WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats opened their first day of arguments in former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial Wednesday with searing footage of the U.S. Capitol riot as they painted Trump as an “inciter in chief” who systematically riled up his supporters and falsely convinced them the election had been stolen, culminating in the deadly attack.
“He assembled, inflamed and incited his followers to descend upon the Capitol,” said the lead impeachment manager, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md.
As she presented harrowing footage of the siege, Del. Stacey Plaskett, a Democrat representing the U.S. Virgin Islands and one of the prosecutors, said Trump had “put a target” on the backs of then-Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who were leading the certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory. “His mob broke into the Capitol to hunt them down,” Plaskett said.
Highlights from the first full day of arguments:
TRUMP’S WORDS COME BACK TO HAUNT HIM
Trump’s voice rang out in the Senate Chamber as Democrats aired video from his rallies and other remarks to supporters. Interspersed throughout were slides of Trump’s tweets contesting the election and promoting the Jan. 6 rally in Washington, which he promised would be “wild.”
The impeachment managers put Trump’s rhetoric on trial, from the months he spent laying the groundwork to contest the election results to the speech he delivered outside the White House egging his supporters to “fight” before they stormed the Capitol.
“He truly made his base believe that the only way he could lose was if the election were rigged,” said Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, another one of the prosecutors.
Trump, the House impeachment managers argued, whipped his supporters into a frenzy with the “big lie” that their votes had been stolen, and urged them to fight.
“This attack never would have happened but for Donald Trump,” said Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., choking back emotion. “And so they came, draped in Trump’s flag, and used our flag, the American flag, to batter and to bludgeon.”
There was no widespread fraud in the election, as has been confirmed by election officials across the country and former Attorney General William Barr. Dozens of legal challenges to the election put forth by Trump and his allies were dismissed.
NEW SURVEILLANCE FOOTAGE
To reconstruct the siege for senators, Democrats aired never-before-seen security footage from inside the Capitol that showed the attack unfolding. Their presentation included chilling video of the rioters rampaging into the building and audio of distressed police officers who tried in vain to keep them out. “We have been flanked and we’ve lost the line,” one frantic officer could be heard saying.
The presentation also showed the perilous moments when lawmakers and others, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Pence, were rushed to safety; body cam footage of an officer being beaten; the sounds of crunching, breaking glass; profane screams and violent threats; and cries as the rioters streamed into the building, some carrying riot shields and weapons.
“Where do they count the f—ing votes?” one member of the mob could be heard shouting. “You work for us,” one yelled at officers. “Where’s that meeting at?”
Democrats warned that many of the scenes would be hard to watch, including the horrifying screams of an officer being crushed in a doorway and video of one of the rioters, Ashli E. Babbitt, being shot to death by U.S. Capitol Police.
Also never before seen: Footage of Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman, who has already been hailed as a hero, warning Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, that the mob was headed his way. Romney turned and dashed in the other direction.
“I did not know that was Officer Goodman,” Romney told reporters after seeing it. “I look forward to thanking him when I next see him.”
Goodman also directed the mob away from the Senate Chamber and toward other officers.
PRAISE FOR PENCE
While the Democrats excoriated Trump, they lavished praise on an unlike figure: former Vice President Pence, outlining in exacting detail how his life had been put in physical danger and hailing him as a “patriot” for defying Trump’s pressure campaign to overturn the election results.
“Vice President Pence had the courage to stand against the president, tell the American public the truth and uphold our Constitution. That is patriotism,” said Plaskett, whose presentation included previously unseen footage of Pence and his family being evacuated from the Senate chamber as rioters spread through the Capitol.
Other footage showed the rioters chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” as others searching for him. At one point, Plaskett said, the rioters were within 100 feet of where Pence was sheltering with his family.
“They were talking about assassinating the vice president of the United States,” she said.
Many Republicans had been appalled by Trump’s treatment of his most loyal soldier during his final days in office. And the focus appeared to be a tacit acknowledgement of the Democrats’ intended audience as they try to convince Senate Republicans — many of whom are close with Pence — that Trump deservers to be punished for what happened.
“Mike Pence is not a traitor to this country. He’s a patriot,” said Castro. “And he and his family, who was with him that day, didn’t deserve this, didn’t deserve a president unleashing a mob on them, especially because he was just doing his job.”
TRUMP’S LAWYERS RETURN
They were merely observers as Democrats had the floor. But members of Trump’s legal team indicated they would stay the course despite a flood of criticism, both from Republican senators and the former president, about their performance during procedural arguments Tuesday.
“Not at all,” said attorney Bruce Castor when asked by reporters whether there would be any changes to their strategy. “No, I don’t anticipate any,” echoed David Schoen, another attorney.
Both Castor and Schoen said they had spoken to Trump on Tuesday, but Castor denied that the former president had expressed displeasure to him.
“Far from it,” he said, even as Schoen allowed there was room for improvement after Republican senators panned their performance as disjointed and unhelpful.
“To the extent they were critical of anything that I did, I just want to try to do a better job then,” he said.
“Bottom line is I think his team will do better, can do better,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, D-S.C., a close ally of the president, after the two had spoken. While he acknowledged there was “room for improvement,” Graham said he’d tried to tell Trump that “the case is over. It’s just a matter of getting the final verdict now. ” All but six Republican senators voted Tuesday against moving forward with the trial.
MAKING IT PERSONAL
Dean described the House Chamber descending into chaos as she stood with colleagues in the gallery above the floor and made panicked calls to her husband and sons.
“Someone shouted up to us, ‘Duck!’ then ‘Lie down!’ then ‘Ready your gas masks!” she remembered. “Shortly after there was a terrifying banging on the chamber doors. I will never forget that sound.”
Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., described the text he sent to his wife telling her to hug their young children.
“On Jan. 6,” said Castro, “President Trump left everyone in this Capitol for dead.”
Throughout the proceeding, the House managers served as personal witnesses of the horror and repeatedly invoked the word “us” as they appealed to fellow lawmakers targeted in the attack.
“He was coming for you, for Democratic and Republican senators. He was coming for all of us, just as the mob did at his direction,” said Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., after describing Trump’s rhetoric.
REPUBLICANS HOLD FIRM
There appears little chance enough Republicans will break with Democrats to convict Trump at the end of the trial. And some of them appeared indifferent to the proceedings and unmoved by the evidence Wednesday.
Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who led the Senate challenge to the election along with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, said the prosecutors’ case was “predictable” and included information that was already public.
The video evidence was “nothing new here, for me, at the end of the day,” said Hawley, who maintains the trial is unconstitutional.
Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, another close ally of Trump, predicted the remainder of the trial was “going to be pretty tedious” and said the two sides would be better served if they just made their cases “in a couple hours” and be “done with this.”
And Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who sat with his back to the screen, writing notes on a pad, walked out in the middle of Plaskett’s description of the threats against Pence.
It was a notable contrast with Democrats like Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin, who described the prosecutors’ presentation of evidence as “painful” to watch.
While it forced them to relive a traumatic moment, “it also helps to bring closure, so I think it’s something that we have to go through,” said Cardin, who described Jan. 6 as “one of the roughest days of our life.”
Trump trial video shows vast scope, danger of Capitol riot
WASHINGTON (AP) — Prosecutors unveiled chilling new security video in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial on Wednesday, showing the mob of rioters breaking into the Capitol, smashing windows and doors and searching menacingly for Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as overwhelmed police begged on their radios for help.
In the previously unreleased recordings, the House prosecutors displayed gripping scenes of how close the rioters were to the country’s leaders, roaming the halls chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” some equipped with combat gear. Outside, the mob had set up a makeshift gallows.
Videos of the siege have been circulating since the day of the riot, but the graphic compilation amounted to a more complete narrative, a moment-by-moment retelling of one of the nation’s most alarming days. In addition to the evident chaos and danger, it offered fresh details on the attackers, scenes of police heroism and cries of distress. And it showed just how close the country came to a potential breakdown in its seat of democracy as Congress was certifying Trump’s election defeat to Democrat Joe Biden.
“They did it because Donald Trump sent them on this mission,” said House prosecutor Stacey Plaskett, the Democratic delegate representing the U.S. Virgin Islands. “His mob broke into the Capitol to hunt them down.”
The stunning presentation opened the first full day of arguments in the trial as the prosecutors argued Trump was no “innocent bystander” but rather the “inciter in chief” of the deadly Capitol riot, a president who spent months spreading election lies and building a mob of supporters primed for his call to stop Biden’s victory.
Though most of the Senate jurors have already made up their minds on acquittal or conviction, they were riveted and sat silently. Screams from the audio and video filled the Senate chamber. Senators shook their heads, folded their arms and furrowed their brows. One Republican, James Lankford of Oklahoma, bent his head, a GOP colleague putting his hand on his arm in comfort.
“On Jan. 6, President Trump left everyone in this Capitol for dead,” said Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, a prosecutor.
Pence, who had been presiding over a session to certify Biden’s victory over Trump — thus earning Trump’s criticism — is shown being rushed to safety, sheltered in an office with his family just 100 feet from the rioters. Pelosi was evacuated from the complex before the mob prowls her suite of offices, her staff hiding quietly behind closed doors.
At one dramatic moment, the video shows police shooting into the crowd through a broken window, killing a San Diego woman, Ashli Babbitt. In another, a police officer is seen being crushed by the mob.
Police overwhelmed by the rioters frantically announce “we lost the line” and urge officers to safety. One officer later died.
Some senators acknowledged it was the first time they had grasped how perilously close the country came to serious danger.
“When you see all the pieces come together, just the total awareness of that, the enormity of this threat, not just to us as people, as lawmakers, but the threat to the institution and what Congress represents, it’s disturbing,” said Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. “Greatly disturbing.”
Trump is the first president to face an impeachment trial after leaving office and the first to be twice impeached. He is charged with incitement of insurrection through fiery words his defense lawyers say are protected by the Constitution’s First Amendment and just figures of speech.
The House Democrats showed piles of evidence from the former president himself — hundreds of Trump tweets and comments that culminated in his Jan. 6 rally cry to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat. Trump then did nothing to stem the violence and watched with “glee,” they said, as the mob ransacked the iconic building.
“To us, it may have felt like chaos and madness, but there was method to the madness that day,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the lead prosecutor, who pointed to Trump as the instigator.
“And when his mob overran and occupied the Senate and attacked the House and assaulted law enforcement, he watched it on TV like a reality show. He reveled in it.”
In one scene, a Capitol Police officer redirects Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, down a hallway to avoid the mob. It was the same officer, Eugene Goodman, who has been praised as a hero for having lured rioters away from the Senate doors.
“It tears at your heart and brings tears to your eyes,” Romney said after watching the video. He said he didn’t realize how close he had been to danger.
The day’s proceedings unfolded after Tuesday’s emotional start that left the former president fuming when his attorneys delivered a meandering defense and failed to halt the trial on constitutional grounds. Some allies called for yet another shakeup to his legal team.
The prosecutors are arguing that Trump’s words were part of “the big lie” — his relentless efforts to sow doubts about the election results, revving up his followers to “stop the steal” even though there was no evidence of substantial fraud.
Trump knew very well what would happen when he took to the microphone at the outdoor White House rally that day as Congress gathered to certify Biden’s win, said Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo, another impeachment manager.
“This was not just a speech,” he said.
Security remained extremely tight Wednesday at the Capitol, fenced off and patrolled by National Guard troops.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki has said Biden would not be watching the trial.
The difficulty facing Trump’s defenders became apparent at the start as they leaned on the process of the trial rather than the substance of the case against him. They said the Constitution doesn’t allow impeachment at this late date, after he has left the White House.
Even though the Senate rejected that argument in Tuesday’s vote to proceed, the legal issue could resonate with Republicans eager to acquit Trump without being seen as condoning his behavior.
Defense lawyer Bruce Castor encouraged senators on Tuesday to be “cool headed” as they assessed the arguments.
A frustrated Trump revived his demands for his lawyers to focus on his unsupported claims of voter fraud, repeatedly calling former White House aide Peter Navarro, who told the AP in an interview that he agreed. He is calling on Trump to fire his legal team.
“If he doesn’t make a mid-course correction here, he’s going to lose this Super Bowl,” Navarro said, a reference to public opinion, not the unlikely possibility of conviction.
While six Republicans joined with Democrats to vote to proceed with the trial, the 56-44 vote was far from the two-thirds threshold of 67 votes that would be needed for conviction.
Minds did not seem to be changing, even after seeing the graphic video.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who was among those leading the effort to challenge the Electoral College tally, said, “The president’s rhetoric is at times overheated, but this is not a referendum on whether you agree with everything the president says or tweets.”
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., another leader of the election challenge, said, “Nothing new here for me at the end of the day.”
As the country numbs to the Trump era’s shattering of civic norms, the prosecutors sought to remind senators and the nation how extraordinary it was to have a sitting U.S. president working to discredit the election.
As far back as spring and summer, Trump was spreading false claims about the election and refusing to commit to the peaceful transfer of power once it was over, they said.
Trump’s second impeachment trial is expected to diverge from the lengthy, complicated affair of a year ago. In that case, Trump was charged with having privately pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden, then a Democratic rival for the presidency. The second trial could be over in half the time.
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Associated Press writers Kevin Freking in Washington, Nomaan Merchant in Houston and Michelle Price in Las Vegas contributed to this report.