As the US House prepares to bring a second impeachment charge against Donald Trump to the Senate for trial, a growing number of Republican senators say they are opposed to the proceeding, dimming the chances the former president will be convicted.
House Democrats will carry the sole impeachment charge of "incitement of insurrection" across the Capitol late on Monday evening local time.
They are hoping strong Republican denunciations of Trump after the January 6 riot will translate into a conviction and a separate vote to bar Trump from holding office again.
But Republican passions appear to have cooled since the insurrection.
"The trial is stupid, it's counterproductive," Republican Florida Senator Marco Rubio said, claiming he believes a trial would be bad for the country and further inflame partisan divisions.
"The first chance I get to vote to end this trial, I'll do it."
Arguments in the Senate trial will begin the week of February 8.
Leaders in both parties agreed to the short delay to give Trump's team and House prosecutors time to prepare and the Senate the chance to confirm some of Biden's Cabinet nominees.
Democrats say the extra days will allow for more evidence to come out about the rioting by Trump supporters, while Republicans hope to craft a unified defence for the former president.
Democratic Delaware Senator Chris Coons, said he hopes that evolving clarity on the details of what happened on January 6 "will make it clearer to my colleagues and the American people that we need some accountability".
"It is a critical moment in American history and we have to look at it and look at it hard," Coons said.
An early vote to dismiss the trial would be unlikely to succeed, given that Democrats now control the Senate.
But the Democrats would need the support of 17 Republicans - a high bar - to convict Trump.
"A lot of Americans are going to think it's strange that the Senate is spending its time trying to convict and remove from office a man who left office a week ago," Republican Senator for Arkansas Tom Cotton said on Fox News.
A few Republican senators have agreed with the Democrats, though not close to the number that will be needed to convict Trump.
"I believe that what is being alleged and what we saw, which is incitement to insurrection, is an impeachable offence," Mitt Romney, the lone Republican to vote to convict Trump when the Senate acquitted the then-president in last year's impeachment trial, said.
"If not, what is?"
Australian Associated Press
