While the Republicans did not succeed in ending the trial before it began, the test vote made clear that Donald J Trump still has enormous sway over his party as he becomes the first former president to be tried for impeachment. Photo: AP

While the Republicans did not succeed in ending the trial before it began, the test vote made clear that Trump still has enormous sway over his party as he becomes the first former president to be tried for impeachment. Many Republicans have criticized Trump's role in the attack — before which he told his supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat — but most of them have rushed to defend him in the trial.

“I think this was indicative of where a lot of people’s heads are," said South Dakota Senator John Thune, the number two Republican in the Senate, after the vote.

Late Tuesday, the presiding officer at the trial, Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vt, was taken to the hospital for observation after not feeling well at his office, spokesman David Carle said in a statement. The 80-year-old senator was examined by the Capitol's attending physician, who recommended he be taken to the hospital out of an abundance of caution, he said. Later Tuesday, Carle said Leahy had been sent home “after a thorough examination” and was looking forward to getting back to work.

Leahy presided over the trial's first procedural vote, a 55-45 tally that saw the Senate set aside an objection from Kentucky Senator Rand Paul that would have declared the impeachment proceedings unconstitutional and dismissed the trial.

The vote means the trial on Trump's impeachment will begin as scheduled the week of February 8. The House impeached him January 13, just a week after the deadly insurrection in which five people died.

What seemed for some Democrats like an open-and-shut case that played out for the world on live television is running into a Republican Party that feels very different. Not only do senators say they have legal concerns, but they are wary of crossing the former president and his legions of followers.