Trump impeachment (2021)

Subterms

    More stories

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump impeachment: defense wraps up, claiming free speech is at stake – live

      by

      Key events

      Show

      3.27pm EST15:27
      Trump’s legal team has wrapped up its defense

      2.02pm EST14:02
      Afternoon summary

      12.00pm EST12:00
      Trump’s defense team expected to push for swift conclusion of trial

      8.37am EST08:37
      US fast food workers hold Black History Month strike to demand $15 an hour

      8.07am EST08:07
      Trump advisor: legal team expected to use just four hours today in Senate for defense

      7.45am EST07:45
      Trump’s laywers expected to concede violence was traumatic and unacceptable, but argue Trump had nothing to do with it

      7.09am EST07:09
      Georgia officials investigate groups that mobilized Black voters in state crucial to election outcome

      Live feed

      Show

      4.36pm EST16:36

      Democratic senator Ed Markey asks when Trump learned of the breach at the Capitol, and what he did about it. (It’s the same question Collins and Murkowski asked earlier.)
      Stacey Plaskett, a House delegate from the Virgin Islands and an impeachment manager, says we do not know. “The reason this question keeps coming up is because the answer is nothing.”
      Mitt Romney, Republican senator and Trump foe, asks if Trump knew whether Mike Pence had been removed from the Senate when the president criticized him in a 2.24pm tweet.
      Defense lawyer Van der Veen says “the answer is no, at no point was the president informed that the vice president was in any danger”. Van der Veen then criticizes the House impeachment managers for rushing the trial.
      I don’t see the connection.

      Eli Stokols
      (@EliStokols)
      van der Veen responds: “At no point was the president informed the vice president was in any danger.”Says the q is irrelevant: “This is an article of impeachment for incitement.”

      February 12, 2021

      David Frum
      (@davidfrum)
      Which is untrue of course. And then van der Veen went on to argue that even if Trump did recklessly endanger the life of VP Pence, it’s nobody’s business. https://t.co/cdC4kN81cy

      February 12, 2021

      Updated
      at 4.37pm EST

      4.24pm EST16:24

      Republican senator Tim Scott has a question: “Isn’t this simply a political show trial that is designed to discredit President Trump […] and shame the 74m Americans who voted for him?”
      Bruce Castor, for the defense: “Thats precisely what the 45th president believes this is about.”
      Castor says the purpose of the trial – which is actually related to an insurrection that left five people dead – is to “embarrass” Trump.

      4.14pm EST16:14

      A question for the defense team, from GOP senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski:
      “Exactly when did President Trump learn of the breach of the Capitol” and what actions did he take to bring the riot to an end?
      Van der Veen, for the defense, doesn’t give a proper answer.

      Neal Katyal
      (@neal_katyal)
      Woah. Trump lawyer can’t answer it. At all. He just rants about the lack of due process. Seems to me this would be the first thing I would ask if I were Trump’s lawyer while getting ready. Devastating silence.

      February 12, 2021

      Collins and Murkowski are believed to be swing voters on whether to convict Trump.

      4.06pm EST16:06

      Senator Lindsey Graham has a question for the defense. The question is on behalf of Graham, Senator Ted Cruz, and others – all ardent Trump defenders.
      “Does a politician raising bail for rioters encourage more rioting?” the defense is asked.
      One of the defense lawyers – I think it’s Castor says: “Yes.”
      This is part of the Republican strategy to compare the Capitol rioters to Black Lives Matter protesters.

      Joy WE VOTED!! WEAR A MASK!! Reid 😷)
      (@JoyAnnReid)
      Of course @LindseyGrahamSC uses his question to throw a bomb at Black Lives Matter who are who he means when he says “rioters.” (Narrator: BLM protesters were not “rioters,” and insurrectionist Lindsey Graham would fit in perfectly in the Confederacy.)

      February 12, 2021

      Updated
      at 4.09pm EST

      4.03pm EST16:03

      “Isn’t it the case that the attack [on January 6] would not have happened if not for Donald Trump?” was the first, strangely worded question. It’s posed by Democratic senators to the House impeachment managers (essentially, the prosecution.)
      Rep Joaquin Castro, one of the impeachment managers, answered. Castro said – essentially – yes.
      He said Trump, as far back as mid-December, directed his supporters to travel to the Capitol on January 6. Once there, Trump told his supporters to “fight like hell”, and told them “they could play by different rules”, Castro said.

      3.56pm EST15:56

      The impeachment trial has restarted shortly. In the next phase, Senators will have four hours to ask the defense and the prosecution questions.
      It’s not clear how late they’ll run tonight. There’s a dinner break scheduled for 5pm, but the questioning could resume after. The Senate will reconvene at 10am ET Saturday, and a final vote could take place later that day, at 3pm.

      3.27pm EST15:27

      Trump’s legal team has wrapped up its defense

      That was a bit of an anti-climax. Castor finished by pivoting back to the free speech argument Trump’s lawyers made earlier – that Trump’s speech to his supporters on January 6 was protected under the first amendment.
      “This trial is about far more than President Trump,” Castor said. He said the trial is instead about canceling speech that “the majority does not agree with”.
      “Are we going to allow canceling and silencing to be sanctioned in this body?” Castor asked.
      Trump’s defense argument seems to hinge both on a) Trump’s speech on January 6 did not incite the riot (although the defense team did not address Trump’s previous statements) and b) in any case, what Trump said is protected by free speech laws.

      Updated
      at 3.28pm EST

      3.15pm EST15:15

      Castor suggested that Trump’s speech on January 6 did not incite the riot
      The lawyer hasn’t addressed the broader issue of whether Trump’s months-long tirade against the election result had anything to do with it.
      “The January 6 speech did not cause the riots,” Castor said.
      Castor then moved onto the January phone call between Trump and Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger. During that call Trump pressured Raffensperger, a Republican, to “find” votes so that Trump could be announced the winner in Georgia.
      Georgia prosecutors have opened a criminal inquiry into Trump’s call.
      Castor read from a transcript of the call and said Trump was expressing legitimate concern over the election result.
      For some context, here is some of what Trump said in that Georgia phone call:
      “So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”

      Updated
      at 3.28pm EST

      3.03pm EST15:03

      Bruce Castor continues. He says the House impeachment managers “manipulated” Trump’s words when they presented their case.
      Castor then speaks Latin for a little bit and suggests House impeachment managers are “trying to fool you”.
      “President Trump was immediate in his calls for calm,” Castor says. (Trump wasn’t.)
      “President Trump’s words couldn’t have incited the events at the capitol,” Castor said, because people were already gathering at the Capitol before Trump gave his speech at the Ellipse, which a 15 minute walk away.

      Trip Gabriel
      (@tripgabriel)
      Castor — the lawyer who’s rambling, unfocused opening statement on Tuesday enraged Trump — begins by going over ground argued earlier, and showing the same clips.

      February 12, 2021

      Andrew Desiderio
      (@AndrewDesiderio)
      DOJ has specifically referred to the events of Jan. 6 as an insurrection. https://t.co/msWzru3fXd

      February 12, 2021

      Eliza Collins
      (@elizacollins1)
      Trump’s lawyers are arguing that he is not guilty because 1. The trial is unconstitutional 2. The trial is politically motivated 3. Trump’s use of word “fight” and other language was ordinary political talk 4. Trump loves law and order. Our full coverage: https://t.co/RMwlZdYR56

      February 12, 2021

      Updated
      at 3.08pm EST

      2.48pm EST14:48

      Castor began his defense by showing a video, most of which is cribbed from the video Trump’s legal team played earlier.
      It contrasts Democrats defending Black Lives Matter protesters, spliced in with selected clips of violence at some of the BLM demonstrations, with Trump talking about “law and order”. Law and order is frequently used as a racist dog whistle.
      “January 6 was a terrible day for our country,” Castor conceded, but he continued: “President Trump did not incite or cause the horrific violence.”
      This tactic from the defense – that Trump’s supporters storming the Capitol was bad, but it wasn’t Trump’s fault – is something we expected.
      Castor added: “Political hatred has no place in the American justice system, and certainly no place in the congress of the United States.”

      2.42pm EST14:42

      Donald Trump’s legal team has resumed their defense. Bruce Castor, who reportedly left Trump furious after a lackluster performance earlier this week, will handle the next section.
      During the break, Democratic senators lined up to pan the defense.
      “Donald Trump was told that if he didn’t stop lying about the election people would be killed,” Senator Tim Kaine told reporters, according to the Washington Post. “He wouldn’t stop, and the Capitol was attacked and seven people are dead who would be alive today.”
      Senator Richard J. Blumenthal said the Trump defense team is “trying to draw a false, dangerous and distorted equivalence”, the Post reported.
      “And I think it is plainly a distraction from Donald Trump’s inviting the mob to Washington, knowing it was armed; changing the route and the timing so as to incite them to march on the Capitol; and then reveling, without remorse, without doing anything to protect his own vice president and all of us,” Blumenthal said.
      “I think that the case is even more powerful after this very distorted and false argument.” More

    • 138 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Impeachment trial: defense lawyers argue Trump is victim of 'cancel culture'

      by

      Donald Trump’s lawyers launched their attempt to defend the former president on Friday, saying the second impeachment trial was a “politically motivated witch-hunt”.Michael van der Veen, one of Trump’s attorneys, used that phrase on Friday to describe Democrats’ motivation for impeaching Trump a second time. He argued Trump’s heated rhetoric on 6 January was no different than the language politicians frequently use in American politics today. Trump exhorted his supporters to “fight like hell” during a rally just before they marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington and attacked the US Capitol.“No thinking person could seriously believe that the president’s January 6 speech on the Ellipse was in any way an incitement to violence or insurrection,” Van der Veen said.He also veered away from the events on 6 January, instead focusing on several instances over the last year in which he accused Democrats of using similar heated language and not doing enough to condemn violent protesters.“This unprecedented effort is not about Democrats opposing political violence. It is about Democrats trying to disqualify their political opposition. It is constitutional cancel culture,” he said. “History will record this shameful effort as a deliberate attempt by the Democrat party to smear, censor and cancel not just President Trump, but the 75 million Americans who voted for him.”At one point, Trump’s lawyers played an extensive supercut of Democratic politicians using the word “fight” in an attempt to argue that Democrats were being hypocritical for impeaching Trump. But Democrats have said Trump wasn’t impeached merely for saying the word “fight” – he invited supporters to Washington on the day Congress was counting the electoral college, and after years of encouraging violence, told his supporters to “fight” and descend on the capitol.Democrats spent much of the week pre-butting some of those arguments. They played numerous videos in which the insurrectionists shouted at police that they had been invited there by Trump, and pointed to several court documents in which rioters charged with criminal offenses have said they were acting at Trump’s behest.“President Trump was not impeached because he used words that the House decided are forbidden or unpopular. He was impeached for inciting armed violence against the government of the United States of America,” David Cicilline, a House impeachment manager, said earlier this week.Jamie Raskin, the lead House Democratic prosecutor, addressed the claim that Trump’s statements were protected by the first amendment earlier in the week, saying it was “absurd”. While a private citizen can urge overthrow of the government, Raskin said, the president of the United States, who swears an oath to defend the nation against all enemies, cannot do the same.“If you’re president of the United States, you’ve chosen a side with your oath of office,” Raskin, a longtime constitutional law professor, said earlier this week. “And if you break it, we can impeach, convict, remove and disqualify you permanently from holding any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States.”Trump’s lawyers signaled they intend to present a brief defense today.The attorneys are likely to try to redirect the responsibility from the former president to solely the people who laid siege to the Capitol. They also plan to argue that his speech at that day’s rally was protected by the first amendment. Trump’s lawyers are likely to frame the impeachment trial as a rushed effort without due process that is driven by Democrats’ personal animus, according to the Associated Press.Though Trump’s team has 16 hours to make their case, they intend to only use three or four hours to do so, Schoen told reporters on Thursday. Republicans want to conclude the trial quickly, according to Axios, after Democrats mounted a strong prosecution filled with harrowing videos.Trump’s lawyers will go into their arguments knowing that 17 Republicans would need to vote to find Trump guilty in order to convict him. It is unlikely so many Republicans would vote against the former president, increasing his chances of being acquitted.Trump’s team may also revisit the argument that Trump cannot be impeached because he is no longer in office. A majority of senators – including six Republicans – rejected that argument after hearing hours of debate on the issue on Tuesday.Friday will be the first time Trump’s lawyers will present arguments in the trial since a rocky opening on Tuesday. Bruce Castor, a Pennsylvania prosecutor serving as one of Trump’s attorneys, gave meandering opening remarks that were difficult to follow, a performance that reportedly infuriated Trump.Depending on when arguments conclude, there could be a vote in the trial as soon as Saturday. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Mike Pence's 'nuclear football' was potentially at risk during Capitol riot

      by

      The dramatic footage of the 6 January insurrection shows the mob was within 30 metres of Mike Pence, when he made his escape. But there was a chilling detail that even the House prosecutors missed. With the then vice-president on that terrifying day, was an air force officer carrying the “football”, a large black briefcase carrying nuclear launch codes.The codes in the vice-president’s football are not activated unless the president is dead or incapacitated. But the implications of it falling into the hands of rioters are still chilling.“If the mob had seized Pence’s nuclear football, they may not have been able to order an actual launch but the public may not have known that,” Tom Collina, director of policy at the Ploughshares Fund disarmament advocacy group, said. “Parading the nuclear button around would have caused widespread panic and chaos as authorities scrambled to respond.”The secret service bodyguards around Pence would most likely have defended the suitcase with deadly force, but if the pro-Trump mob had managed to seize it, they would have come away, not just with the codes used to identify the vice-president and authenticate his orders, but also the encrypted communications equipment used to make the call to the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon.Most damaging of all, they would have all the nuclear attack options instantly available around the clock to the US commander-in-chief. That list of options used to be in a weighty handbook, but according to Fred Kaplan, author of The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War, it has been condensed over the decades into a series of laminated cards, “like a menu at Wendy’s”, as one officer put it to Kaplan.Not only would disclosure of that menu represent one of the worst security breaches imaginable, the encrypted communication equipment would tell an adversary a lot of how the US would respond to a major attack.“They could glean all sorts of information about its structure and technology so it’s very significant,” said Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists.Nuclear experts have questioned whether this cold war relic that provides such an obvious target for adversaries and terrorists, is still necessary. But the Trump era has also shone a bright light on the question of whether one individual should continue to have sole authority to launch the US nuclear arsenal.Collina, co-author of The Button, a book on the presidency and nuclear weapons, said: “Of course the even bigger danger was that Trump had his own football that could have been used to end civilization as we know it.”In other words, perhaps the only thing scarier than the football being surrounded by a mob is the thought of Trump being alone with it. More

    • 151 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Acquitting Trump would spell grave danger for US democracy | Jonathan Freedland

      by

      Rare is the trial that takes place at the scene of the crime. Rarer still is the trial where the jurors are also witnesses to, if not victims of, that crime. Which means that the case of Donald Trump should be open and shut, a slam-dunk. Because those sitting in judgment saw the consequences of what Trump did on 6 January. They heard it. And, as security footage played during this week’s proceedings showed, they ran for their lives because of it.
      And yet, most watching the second trial of Trump – only the fourth impeachment in US history – presume that it will end in his acquittal. They expect that fewer than 17 Republican senators will find the former president guilty of inciting an insurrection and so, lacking the required two-thirds majority, the verdict will be not guilty. Barring a late spasm of conscience by the senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, Trump will pronounce himself vindicated, the case against him a hoax and he will be free to run again in 2024 – and to loom over his party as its dominant presence at least until then.
      That fact alone should quash the temptation to regard the current proceedings, which could conclude this weekend, as a footnote to the Trump era, one to be safely tucked away in the history books. The reverse is true. The likely acquittal suggests the danger of Trump has far from passed: the threat he embodied remains live and active – and is now embedded deep inside the US body politic.
      The Democratic members of the House of Representatives acting as prosecutors have laid out an unanswerable case. Vividly and with extensive use of video, they have reminded senators – and the watching public – of the vehemence and violence of the mob that stormed the Capitol last month, how Trump supporters attacked police officers, even using poles carrying the American flag to bludgeon those in uniform. They’ve shown how close the rioters came to finding elected officials, how they hunted them down marbled corridors and stone staircases, looking for “fucking traitors”. They had a gallows and noose ready.
      Naturally, Republicans have bitten their lip and said how awful it all was – but have insisted none of it can be blamed on Trump. So the prosecution reminded them of Trump’s words on the day, telling the crowd within striking distance of Congress to head over there, “to show strength” and to “fight like hell”. Oh, but only “idiots” could take such language literally, say Trump’s defenders. Except those who sacked the Capitol took it very literally, filmed as they told the besieged police that they had been “invited” there by the president, that they were “fighting for Trump” at his urging. They believed they were following his explicit instructions.
      The incitement was not confined to that speech, but began long before – and continued after – the rioting started. Trump whipped up the Washington crowd that bitter January day, but he’d been whipping up his supporters for nearly a year, telling them the 2020 election would be stolen, that the only way he could possibly lose would be if the contest was rigged. The big lie that drove the crowd to break down the doors and run riot was that Trump had won and Joe Biden had lost the election – that a contest that was, in fact, free and fair was instead fraudulent, despite 59 out of 60 claims of voter fraud being thrown out of courts across the US through lack of evidence. Their aim was to stop the formal certification ceremony, to “stop the steal” – as Trump had demanded they must for several months.
      So much for incitement before the riot. Among the most shocking facts laid bare this week was that Trump’s incitement persisted even after the violence was under way. One of the former president’s most ardent supporters, Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville, let slip that he had told Trump by phone that vice-president Mike Pence had had to be removed from the chamber for his own safety. And yet, minutes after that call, Trump tweeted an attack on Pence for failing to have “the courage” to thwart Biden’s victory, all but painting a target on the VP’s back.
      Couple that with Trump’s failure to do anything to stop the violence once it had begun – the two-hour delay before sending backup for the police – and the picture is complete: a president who urged a murderous mob to overturn a democratic election by force, who watched them attempt it, who did nothing to stop it and even directed their anger towards specific, named targets. Put it this way, what more would a president have to do to be found guilty of inciting an insurrection?
      Republicans have sought refuge in the first amendment, saying Trump’s words were protected by his right to free speech, or else that it’s improper to convict a president once he’s left office. Most legal scholars wave aside those arguments, but let’s not pretend Republicans’ objections are on legal grounds. They are not acting as sincere jurors, weighing the evidence in good faith. If they were, then three of them would not have met Trump’s legal team to discuss strategy on Thursday, in what is surely a rather novel reading of jury service.
      No, the law is not driving these people to say Trump should be given a free pass for his crime. It is fear. They felt fear on 6 January, when some of them went on camera to beg Trump to call off his mob, but they feel a greater fear now. They fear the threat Trump made in his speech that day, when he told the crowd “we have to primary the hell out of the ones that don’t fight”. Republican senators fear internal party challenges from Trumpists in their states, and they fear a base that is now the obedient creature of Donald Trump. Their only way out, they think, is to acquit a man they surely know – must know – is guilty as charged.
      The consequences are perilous. Most directly, Trump will be able to run again, and will be free to try the same trick anew – unleashing his shock troops to ensure his will is done. If Trump loses, say, the New Hampshire primary in 2024, what’s to prevent him urging his devotees to “stop the steal” once more? Even after Trump is gone, a grim precedent will exist. House Democrat Jamie Raskin was right to warn Republicans that acquittal would “set a new terrible standard for presidential misconduct”. When a future president doesn’t get their way, they can simply incite violence against the system they are pledged to defend.
      Still, the greatest danger is not in the future. It is clear and present. It is that one of the US’s two governing parties is poised to approve the notion that democracy can be overturned by force. By acquitting Trump, the Republicans will declare themselves no longer bound by the constitution or the rule of law or even reality, refusing to break from the lie that their party won an election that it lost. This poison is not confined to the extremities of the US body politic. It is now in its blood and in its heart.
      Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist More

    • 138 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Trump impeachment trial day three: Democrats rest their case – video highlights

      by

      House impeachment managers concluded their case against Donald Trump on Thursday by saying that the deadly Capitol assault he stands accused of inciting was the culmination of a presidency beset by lies and violent rhetoric. They also said he would remain a threat to US democracy if not convicted and barred from holding future office
      Democrats rest case with warning that Trump remains a threat More

    • 138 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Josh Hawley's schooldays: ‘He made popcorn to watch the Iraq invasion’

      by

      Before Josh Hawley became known as a leader of the attempt to overturn the 2020 election in the US Congress, he was remembered by former students and staff at St Paul’s, the elite British school for boys where he spent a year teaching, as an aloof, rightwing political obsessive who had made himself popcorn to watch the US invasion of Iraq.The Republican senator from Missouri has been the target of ire of millions of Americans after he became the first senator to say he would object to election results. Ultimately, 146 congressional Republicans joined the rightwing lawmaker in seeking to block votes from Pennsylvania and Arizona from being counted, an extraordinary move that was seen as stoking the flames of a pro-Trump mob who attacked the US Capitol.Before the assault, Hawley was photographed walking past the crowd and raising his fist in salute to them.While Hawley has painted himself as a man of the “American heartland”, and has expressed contempt for what he says is the US’s liberal “elite”, the graduate of Stanford and Yale Law School, who once clerked for the supreme court chief justice, John Roberts, spent a year in suburban London in 2002, at the top all-boys private school St Paul’s that dates back to 1509.An examination of Hawley’s time there by the London-based magazine the Fence, found Hawley was not the first choice to serve as a “Colet fellow” at the prestigious private school, a role reserved for Ivy League graduates.But Hawley persuaded the interview board with what some called his intellectual rigor and drive.Hawley taught A-Level politics jointly with Rob Jones, a leftwing former policeman who was described fondly when he left in the school magazine as “able to create a fearsome reputation, but is also worshipped by his students. There cannot be many who have their own Facebook appreciation society.”The teaching style of the pair, former pupils said, was combative, with it apparent that Jones was on the left and Hawley on the right. “Rob had him take some lessons, he would sit with the boys and throw grenades every so often,” said one.Jack, a former student who is himself now a teacher, explained further: “Jones and Hawley would sit on opposite sides of the classroom. We’d get these photocopies of, you know, excerpts from Nietzsche or Marx or John Locke, for ideologies, given them in advance and told to highlight them. Then it was a debate, a discussion, about what conservatives think about society, is nationalism inherently aggressive, and so on and so on.“Fairly quickly it was known … you know, Hawley, he’s the conservative one, he’s the rightwing guy. But then, as I say, he didn’t hide it in discussions. He was forthright about defending his views even at that stage.”The ex-pupil added that Hawley was clearly highly intelligent. “I’m sad to see some of the things he’s saying now, the people he’s aligning with, and the simplistic, glib phrases he’s coming out with, but he’s a serious thinker and he was seriously impressive even back then. And everyone could see it. I think that’s why Jones was happy for him to take such a big load of the teaching, as it was very apparent that this was a very impressive young person,” he said.Hawley, who left comments on pupil’s essays in green ink, “could be quite tough at some points”, according to Jack.“It was a great incentive to work hard and try and do better and see, gosh, would I be capable of writing an essay that wouldn’t be scrawled all over or, you know, would at least get some positive feedback. So, yeah, that was really the first time at St Paul’s where I really loved the education. And I did very well in A-Level politics because I was so, what’s the word – these lessons were exhilarating. And that inspired me to keep going with politics, and he had a lot to do with that,” Jack said.But not all of Hawley’s former pupils were as kind. “He ran my Oxbridge preparation classes. He’s useless, I didn’t get in,” remarked one graduate of Durham University.The reading material set by the young American teacher spoke to his Christian faith, with the devout Hawley setting Paul’s letter to the Romans as Oxbridge reading. In politics, Hawley also went beyond the syllabus to teach John Rawls, Michael Sandel, John Locke, Thomas Paine and other classic works of studying American democracy.More than anything, the prevailing impression left by Hawley on one pupil seems to be that of a politics wonk. “He was really, really into American political logistics. It was around the time of the 2004 election, or run-up to it, and he had his postal voting pack with him and was so proud and protective of it,” he said.Such was his tidiness – or “creepily American” appearance – that the best nickname his pupils could devise was “The All-American Hero”.“He looked like somebody who’s going to be president. If you imagined what a 22-year-old would look like before they became president, he was the figure. Can’t typecast better than that,” added one former charge.But what did his colleagues make of him? In a now-deleted tweet, Mike Sacks, a former Colet fellow who arrived two years after Hawley, said that a teacher asked him: “You’re not a fascist like that Joshua Hawley, are you?”Another described him as “too rightwing and Christian for my sensibilities”, but it seems Hawley did little to help himself in becoming friendly with the staff.“He made a point to keep himself aloof. My take on that is that he had an attitude that he was better, and that the sort of mingling and socializing was just below him, and not something he’d engage in. There were lots of opportunities to spend time together, either in the staff room or at drinks down at the pub – and he doesn’t drink, or he didn’t drink, let me put it that way. He’d never once go to the pub. Not once,” the ex-colleague said.Another former teacher, who says Hawley took an instant dislike to him, recalls an unfriendly Sunday morning encounter with Hawley at a bus stop, where he stayed wordless for 20 minutes as Hawley clutched a huge Bible full of colored ribbons to mark bits of scripture, off to an evangelical gathering.With few social appearances, staff actually remember little of Hawley, though one remembered incident seems striking.“The only anecdote I remember about him in the staff room is he made himself popcorn to watch the news coverage of the Iraq invasion. You know, shock and awe. […] Holding forth about how this is a good military move, and it’s a show of American strength. He was very hawkish,” a teacher recalled.“The common room is, I think, a bit more liberal – he really felt they weren’t quite as aligned with some of his morals. This kind of came across as him making his mark – maybe he was hamming it up a bit to make his point. But it’s not like popcorn was usual in the staff room. We are, after all, in London – we have tea and coffee, not exactly popcorn. He was quite excited about that kind of military endeavor. That was a funny, bizarre kind of moment,” the teacher added.Hawley’s connections to St Paul’s persisted after he left, attending a dinner celebrating the school’s 500th anniversary on 4 April 2009 at the Library of Congress in Washington DC and posing for a photograph with other former Colet fellows and the then High master, Dr Martin Stephen.But the events of attack on the Capitol on 6 January have changed St Paul’s attitude to their former employee.A spokesperson for the school said: “Like people the world over St Paul’s has been shocked by the scenes taking place in America and those resisting the delivery of the legitimate election process. Our records show Josh Hawley came over from the United States for 10 months as a postgraduate intern 18 years ago. We are relieved that democratic process is now prevailing in the US Capitol.” More

    • 163 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      'Accomplice' senators who amplified Trump's lies now get a say in his fate

      by

      Sign up for the Guardian’s First Thing newsletterA desk in the US Senate was notably empty for chunks of Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial on Wednesday.Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, was instead lounging in the upstairs public gallery with a pile of documents. He explained to CNN: “I’m sitting up there A, because it’s a little less claustrophobic than on the floor, but B, I’ve also got a straight shot,” – a reference to his seating location that also conjured an unfortunate image.But some critics would suggest that Hawley’s rightful place is in the dock, along with his colleague Ted Cruz of Texas and others who unabashedly endorsed Trump’s assault on democracy.This week’s trial necessarily has a narrow focus on the ex-president but that means little scrutiny of Hawley, who was photographed saluting Trump supporters with a raised fist hours before the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January.The Kansas City Star newspaper in his home state wrote in an editorial: “No one other than President Donald Trump himself is more responsible for Wednesday’s coup attempt at the US Capitol than one Joshua David Hawley, the 41-year-old junior senator from Missouri, who put out a fundraising appeal while the siege was under way.”Undeterred by the deadly violence, Hawley and Cruz were prominent among eight senators and 139 representatives who objected to certifying Joe Biden’s electoral college win. Both faced calls to resign. Yet now they get a say in whether Trump should be held accountable for his actions.Hillary Clinton, a former secretary of state and first lady, tweeted on Thursday: “If Senate Republicans fail to convict Donald Trump, it won’t be because the facts were with him or his lawyers mounted a competent defense. It will be because the jury includes his co-conspirators.”In detailing how Trump’s tweets and rally speeches fuelled false claims of election fraud and spurred supporters to “fight like hell”, the House impeachment managers have been careful not to dwell on how Hawley, Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Ron Johnson and Rand Paul were among the senators who enabled and amplified those same incendiary lies.It is a pragmatic choice by prosecutors who need some 17 Republican senators to join all 50 Democrats to secure the two-thirds majority required for Trump’s conviction – still something of a mission impossible.Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman from Illinois, said: “It’s one of the great ironies of this trial, and one of the reasons why the Senate Republicans will not convict Trump, that most of these Senate Republicans have been Trump’s accomplices. If they convicted Trump, they would have to convict themselves.”To an outside spectator, the stripped-of-context prosecution case might imply that Trump was imbued with superpowers that enabled him to singlehandedly summon, assemble and incite the mob when, in reality, he was lifted by an ecosystem of Republican politicians, conservative media personalities, social media platforms and far-right extremists.Walsh added: “Donald Trump is on trial. He’s the one who originated the big lie, the stolen election lie, but why the hell isn’t [Fox News host] Sean Hannity on trial? Why isn’t Ted Cruz on trial? Why isn’t [congressman] Kevin McCarthy, [congressman] Jim Jordan, [radio host] Rush Limbaugh? I mean, anybody over the last eight months in any position of power or influence who spread the big lie is every bit as culpable as Donald Trump.”For their part, Hawley and Cruz will not necessarily escape scot-free. Both men are facing an investigation from the Senate ethics committee over their conduct before the siege and leadership of the Senate challenge to the electoral college vote. Bob Casey, a Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, told CNN that the pair should face censure as a “bare minimum”.Other Republicans could still face a backlash from donors and voters for their complicity. Last November Graham, a Trump loyalist, called the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, who alleges that the senator seemed to suggest he find a way to throw out ballots that had been lawfully cast; Graham denies this was his intention.The senator from South Carolina tweeted about the trial on Wednesday night: “The ‘Not Guilty’ vote is growing after today. I think most Republicans found the presentation by the House Managers offensive and absurd.”Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, refused to acknowledge Biden’s victory until it was certified by the electoral college in mid-December. He has twice voted that the impeachment trial is unconstitutional because Trump is now a private citizen but, according to media reports, continues to keep an open mind as to his final verdict. More

    • 213 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      A history of violence: Senate hears how Trump stoked Capitol assault over years | David Smith's sketch

      by

      It was “a little terrifying”, Eleanor Roosevelt told the Associated Press about her husband Franklin’s inauguration as US president in 1933. “The crowds were so tremendous. And you felt that they would do anything – if only someone would tell them what to do.”The ability of leaders to turns crowds into mobs and bend them to their will has been a constant in history and was a focus of the third day of former US president Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate on Thursday.Video clips showed how the mob on 6 January built an unstoppable momentum, with Trump supporters feeding off each other’s energy and feeling emboldened to act in ways as a collective that many might have hesitated to do as individuals.Their allegiance to Trump carried echoes of cultists, religious fanatics or 1980s English football hooligans – blind devotion to one man or tribe unleashing irrational passions and the belief that anything is permitted.What the trial could not dwell on was the complex psychological, sociological and cultural threads of why these people came to be seduced by a demagogue so that they were ready to “fight for Trump”, brand the police “traitors” and desecrate a temple of US democracy.Nor could it investigate America’s historical fascination with violence, from the massacres of Native Americans to the slavery of Africans, from school shootings to the death penalty, from foreign wars to the assassinations of four US presidents.And the House impeachment managers said little about the complicity of rightwing media, social media platforms or Republican politicians, some of whom were sitting in the Senate chamber itself.Their focus is not on the collaborators but Trump himself and how he spent years fueling a climate of violence, sowing distrust in election integrity and manipulating the emotions of Americans who were then willing to walk on hot coals on his behalf.“January 6 was not some unexpected radical break from his normal law-abiding and peaceful disposition,” said lead manager Jamie Raskin. “This was his essential MO. He knew that egged on by his tweets, his lies and his promise of a ‘wild’ time in Washington to guarantee his grip on power, his most extreme followers would show up bright and early, ready to attack, ready to engage in violence, ready to ‘fight like hell’ for their hero.”Screams resounded in the ornate Senate chamber as the trial again considered audio and video evidence from the assault on the Capitol as well as clinical documents. In an indictment, one invader said: “DC. Trump wants all able-bodied Patriots to come.” In a criminal complaint, Bruno Cua was quoted as saying: “President Trump is calling us to FIGHT!” and “This isn’t a joke.”Samuel Fisher, arrested in connection with the siege, wrote on his website: “Trump just needs to fire the bat signal … deputize patriots … and then the pain comes.”There was a video in which one rioter said to another as they entered a congressional office: “He’ll be happy – what do you mean, we’re fighting for Trump.” Social media footage caught people shouting: “We were invited here!”And after the insurrection, estate agent Jenna Ryan told CBS News: “I thought I was following my president. I thought I was following what we were called to do.” Another told the New York Times: “We wait and take orders from our president.”Congresswoman Diana DeGette told the Senate: “Their own statements before, during and after the attack make clear the attack was done for Donald Trump at his instructions and to fulfill his wishes.“They truly believed that the whole intrusion was at the president’s orders. This was not a hidden crime. The president told them to be there, so they actually believed they would face no punishment.”The mob repeated language they heard from Trump such as “fight like hell” and “stop the steal”, DeGette added. “They came because he told them to. And they did stop our proceedings – temporarily – because he told them to.”But after the riot, she continued, Jacob Chansley, who infamously wore furs and a horned headdress in the Capitol building, expressed regret and said he felt “duped” by Trump – a hint of awakening to his otherwise extraordinary power of mind control.The prosecutors went on to put the riot in the context of Trump’s repeated comments condoning and glorifying violence and praising “both sides” after the 2017 outbreak at the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.Raskin said: “There’s a pattern staring us in the face. When Donald Trump tells the crowd as he did on January 6 to fight like hell or you won’t have a country any more, he meant for them to fight like hell.”Earlier this week, Trump’s bumbling defense lawyers argued that the real motivation of the trial is stop him running for president again. The Democratic House impeachment managers have been careful to mostly avoid this topic lest it make the charge of partisanship too easy.But Raskin went there on Thursday, asking senators whether they honestly believe Trump would not incite more violence if he occupied the White House again. “Would you bet the lives of more police officers on that?” he demanded. “Would you bet the safety of your family on that? Would you bet the future of your democracy on that?“If he gets back into office and it happens again, we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves.” More