KING-TV (Seattle, WA) - King 5 Early Morning News

groups ever with 12 number one singles on the billboard hot 100. mary wilson was 76 years old. it is a historic day in washington, d.c. where the senate will convene later this morning for the second impeachment trial of former president trump. he's charged with inciting an insurrection at the u.s. capitol that left five people dead. here to shed some light on the proceedings is udal political science professor james long. good morning. thanks for joining us. so let's talk about the process in terms of the impeachment we're going to be hearing 16 hours of arguments on both sides that will happen starting tomorrow. so talk about what we will see today and this issue of constitutionality. well, today the debate will open in the senate for the trial around the question of the constitutionality of whether or not the senate has the ability to try the former president right now and that is meant to go on for about four hours a day before the opening arguments on the side of the house managers and the prosecution tomorrow talk about the likelihood of acquittal if in fact the president will the former president will not be convicted. what is the point of going through with this trial? well, i don't think at this point we know for sure that he won't be. i think it's less obvious than the first impeachment trial. right now people are skeptical that 17 republicans would vote with all of the democrats to to convict him. but i think either way, even if there is an acquittal i think on the side of the house managers their argument is that, you know, this sets a dangerous precedent to allow something like incitement, insurrection without an impeachment and a trial on the senate. so this is as much about sort of setting precedent in history as it is about the current moment. and what does this trial and the expected acquittal mean for both democrats and republicans? well, for the democrats it will mean that they you know, they're not able to effectively sideline president trump from running for office again. it'll mean the same thing for republicans as well. and so, you know, he would plausibly be able to run in four years if he if he decided so he would still be a very potent political force for both parties to consider moving forward. we'll be watching the events closely in washington, d.c. over the next several days.