Almost a week after the PA House of Representatives voted to impeach Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, the state chambers have begun procedural matters for the trial to take form, setting the stage for the impeachment proceedings in January. 

A spokesperson for Senate Republicans, in a statement, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that representatives will begin meeting next week to set the rules of trial as it moves to accept the articles of impeachment leveled against Krasner by a Republican majority in the House. 

The coming days will also give Krasner the charges he’ll face in trial after State Senators meet, to which he’ll need to respond by Dec. 21, according to the statement received by the Inquirer, just as the House majority overwhelmingly voted to try Krasner in a tense 107-85 vote.

Beyond the turning of the administrative wheels, Senate Republicans did not offer details as to the length of the trial or how it will be tried ahead of the impeachment proceedings, but said the 

“Senate’s Constitutional obligations are clear, so we are prepared to fulfill our duties and continue the impeachment process,” Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman told the Inquirer. 

The Republican-controlled House will not try Krasner for any crimes, but has severely criticized how the District Attorney’s office instituted harmful policies that, according to the House Committee report, spurred Philadelphia’s current crime wave through its mishandling. 

Specifically, seven transgressions were listed — including accusations that the DA’s actions, or lack thereof, have escalated Philly’s rise in murders and homicides, obstruction of a legislative investigation into his office, and mishandled a number of criminal cases, like the trial of former Ryan Pownall, a police officer accused of murder, according to previous reporting by AL DÍA. 

Krasner, a Democrat, has categorically repudiated the accusations and has called the attempts to impeach him “anti-Democratic.” 

“Never in the history of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has there ever been an effort to impeach, charge, or remove someone from office for their policies,” Krasner said this week. 

“This is something you do for crimes.”

Impeachments in the Commonwealth are incredibly rare. The only recorded examples of an elected official in PA answering for impeachment crimes happened well over 200 years ago. 

And Krasner, who won his reelection bid by an overwhelming majority in 2021, has accused the House of pursuing a politically motivated war.

Shortly after news of the incoming impeachment broke last week, Krasner released his statement: 

“They have impeached me without presenting a single shred of evidence connecting our policies to any uptick in crime,” Krasner said. “We were never given the opportunity to defend our ideas and policies — policies I would have been proud to explain. That Pennsylvania Republicans willfully avoided hearing the facts about my office is shameful.”

And although the District Attorney has the support of Democrats across state and city officials, a disadvantaged position in the House has given Republicans leeway to put Krasner to task in court over the alleged mismanagement of his office. 

Democrats also lambasted House GOP members for seeing the impeachment proceedings through just as midterm elections wiped their previous 23-member majority in the lower chamber, which Democrats will now narrowly control.