain to be tougher for Biden to completely avoid them, with the trial dominating the news cycle and forcing his former opponent back into the spotlight, even as Biden tries to stay focused on the coronavirus pandemic.
And there’s the prospect they could further exacerbate the already fraught atmosphere on Capitol Hill, politicizing Biden’s agenda and making it tougher for him to get support from winnable Republican senators.
“Trump’s most fervent supporters are going to have an opportunity to attack Democrats, not for their programs and not for their ideas, but as the evil caricature that they have come to portray them,” said Jeffrey Engel, director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University. “People who were potentially gettable as votes for some of Biden’s legislative agenda are going to be much more hesitant to go along with Democratic plans while Democrats are openly being vilified.”
Biden was known as a dealmaker in the Senate and has long relationships with many Republican senators after his 36-year career there. He's also been in touch with leadership of both parties during the transition. But as Virginia Sen. Mark Warner points out, there's the risk that impeachment poisons the well for Biden with those senators who don't know him well.
“At least half the Republican caucus has never served with Joe Biden,” said Warner, a Democrat. “His ability to navigate with those new members, if their first impression is driven by what could end up being decided on partisan lines, that’s going to make his job more difficult.”
For now, Biden is staying focused on his agenda.
On Thursday, in announcing his COVID-19 relief package, he emphasized that he hopes to work with lawmakers from both parties and expressed optimism that despite the $1.9 trillion price tag, “we’re ready to get this done.”
“I know what I just described does not come cheaply, but we simply can’t afford not to do what I’m proposing,” Biden said.
And Democrats on Capitol Hill are barreling ahead as well, refusing to accept the prospect that impeachment will deter them from their legislative goals.
“What the Senate is going to have to do is show the world that it can walk and chew gum at the same time,” Sanders said.
NEW YORK (AP) — A retrial in New York of disgraced former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein won’t be coming to a courtroom anytime soon, if ever, legal experts said on a day when one of two women considered crucial to his rape trial said she wasn't sure she would testify again.
A ruling Thursday by the New York Court of Appeals voided the 2020 conviction of the onetime Hollywood power broker who prosecutors say forced young actors to submit to his prurient desires by dangling his ability to make or break the their careers.
On Saturday, Weinstein was in custody in a Manhattan hospital where he was undergoing multiple tests, attorney Arthur Aidala said. He was returned Friday to New York City jails from a state prison 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Albany. He remains behind bars because he was also convicted in a similar case in California.
“He’s got a lot of problems. He’s getting all kinds of tests. He’s somewhat of a train wreck health wise,” Aidala said.
The appeals court in a 4-3 decision vacated a 23-year jail sentence and ordered a retrial of Weinstein, saying the trial judge erred by letting three women testify about allegations that were not part of the charges and by permitting questions about Weinstein’s history of “bad behavior” if he testified. He did not. He was convicted of forcibly performing oral sex on a TV and film production assistant and of third-degree rape for an attack on an aspiring actor in 2013.
Several lawyers said in interviews Friday that it would be a long road to reach a new trial for the 72-year-old ailing movie mogul and magnet for the #MeToo movement who remains behind bars, and it was doubtful that one could start before next year, if at all.
“I think there won’t be a trial in the end,” said Joshua Naftalis, a former Manhattan federal prosecutor now in private practice. “I don’t think he wants to go through another trial, and I don’t think the state wants to try him again.”
Naftalis said both sides may seek a resolution such as a plea that will eliminate the need to put his accusers through the trauma of a second trial.
Aidala said Saturday that he plans to tell a judge at a Manhattan court appearance Wednesday that he believes a trial could occur anytime after Labor Day.
With the scaled-down case ordered by the appeals court, Aidala predicted that it could be finished in a week and his client would be exonerated.
Deborah Tuerkheimer, a professor at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and former assistant district attorney in Manhattan, said whether there is a second trial will "hinge on the preferences of the women who would have to testify again and endure the ordeal of a retrial.”
“I think ultimately this will come down to whether they feel it’s something they want to do, are able to do,” she said.
Jane Manning, director of the nonprofit Women’s Equal Justice, which provides advocacy services to sexual assault survivors, agreed “the biggest question is whether the two women are willing to testify again.”
If they are, then Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg “will absolutely retry the case,” said Manning, who prosecuted sex crimes when she was in the Queens district attorney's office in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Tama Kudman, a West Palm Beach, Florida, criminal defense lawyer who also practices in New Jersey and New York, said prosecutors will likely soon have conversations with key witnesses for a retrial.
“It's really up to them at the end of the day whether they want to go through that again,” Kudman said, noting that prosecutors will have to see if witnesses can withstand a second trial. “Being willing to and wanting to are two different things.”
The legal process is already in motion, with Weinstein's Wednesday appearance likely to focus in part on where he will be incarcerated while he awaits a new trial.
Bragg's office put out a statement soon after the appeals ruling was made public Thursday, saying it will “do everything in our power to retry this case.”
But lawyers say the road to a trial will include monthslong battles between lawyers over what evidence and testimony will be allowed at a retrial.
The daunting path to a new trial was clear Friday when Miriam Haley, one of two women at the heart of the charges against Weinstein, said during an electronic news conference that she “will consider testifying again, should there be another trial,” but declined to commit to a new trial when questioned further about it.
Haley, a former “Project Runway” production assistant also known as Mimi Haleyi, testified at Weinstein's trial that she repeatedly told Weinstein “no” when he attacked her inside his apartment in July 2006, forcibly performing oral sex on her. In a 2020 civil lawsuit, Haley said she was left with horror, humiliation and pain that persists.
During the news conference with her lawyer, Gloria Allred, Haley said the appeals ruling was “a terrible decision that sends an extremely disheartening message to victims of sexual assaults everywhere.”
She said testifying was “retraumatizing, exhausting and terrifying” and she could not yet decide if she would testify at a retrial while “we're all in a bit of shock” from the court ruling.
“I wish it would be as easy as ‘Sure, I’m going to do it again!'" Haley said.
She said people really don't understand.
“It’s like insane. It’s grueling. It’s hard. You're living in fear for years,” Haley said. "Then you’re getting harassed. There’s so much stuff that people don’t see that I had to live with. Yeah, like I have to take a minute to think about it.”
Allred told the news conference Friday afternoon that Bragg's office had not yet reached out to Haley about testifying again.
Aidala agreed that it's really Haley's decision whether a trial occurs.
“The ball is in her court,” he said.
Erika Rosenbaum, a Canadian actor who made her own accusations against Weinstein in 2017, has spent years speaking out against harassment and abuse but has not been called to testify in either Weinstein trial.
She said in an interview Friday that it was harrowing enough to tell her own story of abuse in the media and can only imagine how much more difficult it is to go on the witness stand — let alone twice.
“Every time I speak about it, whether it’s to the press or to a group of students or young people, I get physically hot and uncomfortable. My head pounds, I have a physical, visceral reaction. It takes a physical and mental and emotional toll," Rosenbaum said.
She said she imagines it would be terrifying to testify and she wishes she could “take the stand for them or with them.”
“But these are some brave ladies, and I have a great deal of respect for them and gratitude,” Rosenbaum added.
The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they have been victims of sexual assault unless they agree to be named as Haley and Rosenbaum have.
Associated Press writers Jocelyn Noveck and Michael R. Sisak contributed.
FLE - A group of women who have spoken out about Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein's sexual misconduct and who refer to themselves as the "Silence Breakers," face the media during a news conference at Los Angeles City Hall, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020, in Los Angeles. New York's highest court on Thursday, April 25, 2024, has overturned Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction and ordered a new trial. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)
Retrial of Harvey Weinstein unlikely to occur soon, if ever, experts say
Retrial of Harvey Weinstein unlikely to occur soon, if ever, experts say
FILE - Harvey Weinstein arrives at a Manhattan courthouse as jury deliberations continue in his rape trial in New York, on Feb. 24, 2020. Weinstein will appear in a New York City court on Wednesday, May 1, 2024, according to the Manhattan district attorney’s office. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
