EVERYTHING which the German Nazi government did to Jews they first made legal, and gave themselves the power to do so. The Senate voting that it has the constitutional right to impeach a private citizen, or even a president without the Chief Justice of the SCOTUS to preside over the trial proceedings, despite the fact that the constitutional provisions bar such actions, is no different than what the Nazis did----they gave themselves powers to which they are not entitled. They are using the authority of the document which gives them the right to hold their positions to eviscerate and nullify that very same document...which would, logically speaking, strip them of the right to hold their positions.

Only a judge can preside over contests between adversarial parties, pass sentence, and impose consequences. Anything which the Senate does without the Chief Justice presiding is NOT a trial, it is merely a wasted hearing, resulting in the official censure of a private citizen; no judge equals no trial. When there is a disagreement between plaintiff and defendant in the presentation of evidence or witnesses, the judge rules on how to proceed: THE PROSECUTION IS NOT ENTITLED TO OVERSEE ITS OWN ACTIONS IN ITS ROLE AS THE PLAINTIFFS AND ALSO OVERSEE THE ACTIONS OF THE DEFENDANT. "Preside over" means just that--- the "over" indicates a person in a position of authority above the adversarial parties, and to "preside" means to be able to exercise that authority as the ultimate arbiter (as a president is top official in our federal constitutional framework).

The Senate voting that it has the right to conduct an impeachment trial, and of a private citizen, no less, despite the fact that our federal constitution prohibits such action, signals that the legislative branch has abrogated to itself the judicial branch, a separate but equal division of our government----TOTALLY IMPEACHABLE OFFENSE, since it is an attempt to dismantle our constitutional provisions, the law of the land. More importantly, if Trump files for the SCOTUS to rule on the matter (which he will, and this definitely a constitutional crisis), then SCOTUS will nullify the impeachment nonsense on one of two grounds: (1) the Senate overstepped its authority by assuming a role guaranteed only to the judicial branch (stepping on SCOTUS' toes); or (2) in the absence of a ruling by a judge, there was no trial outcome to be appealed, thus the verdict will be vacated as null.

Chief Justice John Roberts refused to preside, signalling either that he did not believe that a private citizen can be impeached (a hint as to how the SCOTUS would rule), or that he feared the people if he presided over the impeachment against Trump. It is much safer for him to put the onus on the Senate by ruling from the bench that the impeachment of private citizens is unconstitutional, because he has no need to fear the Senate.