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Joe Biden has overturned Donald Trump’s ban on transgender people serving in the US military, earning praise from LGBTQ+ activists as he attempts to turn the page on his predecessor.
But Trump continues to cast a long shadow over Washington. On Monday the House of Representatives was poised to send an impeachment article to the Senate, setting the stage for a distractive and divisive trial of the former president.
Sworn in last Wednesday, Biden has signed a blitz of executive orders aiming to undo what he regards as harmful and intolerant aspects of Trump’s legacy. Trump’s transgender ban was a reversal of Barack Obama’s decision in 2016 to allow trans people to serve openly and receive medical care to transition genders.
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When Trump announced the ban in 2017 on Twitter, he argued that the military needed to focus on “decisive and overwhelming victory” without being burdened by “tremendous medical costs and disruption”.
Biden has brought back the Obama policy. Signing an executive order in the Oval Office, he told reporters: “This is reinstating a position that previous commanders and [defense] secretaries have supported.
“And what I’m doing is enabling all qualified Americans to serve their country in uniform, and essentially restoring the situation as it existed before, with transgender personnel, if qualified in every other way, can serve their government in the United States military.”
Biden was joined by retired Gen Lloyd Austin, sworn in by vice-president Kamala Harris as the defense secretary on Monday, who supported overturning the ban. A report last year by the thinktank the Palm Center, co-authored by former military surgeons general, concluded that the ban had hurt military readiness.
Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters: “President Biden believes that gender identity should not be a bar to military service, and that America’s strength is found in its diversity. America is stronger at home and around the world when it is inclusive.”
Trump allies condemned the order. Tony Perkins, a marine veteran and the president of the conservative Family Research Council, said: “President Biden is redirecting the military’s focus from where it has been and where it belongs – fighting and winning wars. Political correctness doesn’t win wars, but the president is indulging dangerous and unproven theories that have the potential to undermine national security.”
LGBTQ rights groups welcomed the measure. The Human Rights Campaign noted that there are thousands of transgender members of the US military, making the Pentagon the biggest employer of transgender people in America. Alphonso David, its president, said: “The greatest military in the world will again value readiness over bias, and qualifications over discrimination.”
Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and chief executive of GLAAD, said: “The American people, military leaders, and service members themselves, all overwhelmingly support transgender military service. They know that brave trans patriots have served throughout history and continue to serve honorably and capably, defending our country.”
But while executive actions afford Biden some quick wins, the new president is facing Republican opposition to his $1.9tn coronavirus relief package. And his efforts to move on from the polarising Trump era are also running into ongoing fallout from the 2020 election.
On Monday, the justice department inspector general announced an investigation into whether any officials “engaged in an improper attempt” to overturn the election. This followed a New York Times report that a former assistant attorney general, Jeffrey Clark, discussed with Trump a plot to oust the acting attorney general and falsely claim widespread voter fraud.
In another development, Dominion Voting Systems filed a $1.3bn defamation lawsuit against Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, accusing him of waging “a viral disinformation campaign about Dominion” made up of “demonstrably false” allegations.
Trump’s election denialism culminated on 6 January in a mob storming the US Capitol, resulting in his impeachment for “incitement of insurrection”. House Democrats were due to carry the charge across the Capitol on Monday evening, a ceremonial walk to the Senate by the prosecutors who will argue their case. The trial will start on 9 February at the earliest.
A two-thirds majority of the Senate would be required to convict Trump. It is now split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, meaning 17 Republicans will be required to vote against the former president. This looks increasingly unlikely as a growing number of Republican senators appear to have cooled on the idea.
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida told Fox News Sunday: “I think the trial is stupid, I think it’s counterproductive … the first chance I get to vote to end this trial, I’ll do it”.
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Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas said he did not believe the Senate had the constitutional authority to convict Trump after he has left office, telling Fox News “the more I talk to other Republican senators, the more they’re beginning to line up” behind that argument.
Even so, the 6 January riot and series of election defeats have plunged the Republican party into internecine feuds. Arizona Republicans voted on Saturday to censure Cindy McCain, the former senator Jeff Flake and governor Doug Ducey because they were perceived as disloyal to Trump.
Senator Rob Portman of Ohio announced on Monday that he will not seek re-election in 2022.
“We live in an increasingly polarised country where members of both parties are being pushed further to the right and further to the left, and that means too few people who are actively looking to find common ground,” he said. “This is not a new phenomenon, of course, but a problem that has gotten worse over the past few decades.”
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