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House impeachment managers warned that more political violence could occur if Trump is not held accountable. Representative Diana DeGette argued the vote to impeach would make sure this would never happen again.
The managers rested their case on the third day of the trial after presenting arguments for convicting Donald Trump.
US politics: latest updates More
Sign up for the Guardian’s First Thing newsletterThe insurrectionists who attacked the US Capitol on 6 January believed they were acting on instructions from Donald Trump, House Democrats said on Thursday as they launched the final stretch of their arguments to convict Trump during his impeachment trial.Diana DeGette, a Democratic congresswoman from Colorado, played several video clips and pointed to legal documents in which the attackers said they were following Trump’s wishes. In one clip, protesters screamed at police that they had been invited to the Capitol by Trump“They didn’t shy away from their crimes, because they thought they were following orders from the commander-in-chief. And so they would not be punished,” she said. “They came because he told them to.”Congressman Jamie Raskin, the lead impeachment manager, walked senators through several instances in which Trump had encouraged and sanctioned violence by his supporters.Those examples included Trump’s repeated attacks on the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, last year.After Trump’s repeated attacks, his supporters, some heavily armed, invaded the Michigan state capitol in Lansing last April, which Raskin said was a “dress rehearsal” for what was to come on 6 January in Washington.Trump did not condemn the attack, Raskin noted, leading supporters to again storm the state capitol two weeks later. The dangerous consequences of Trump’s rhetoric would become clearest in October, the congressman alleged, when 13 men were charged in connection with a plot to kidnap Whitmer.“These tactics were road-tested,” Raskin said. “January 6 was a culmination of the president’s actions, not an aberration from them.”The argument rebuts the point, advanced by Trump’s lawyers in their impeachment briefs, that Trump’s speech during a rally near the White House on 6 January is protected by the first amendment to the US constitution, governing free speech, and that he does not bear responsibility for what the rioters chose to do afterwards.House Democrats were expected to focus on Donald Trump’s “lack of remorse” and the lasting damage of the 6 January attack on the US Capitol as they conclude their case for convicting Trump in the ongoing impeachment trial.The impeachment managers – House Democrats essentially serving as prosecutors – will continue to focus on Trump’s role in the attack as well as the deep toll and harm from it, according to senior aides.Their presentation on Thursday follows a day when Democrats repeatedly showed harrowing video of the 6 January attack, some of it never publicly seen before.The disturbing security camera footage and other video clips came as they laid out a meticulous case for how Trump deliberately fomented the violence on 6 January and then, once it began, abdicated his constitutional duty to protect the United States.The footage shown in the session in the Senate on Wednesday included a revelation that the Utah Republican senator Mitt Romney was extremely close to the mob overrunning the Capitol until he was tapped on the shoulder by the Capitol police officer Eugene Goodman and told to turn around.Other footage showed Daniel Hodges, another officer, yelling as he was crushed in a doorway – an image that visibly upset some of the senators watching the proceeding.Tommy Tuberville, a Republican senator from Alabama, also revealed on Wednesday that he had told Trump that his vice-president, Mike Pence, had been evacuated from the Senate chamber as the attack was ongoing.The disclosure was significant because it suggested Trump was aware Pence was in danger as he attacked him on Twitter on 6 January for not overturning the electoral college vote.The disclosure also supports the narrative from House impeachment managers that Trump violated his presidential oath by not doing anything to stop an attack on the US government.The Democrats remain unlikely to succeed in getting the Senate to convict Trump and bar him from holding future office. They need to get 17 Republican senators to vote for conviction, a high bar.Still, impeachment aides projected confidence it was one they could clear.Aides who worked on Trump’s first impeachment trial said there was a notable difference on Tuesday in how the senators responded.“It’s really hard to think of a moment from the first trial where all 100 senators sat at attention and were as rapt and challenged by the evidence as we saw yesterday,” an aide said.To support their argument that they can convince Republicans to vote for conviction, aides have pointed to the Louisiana senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican who voted on Tuesday to proceed with the trial after voting not to do so last month.Other Republicans show no signs of budging. The South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of Trump, called the Wednesday presentation “offensive and absurd”. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida said earlier this week there was nothing the impeachment managers could say to convince him the trial was constitutional.Once the impeachment managers wrap up their case, Trump’s lawyers will have a chance to begin their defense of the former president in full.That defense, likely to begin on Friday, did not get off to the strongest start on Tuesday when Bruce Castor, one of Trump’s attorneys, gave a meandering opening argument. Trump was reportedly furious with the presentation, although Castor has said the president was pleased.Trump’s team will have 16 hours to make their case, over two days, though they are not expected to use all of that time.It remains unclear whether witnesses will be called. If that is not the case the trial could end as soon as Sunday. More
Police bodycam footage showing officers under attack at the US Capitol attack has been released during the second impeachment trial for Donald Trump. Democrat congressman Eric Swalell played footage captured from the officer’s perspective showing the crowd attacking police with whatever items were at hand, including crutches and a Trump flag. Swalell also revealed vision showing the evacuation of representatives including Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer being ushered away by security
Trump trial shown disturbing footage of lawmakers ‘hunted’ by Capitol mob More
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
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
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
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
A divided US Senate voted to proceed with the historic second impeachment trial of Donald Trump after an emotional opening day in which the prosecution argued that the former president was singularly responsible for inciting the deadly assault on the US Capitol while the defense warned that the proceedings would further cleave a divided nation.After nearly four hours of debate in the same chamber that was invaded by pro-Trump rioters on 6 January, the senators, now seated as jurors and sworn to deliver “impartial justice”, voted 56 to 44 on the question of whether there was a constitutional basis for putting an impeached former president on trial. Six Republicans joined all Democrats in an early victory for the prosecution that undermined one of the central pillars of Trump’s defense.Trump is the first president to face an impeachment trial after leaving office, and the only president in American history to be impeached twice. But the assault on the Capitol, an event that one House impeachment manager called the “the framers’ worst nightmare come to life”, shook the nation and the world as loyalists to the former president stormed the seat of the American government in an effort to prevent Congress from formalizing Joe Biden’s victory. Though they ultimately failed, the domestic attack left five people dead and America’s commitment to a peaceful transfer of power tarnished.Republicans’ near-uniform opposition to holding a trial strongly suggested that there were not enough votes in the chamber to convict the de-platformed, one-term president even after he brazenly sought to overturn his election defeat with baseless claims of a stolen election. At least 17 Republicans would have to join all Democrats to find Trump guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors. A conviction would allow the Senate to disqualify him from ever again holding office.Last month, only five Republicans joined Democrats to defeat an attempt to dismiss the impeachment charge as unconstitutional. Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican of Louisiana, was the only member to switch his vote, leaving open the possibility that some lawmakers could yet change their minds.Republicans have largely coalesced around the argument that the Senate did not have the authority to hold the trial because impeachment was intended to lead to a president’s removal from office, a position that has allowed them to avoid weighing in on whether Trump’s conduct amounted to an impeachable offense. But that view has been challenged by constitutional scholars, including the leading conservative lawyer Charles Cooper, who argued that the claims were unfounded.Citing these scholars, writings by the nation’s framers and historical precedents, the House impeachment managers warned that allowing Trump to escape punishment would establish a “January exception” for presidents to betray their oaths of office.House Democrats opened the trial with a chilling and dramatic video of the Capitol siege that threatened the lives of the former vice-president, Mike Pence, members of Congress, and everyone working in the building that day. The video pulled from the extensive visual recordings from rioters, reporters and witnesses to create a reel juxtaposing the president’s incendiary speech to supporters at a rally near the White House with scenes of mayhem and violence on Capitol Hill. There, Trump encouraged his supporters to “fight like hell” and march to the Capitol to make their voices heard before lawmakers certified Biden’s victory.[embedded content]The cries and chants from the video echoed through the chamber, where just over a month ago rioters sat in the dais and swung from the balcony. It concluded with a tweet from Trump, sent only moments after the building was secured on 6 January: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”“You ask what a high crime and misdemeanor is under our constitution? That’s a high crime and misdemeanor,” the congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the leader of the House Democrats prosecuting the case, told the silent chamber, after playing the video. “If that’s not an impeachable offense, then there is no such thing.”In their rebuttal, Trump’s defense team argued that the impeachment trial was not only unconstitutional but would “open up new and bigger wounds across the nation”.Accusing Democrats of abuse of power, Trump’s lawyer David Schoen said the party was fueled by their “hatred” of Trump and their determination to see him impeached. He played a video compilation of Democratic politicians calling for Trump’s impeachment as early as 2017.“This trial will tear this country apart, perhaps like we have only seen once before in American history,” he said, warning: “If these proceedings go forward, everyone will look bad.”In a meandering defense that reportedly left Trump enraged, his lead lawyer Bruce Castor denounced the Capitol assault as “repugnant”, praised the senators as “patriots” and concluded by suggesting that if the former president had committed a crime, the punishment should be criminal prosecution, not impeachment.“There is no opportunity where the president of the United States can run rampant in January at the end of his term and just go away scot free,” Castor said. “The Department of Justice does know what to do with such people.”The trial will resume on Wednesday with the substantive arguments over the sole charge of “incitement of insurrection”. Each side has 16 hours to present its case, and the trial is expected to stretch into the holiday weekend. Prosecutors have promised to present new evidence to prove that Trump was “singularly and directly responsible” for the Capitol attack.Trump’s lawyers have argued that the president’s claims of voter fraud and his fiery rhetoric to the crowd on 6 January were not only protected under the first amendment, but similar to language used by Democrats to rally their own supporters. In pre-trial briefings, they emphasized his instruction that the crowd march “peacefully” to the Capitol.Trump, who left Washington for his Mar-a-Lago resort on the day of Biden’s inauguration, has refused a request by Democrats to testify voluntarily at his trial. It appears unlikely that the House managers will call witnesses, appealing instead to the collective memories of the senators who lived through harrowing afternoon.[embedded content]Concluding the Democrats’ argument for the day, Raskin offered an emotional and deeply personal account of his experience that day. Still grieving the loss of his son, who had died by suicide just days before, the former constitutional law professor brought his family to work with him, eager for them to witness “this historic event – the peaceful transfer of power in America”.When the riot erupted, they were separated. His daughter and son-in-law hid in an office, fearing for their lives, Raskin recalled, his voice quivering. When it was all over and they were reunited, his daughter said she never wanted to return to the Capitol, a place known as the People’s House.“Senators, this cannot be our future,” he said through tears. “This cannot be the future of America.” More
