Booker: It would be ‘constitutionally dangerous’ not to conduct full Trump impeachment trial

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said Sunday that the Senate has an “obligation” to conduct President Trump’s second impeachment trial even after he leaves office.

Asked to respond to Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-Ark.) claim that a post-presidency trial is unconstitutional, Booker responded, “I believe it is constitutionally dangerous not to proceed.”

“We just had a president of the United States try to undermine the peaceful transition of power. Try to challenge a fair and free election, and him and his agents, in the moments before from his son to his lawyer, whipping up a crowd to go attack the Capitol,” he added. “So, I believe fundamentally the Senate has an obligation to act.”

Asked about a specific timeline for the trial, Booker responded said that “there’s some frustrations about getting timelines set” within the Senate.

“You need the Republican leader to cooperate in terms of time agreements. But I fully expect it to happen as quickly as possible. And I think what else is going to happen is that we’re going to be able to do a lot of things at once. I think we should,” he continued. “If we can get the time agreements from our Republican leader, we can actually hold impeachment trials as well as do other urgently critical things like getting key national security personnel confirmed as well.”

WATCH: @CoryBooker says he expects the impeachment trial to happen “as quickly as possible” but needs “the Republican leader to cooperate.” #MTP

Booker: We’ll need to do both, “hold impeachment trials … as well as get key national security personnel confirmed.” pic.twitter.com/6I4gSH9rvb

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) January 17, 2021

The House voted last week to impeach Trump over his role in the deadly rioting at the U.S. Capitol, making him the only president to be impeached twice. 

Senate Democrats are hoping to conduct his trial as swiftly as possible to avoid slowing the start of President-elect Joe Biden’s new administration.  Republicans, however, have yet to show they will cooperate.