Trump impeachment (2021)

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      in Elections

      Impeachment video shows Mike Pence and Mitt Romney fleeing Capitol attack – video

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      New video shown during the second impeachment trial for Donald Trump has revealed Capitol police officer Eugene Goodman leading Senator Mitt Romney away from the rioters as well as the evacuation of former vice-president Mike Pence. Representative Stacey Plaskett presented the previously unreleased security footage from the 6 January Capitol breach documenting Romney’s close call as well as Pence and his family’s escape as rioters chanted ‘hang Mike Pence’
      Trump trial shown disturbing footage of lawmakers ‘hunted’ by Capitol mob
      New footage of Capitol riot shows Eugene Goodman rushing to save Mitt Romney – Trump impeachment live More

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      in US Politics

      Damned by his own words: Democrats follow Trump's wide-open multimedia trail | David Smith's sketch

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      As US president, Donald Trump seemed be talking and tweeting 24 hours a day. That has thrown his near total absence from public life over the past three weeks into sharp relief. The Silence of the Tweets.It also means that when clips of Trump’s rally speeches filled the Senate chamber on day two of his impeachment trial on Wednesday, his voice was jarring and jangling in the ear, like a blowhard from a cruder, coarser time.His speeches, tweets and phone calls were replayed incessantly as the House impeachment managers put their case against him. Seldom has an accused been so damned by their own words. In his fiery claims of a stolen election, his exhortations to “fight like hell” and his failure to denounce hate groups such as the Proud Boys, Trump proved the star witness in his own prosecution.The spectacular irony was that a man who thrived on grabbing attention on TV and social media had left a trail of digital clues that ought to lead all the way to conviction. It was the 21st-century equivalent of a Victorian diary in which the master criminal brags about how he did it.“Trump’s worst problem?” tweeted David Axelrod, former chief campaign strategist for Barack Obama. “Videotape.”It helped Jamie Raskin and his fellow House impeachment managers build a case that this incitement did not begin on 6 January, the day of the insurrection at the US Capitol, but over months of spinning election lies and cheering on political violence.Wearing grey suit, white shirt, deep blue tie, and wielding a blue pen in his right hand, Raskin told the Senate: “He revelled in it and he did nothing to help us as commander-in-chief. Instead he served as the inciter-in-chief, sending tweets that only further incited the rampaging mob. He made statements lauding and sympathising with the insurrectionists.”Congressman Joe Neguse displayed clips of Trump addressing rallies in October where he said he could only lose the election if it was stolen. “Remember he had that no-lose scenario,” Neguse said. “He told his base that the election was stolen.” Such beliefs fueled the so-called “stop the steal” campaign.Another impeachment manager, Eric Swalwell, pored over Trump’s tweets, a goldmine for the prosecution. Among the many examples: the then president retweeted Kylie Jane Kremer, founder of a “Stop the Steal” Facebook group, who promised that “the cavalry” was coming.Swalwell told the senators, who sit at 100 wooden desks on a tiered semicircular platform, that there is “overwhelming” evidence: “President Trump’s conduct leading up to January 6 was deliberate, planned and premeditated. This was not one speech, not one tweet. It was dozens in rapid succession with the specific details. He was acting as part of the host committee.”Swalwell added: “This was never about one speech. He built this mob over many months with repeated messaging until they believed they had been robbed of their vote and they would do anything to stop the certification. He made them believe that their victory was stolen and incited them so he could use them to steal the election for himself.”The trial heard Trump pressuring Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, to overturn his election defeat in the state. Congresswoman Madeleine Dean said: “We must not become numb to this. Trump did this across state after state so often, so loudly, so publicly. All because Trump wanted to remain in power.”Her colleague Stacey Plaskett of the Virgin Islands noted an incident last October when dozens of trucks covered in Trump campaign regalia “confronted and surrounded” a Biden-Harris campaign bus traveling from San Antonio to Austin in Texas.“What that video that you just saw does not show is that the bus they tried to run off of the road was filled with young campaign staff, volunteers, supporters, surrogates, people,” she said.And as the saying goes, there’s always a tweet. Plaskett highlighted that a day later, Trump tweeted a video of the episode with the caption, “I LOVE TEXAS.”Plaskett also played a clip of Trump at a presidential debate, telling the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” when asked to condemn white supremacists. They heard him “loud and clear”, she said, and even used the slogan on their merchandise. Several members of the Proud Boys have been charged in connection with the riots.Later, Plaskett presented chilling audio and video evidence, some of it never made public before, that she said displayed the consequences of Trump’s incendiary words. Capitol police and law enforcement could be heard pleading for backup as the mob closed in. An officer could be seen running past Senator Mitt Romney and warning him to turn around, then Romney was seen breaking into a run to safety.Trump’s political career was always like a child playing with matches. On 6 January, he started a fire. And as Wednesday’s hearing demonstrated, if he ever builds a presidential library and museum, there will be no shortage of multimedia material. More

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      in US Politics

      Democrats to show new Capitol attack footage at Trump impeachment trial

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      House Democrats launched their case for convicting Donald Trump for his role in the 6 January attack on the Capitol, arguing methodically that the former US president deliberately organized and incited the assault after months of saying the 2020 election was rigged.The Democrats – called impeachment managers during the trial – used their opening argument to frame the idea that the assault was not a random act of chaos, but one planned and fomented by Trump for months. Once the attack began, they argued, Trump violated his presidential oath to protect the US constitution by not acting to stop it, instead relishing watching it unfold on television.“Trump committed a massive crime against our constitution and our people, and the worst violation of the presidential oath of office in the history of the United States of America,” said congressman Jamie Raskin, the lead impeachment manager.Congressman Joe Neguse, another impeachment manager, dissected Trump’s speech during a 6 January rally, making the case that Trump intended to rile up supporters there to attack the Capitol as electoral votes were being counted and for his supporters to block Joe Biden from officially being certified the winner of the presidential race.He noted Trump publicly invited supporters to Washington DC on that specific day and planned the rally at the exact time Congress was meeting to count electoral votes. When Trump spoke, Neguse said, he encouraged them to “fight” – language that unmistakably signaled to them to attack.“Those words were carefully chosen. They had a specific meaning to that crowd,” Neguse said. “He didn’t just tell them to fight like hell. He told them how, where and when. He made sure they had advance notice.”Democrats spliced their remarks with visceral footage of the violence that unfolded on the day. It was a continuation of the presentation strategy Democrats had launched on Tuesday and was meant to show unmistakable evidence of Trump’s responsibility for the attack.Democrats also on Wednesday planned to show never before seen security footage from the attack, according to a senior aide.Democrats pointed to months of false statements Trump made about the election being stolen leading up to 6 January. Those lies, they said, were a deliberate effort to sow distrust of the election that exploded in the attack on the Capitol. They played clips of television interviews and speeches in which Trump repeatedly refused to commit to accepting a peaceful transition of power.“He built this mob over many months with repeated messaging until they believed that they had been robbed of their vote … and incited them so he could use them to steal the election for himself,” said congressman Eric Swalwell of California, another impeachment manager.Trump was impeached while still in office by the US House of Representatives on one charge of “incitement of insurrection” for his role in the 6 January attack.Raskin also dismissed an argument raised by Trump’s attorneys that the former president’s speech at the rally was protected by the first amendment. While an ordinary citizen’s anti-government speech is protected by the first amendment, Trump had an obligation to protect the nation, Raskin argued. He compared Trump to a fire chief who sent a mob to burn down a theater and then did nothing to stop it.Democrats have so far earned praise for their arguments, even among some Republican senators who voted against proceeding with the trial. So far there have been no no such rave reviews for Trump’s legal team. Bruce Castor, a former Pennsylvania prosecutor, kicked off Trump’s defense on Tuesday with a meandering argument that was widely derided. Trump, watching on television from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, was reportedly furious with the performance.“Anyone who listened to President Trump’s legal team saw they were unfocused, they attempted to avoid the issue and they talked about everything but the issue at hand,” said Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican senator who voted with Democrats on Tuesday.Cassidy’s vote on Tuesday was significant because he previously voted last month to dismiss the trial on constitutional grounds. A Democratic aide pointed to that flip as evidence it was possible to convince Republicans to vote for impeachment.But Democrats will need to convince 17 Republican senators to join them in order to convict Trump, which seems extremely unlikely to happen.“The managers are going to go in and they are going to move the hearts, minds, and, I think, the consciences of 100 jurors, none of them have voted yet,” another senior aide said. “And we fully expect to prevail in the end.” More

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      in US Politics

      Giuliani pressured Ukraine to investigate Biden family, new transcript reveals

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      A new transcript has surfaced of the former Trump lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, putting pressure on the Ukrainian government to open an investigation into the Biden family.The transcript of a 40-minute call between Giuliani and two Ukrainian officials, was obtained by Time magazine, and served as a reminder of Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial, even as his second is under way in the Senate.The trigger for the first impeachment was a call Trump made to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in which he hinted US military aid might depend on Zelenskiy’s willingness to “do us a favour” and launch an investigation that might cloud the image of Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, who was on the board of an Ukrainian energy company.In both impeachment trials, Trump is accused of using the power of the presidency in an attempt to secure a second term. The charge against him has escalated from improper pressure on a foreign government to inciting an insurrection, but Republican senators are expected to save him from conviction this time as they did in the first trial a year ago.Giuliani’s call to the Ukrainian officials came three days before Trump’s, on 22 July 2019, to two Zelenskiy aides. One of them, Igor Novikov, sent the transcript to Time earlier this month.“Let these investigations go forward,” Giuliani told them, according to the transcript, which Time said it has verified. “Get someone to investigate this.”The former New York mayor is more restrained in his language than Trump. According to the transcript, he does not make overt threats but repeatedly warned the Ukrainians “to be careful”.“For our country’s sake and your country’s sake, we [need to] get all these facts straight,” Giuliani added. “We fix them and we put it behind us.”The Zelenskiy government resisted the pressure from the Trump administration, and the transcript was supplied to Time as Kyiv seeks to build its relationship with Biden.Novikov has said he will assist a federal investigation of Giuliani reported to be under way in New York, as well as an effort to strip Giuliani of his license to practice law.“That is because I believe Mayor Giuliani’s actions in Ukraine threatened our national security,” Novikov told Time. He left the Zelenskiy administration in August but has retained close ties. “It is our responsibility to make sure that any effort to drag our country into our allies’ domestic politics does not go unpunished.”A lawyer representing Giuliani did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday morning, and Time reported that Giuliani did not respond its own questions about the transcript.Last week, President Zelenskiy shut down three Ukrainian media networks he accused of spreading Russian propaganda, and which had played a role in the spreading of groundless allegations about the Bidens during the US presidential campaign.“The past is the past,” President Zelenskiy told Time. “I care deeply about the future of our relationship with the United States, so I want to focus on that.” More

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      in US Politics

      Donald Trump 'quietly watching' impeachment trial on TV

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      As the historic second impeachment trial of Donald Trump got under way on Tuesday afternoon, the subject at the center of the case was more than a thousand miles away, muzzled by a social media ban and reduced to watching events unfold on TV.Trump, who is charged with “incitement of insurrection” after his supporters stormed the US Capitol on 6 January, has spent the past three weeks holed up at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, with his schedule seemingly restricted to playing multiple rounds of golf. The one-term president has been at his resort, close to the golf club, since he left Washington DC at 8am on the day of Joe Biden’s inauguration.On Tuesday, however, Trump shunned the golf course, according to a report from the conservative Washington Examiner newspaper, and was instead “quietly watching” TV coverage of his trial.Trump, who is the only US president to have been impeached twice, plans to spend the entire week glued to the screen, Politico reported, as he waits to hear his fate. Trump, who was known to spend hours watching TV even while in office, will at least have the benefit of experience ahead of what promises to be a lengthy viewing schedule. The trial is expected to last several days and continue through Saturday and Sunday.A notable difference from Trump’s first impeachment trial will be the expected silence from the accused. During his first impeachment trial Trump kept up a running commentary on Twitter, at one point posting 142 tweets in a single day as prosecutors laid out their case against him. Americans will be deprived of Trump’s analysis this time round, after he was banned from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube following the Capitol assault.It is not known which channel’s impeachment coverage Trump is consuming. The president benefited from a ruler-disciple relationship with Fox News as he ran for, then occupied, the White House, but soured on the rightwing network in late 2020. Fox News has been at pains in recent weeks to win back the most ardent of Trump’s supporters, however, indulging in the kind of election fraud conspiracy theories that Trump might enjoy.Trump faces a charge of “incitement of insurrection” for his alleged role in the January riot, in which five people died after his supporters stormed the Capitol building. On Tuesday Chuck Schumer, the Democratic senator from New York, said the impeachment trial represented “the gravest charges ever brought against a president of the United States in American history”.As Democrats spent recent weeks preparing for the trial, Trump has reportedly spent most of his time golfing at the Trump International golf club, where he also watched the NFL Super Bowl on Sunday night. According to the Examiner, Trump looked “relaxed and refreshed” as he watched the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeat the Kansas City Chiefs.Trump’s stay at Mar-a-Lago is under threat, however, with the Palm Beach town council, where the resort is located, discussing whether Trump should be allowed to live there full-time following complaints from neighbors.When Trump developed Mar-a-Lago from a residence to a private club he agreed with Palm Beach that members should not be allowed to live at the location, but he may escape eviction on a technicality – given he is an employee of the organization that owns the club.If Palm Beach finds that Trump cannot make the club his residence, the former Apprentice host would be scrambling to find a home, given his apparent reluctance to move back to New York City, where he is not popular.Trump lived in Trump Tower, close to Central Park, until he moved into the White House, but the building has become a hub for protests against the former president in recent years – including a rally on 7 January in response to the Capitol insurrection. More

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      in US Politics

      Key moments as Senate votes in favour of Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial – video

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      After nearly four hours of debate, a divided US Senate voted 56 to 44 to proceed with the historic second impeachment trial of Donald Trump. House Democrats opened the trial with a chilling and dramatic video of the Capitol siege. The House impeachment managers warned that allowing Trump to escape punishment would establish a ‘January exception’ for presidents to betray their oaths of office. In their rebuttal, Trump’s defence team argued that the trial was not only unconstitutional but would ‘open up new and bigger wounds across the nation’ and was based on the Democrats not wanting ‘to face Donald Trump as a political rival in the future’
      Trump impeachment: Senate votes to proceed with trial
      ‘He just rambled’: Republicans unimpressed by Trump’s impeachment lawyers More

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      'He just rambled': Republicans unimpressed by Trump's impeachment lawyers

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      The performance of Donald Trump’s legal team on the first day of his second impeachment trial has drawn sharp criticism from Republican senators and other onlookers, many of whom appeared unimpressed by the at times rambling and incoherent opening statements.Two members of the former president’s legal team, Bruce Castor and David Schoen, sought on Tuesday to persuade the Senate to dismiss the trial on constitutional grounds. Castor’s performance in particular drew criticism as waffling and lacking in focus.Several Republican senators said they didn’t understand the lawyers’ arguments. The Louisiana senator Bill Cassidy, who voted with Democrats to move forward with the trial, said Trump’s team did a “terrible job” and was “disorganized”, “random” and “did everything they could but to talk about the question at hand”.Cassidy was not the only Republican who was displeased with Trump’s defense team.Susan Collins, a Republican senator of Maine, said she was “perplexed” by Castor, who is Trump’s lead lawyer, saying he “did not seem to make any arguments at all, which was an unusual approach to take”.“The president’s lawyer just rambled on and on,” said Senator John Cornyn, a Republican of Texas. “I’ve seen a lot of lawyers and a lot of arguments, and that was not one of the finest I’ve seen.”The Texas senator Ted Cruz, one of Trump’s staunchest allies, said he didn’t think the lawyers did “the most effective job”, while praising the Maryland representative Jamie Raskin, who is acting as the Democrats’ lead prosecutor, as “impressive”.Cornyn and Cruz both still voted to dismiss the trial, along with 42 other Republican senators. Six Republicans, including Cassidy and Collins, voted with Democrats to advance the trial.Trump himself was also reportedly unhappy with his lawyers’ showing. Politico reported that sources close to the former president say he grew “increasingly frustrated” as he watched the day unfold. Other outlets, including CBS and CNN, also reported the president was disappointed, according to sources.Per @MajorCBS, “Two sources familiar with the former president’s reaction to today’s Senate proceedings described Trump as angry about his lawyers’ lackluster performances. One source said the President “didn’t sound pleased” on phone calls with close associates.— Doug Sovern (@SovernNation) February 9, 2021
      Multiple people tell me Trump was basically screaming as Castor made a meandering opening argument that struggled to get at the heart of the defense team’s argument.— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) February 9, 2021
      The trial’s opening day saw Raskin deliver an emotional speech that recounted his personal experience of the Capitol attack, describing how his daughter and son-in-law were in an office in the Capitol and hid under a desk, where they sent what they thought were their final texts. Through tears, Raskin said: “This cannot be the future of America.”[embedded content]Castor opened his meandering presentation by praising senators as “patriots” and mentioning that he still gets lost in the Capitol. The speech included such cryptic lines as “Nebraska, you’re going to hear, is quite a judicial thinking place”. He spoke for 20 minutes before addressing the 6 January insurrection and failed to directly address the president’s actions that day or argue against the constitutionality of the impeachment trial.Castor concluded his opening comments by bizarrely daring the justice department to arrest Trump if the allegations at the heart of the impeachment trial were true.“A high crime is a felony, and a misdemeanor is a misdemeanor,” Castor said. “After he’s out of office, you go and arrest him … The Department of Justice does know what to do with such people. And so far, I haven’t seen any activity in that direction.”The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman said a Trump adviser had defended the performance as a “deliberative strategy” meant to distract from Raskin’s emotional presentation – though critics pointed out that a master strategist wouldn’t need to put out a background statement explaining their strategy.It was a performance that left many observers befuddled, with some reporters comparing the lawyer to a college student who did not do the reading before class, joking that Castor would be fired by tweet if Trump still had access to his Twitter account.I have been in this government class before, where someone hasn’t done the reading, napped through the first half of class, gets called on and just riffs for 15 minutes.— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) February 9, 2021
      If Trump still had his Twitter account, he may Tweet-fire this lawyer on the spot.— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) February 9, 2021
      Alan Dershowitz, who served as a member of Donald Trump’s defense team during his first impeachment trial, seemed less than impressed with Castor’s rambling presentation.“There is no argument. I have no idea what he is doing,” Dershowitz told the conservative outlet Newsmax. “I have no idea why he’s saying what he’s saying.”The Associated Press contributed reporting More