WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump incited a deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol, put his own vice president in danger and later expressed solidarity with rioters who attempted to overturn the 2020 election in his name, Democrats argued Thursday as they wrapped up opening arguments in Trump’s impeachment trial.
Over two days of testimony, the Democrats asserted that Trump deliberately ordered his supporters to “fight like hell” and “go by very different rules” or they “wouldn’t have a country anymore.” They bolstered their case with accounts from the rioters themselves, some of whom said they were acting on Trump’s orders.
The former president’s defense team insists Trump’s speech near the White House was protected under the First Amendment. And they argue he shouldn’t be on trial in the Senate because he is no longer in office — an argument Democrats reject.
“The First Amendment does not create some superpower immunity from impeachment,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat who is leading the prosecution. “If you don’t find this a high crime and misdemeanor today, you have set a new terrible standard for presidential misconduct.”
Highlights from the trial on Thursday:
‘WE WERE INVITED HERE’
“Fight for Trump.” “Trump sent us.” “We are listening to Trump.” “We wait and take orders from our president”
Democrats focused intently on words offered by rioters to rationalize their storming of the Capitol. It was part of a broader effort to directly link the president’s call for his loyalists to “fight like hell” with the death, destruction and mayhem that followed his speech on Jan. 6.
In many cases, rioters, who sought to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory, explained that they were acting at Trump’s behest.
To underscore their point, Democrats showed videos using rioters own words. Among them was Jennifer Ryan, a Texas real estate agent who was criminally charged but insists she was just “following my president.”
One video showed a man in the Capitol during the siege, who suggested to his friends that they pick up an office phone and call Trump to say, “We love you, bro!”
Another captured a man shouting at police: “We were invited here.”
Democratic impeachment managers also noted that many left after Trump released an online video hours after the attack, urging them to go home.
“Today is ours. We won the day,” a man with a bullhorn can be heard saying in one clip. He then added that Trump wanted “everybody to go home.”
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A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
The violence at the Capitol shocked the nation. But Democratic impeachment managers said that, in hindsight, it should have been no surprise.
Ever since Trump descended a golden escalator in his New York tower to launch his presidential bid in 2016, he has openly stoked and incited his supporters to violence, they said. Then they showed an exhibit cataloging his past incendiary remarks.
When Trump supporters attacked a protester at a 2016 campaign rally, the then-candidate called it “very, very appropriate.”
Another time, he urged supporters to “knock the crap out of” a protester and promised to pay their legal fees.
In 2017, after a woman in Charlottesville, Virginia, was struck and killed by a car driven by a white supremacist during violent clashes, Trump said there were “fine people on both sides.”
And last year, after armed protesters surged into the Michigan statehouse to protest pandemic lockdown measures, he criticized Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and tweeted “LIBERATE MICHIGAN.”
“These are very good people but they are angry. They want their lives back again,” Trump said.
The FBI later broke up a plot to kidnap Whitmer by anti-government extremists upset over coronavirus restrictions she had imposed in the state.
“The siege of the Michigan statehouse was effectively a state-level dress rehearsal,” Raskin said. “It was a preview of the coming insurrection.”
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A QUICK DEFENSE
Trump attorney David Schoen said Thursday that the defense’s case should go quickly on Friday, making clear they have no intention of using the 16 hours available to them.
“There’s no reason for us to be out there a long time,” Schoen said during an appearance on Fox News before blasting Democrats for the “harm this is causing to the American people.”
Schoen told reporters that the Democrats’ video presentations during the trial were “offensive” and that they “haven’t tied it in any way to Trump.” He said he believed Democrats were effectively making the public relive the tragedy in a way that “tears at the American people” and impedes efforts at unity in the country.
Trump senior adviser Jason Miller said he expects the defense will wrap up in less than a day.
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POST RIOT RESIGNATIONS
Many Senate Republicans have indicated they will not vote to impeach Trump, a sign of cooling of emotions that had run hot just over a month ago.
As Democrats look to secure the 67 votes needed for a conviction, they used a slideshow presentation on Thursday to remind Senate jurors of the widespread outrage voiced in the wake of the attack, when many in the party directly blamed Trump — including Republicans who had worked for him.
“Today’s violent assault on our Capitol, an effort to subjugate American democracy by mob rule, was fomented by Mr. Trump,” read a statement issued by James Mattis, Trump’s former secretary of defense, hours after the attack.
Another slide showed a statement from John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, who said the violence was “a direct result of (Trump) poisoning the minds of people with the lies and the fraud.”
“The invasion of our Capitol by a mob, incited by lies from some entrusted with power, is a disgrace to all who sacrificed to build our Republic,” read another, which showed a tweet from former Republican House Speaker John Boehner.
Democrats also showed a chart of the 16 administration officials and Cabinet members who resigned in the aftermath of the attack on the Capitol, including Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
“There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me,” DeVos said at the time.
Convict Trump or face dire democracy damage, prosecutors say
WASHINGTON (AP) — Dire harm from Donald Trump’s false and violent incitements will vex American democracy long into the future unless the Senate convicts him of impeachment and bars him from future office, House prosecutors insisted Thursday as they concluded two days of emotional arguments in his historic trial.
Making their case, they presented piles of new videos of last month’s deadly Capitol attack, with invaders proudly declaring they were merely obeying “the president’s orders” to fight to overturn the election results as Congress was certifying his defeat to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump is accused of inciting the invasion, which prosecutors said was a predictable culmination of the many public and explicit instructions he gave supporters long before his White House rally that unleashed the Jan. 6 attack.
“If we pretend this didn’t happen, or worse, if we let it go unanswered, who’s to say it won’t happen again?” argued prosecutor Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo. Even out of office, Democrats warned, Trump could whip up a mob of followers for similar damage.
Trump’s defense will take the Senate floor on Friday, arguing that as terrible as the attack was, it clearly was not the president’s doing. The proceedings could finish with a vote this weekend by the senators who are sitting as impeachment jurors.
The Democrats, with little hope of conviction by two-thirds of the evenly divided Senate, are also making their most graphic case to the American public, while Trump’s lawyers and the Republicans are focused on legal rather than emotional or historic questions, hoping to get it all behind as quickly as possible. Five people died in the Capitol chaos and its aftermath, a domestic attack unparalleled in U.S. history.
Trump’s second impeachment trial, on a charge of incitement of insurrection, has echoes of last year’s impeachment and acquittal over the Ukraine matter, as prosecutors warn senators that Trump has shown no bounds and will pose a continuing danger to the civic order unless he is convicted. Even out of the White House, the former president holds influence over large swaths of voters.
The Democratic House members acting as prosecutors drew a direct line Thursday from Trump’s repeated comments condoning and even celebrating violence — praising “both sides” after the 2017 outbreak at the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia — and urging his rally crowd last month to go to the Capitol and fight for his presidency. He spread false claims about election fraud and urged his supporters to “stop the steal” of the presidency.
Prosecutors used the rioters’ own videos from that day to pin responsibility on Trump. “We were invited here,” said one. “Trump sent us,” said another. “He’ll be happy. We’re fighting for Trump.”
“They truly believed that the whole intrusion was at the president’s orders,” said Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado. “The president told them to be there.”
At the White House, President Biden said he believed “some minds may be changed” after senators saw chilling security video Wednesday of the deadly insurrection at the Capitol, including of rioters searching menacingly for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence.
Biden said he didn’t watch any of the previous day’s proceedings live but later saw news coverage.
Though most of the Senate jurors seem to have made up their minds, making Trump’s acquittal likely, the never-before-seen audio and video released Wednesday became a key exhibit.
Senators sat riveted as the jarring video played in the chamber. The footage showed the mob smashing into the building and rioters engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police, with audio of officers pleading for backup. Rioters roamed the halls chanting, “Hang Mike Pence,” and eerily singing out, “Where are you, Nancy?” in search of Pelosi.
Videos of the siege have been circulating since the day of the riot, but the graphic compilation offered a moment-by-moment retelling of one of the nation’s most alarming days. And it underscored how dangerously close the rioters came to the nation’s leaders, shifting the focus of the trial from an academic debate about the Constitution to a raw retelling of the assault.
Trump attorney David Schoen took issue, saying that the presentation was “offensive” and that the Democrats “haven’t tied it in any way to Trump.”
He told reporters Thursday at the Capitol that he believed Democrats were making the public relive the tragedy in a way that “tears at the American people” and impedes efforts at unity in the country.
And by Thursday, senators sitting through a second full day of arguments appeared somewhat fatigued, slouching in their chairs, crossing their arms and walking around to stretch.
One Republican, Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, said during a break: “To me, they’re losing credibility the longer they talk.”
The goal of the two-day presentation by prosecutors from the House, which impeached the outgoing president last month a week after the siege, was to cast Trump not as an innocent bystander but rather as the “inciter in chief” who spent months spreading falsehoods and revving up supporters to challenge the election.
“This attack never would have happened but for Donald Trump,” Rep. Madeleine Dean, one of the impeachment managers, said as she choked back emotion. “And so they came, draped in Trump’s flag, and used our flag, the American flag, to batter and to bludgeon.”
Trump’s lawyers are likely to blame the rioters themselves for the violence.
The first president to face an impeachment trial after leaving office, Trump is also the first to be twice impeached.
His lawyers say he cannot be convicted because he is already gone from the White House. Even though the Senate rejected that argument in Tuesday’s vote to proceed to trial, the issue could resonate with Senate Republicans eager to acquit Trump without being seen as condoning his behavior.
While six Republicans joined with Democrats to vote to proceed with the trial on Tuesday, the 56-44 vote was far from the two-thirds threshold of 67 votes needed for conviction.
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Associated Press writers Jonathan Lemire and Kevin Freking in Washington, Nomaan Merchant in Houston and Michelle L. Price in Las Vegas contributed to this report.
AP FACT CHECK: The senator and Trump’s misdialed phone call
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial hit a snag when Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah objected to how Democrats characterized a phone call from the president when the Capitol insurrection was raging.
After exchanges over the matter that seemed to confuse everyone, the Democratic House impeachment managers agreed to strike their words from the record and move on. They said the episode was not vital to their case that Trump incited the mob Jan. 6. But their account Wednesday night was correct to begin with.
Rep. DAVID CICILLINE of Rhode Island, an impeachment prosecutor: “Sen. Lee describes it. He had just ended a prayer with his colleagues here in the Senate chamber, and the phone rang. It was Donald Trump. And how Sen. Lee explains it is that the phone call goes something like this. ‘Hey, Tommy,’ Trump asks. And Sen. Lee says, ‘This isn’t Tommy.’ And he hands the phone to Sen. Tuberville. Sen. Lee then confirmed that he stood by as Sen. Tuberville and President Trump spoke on the phone. And on that call, Donald Trump reportedly asked Sen. Tuberville to make additional objections to the certification process. That’s why he called.”
LEE, asking that remarks about the phone call be removed from the record of the proceedings: “Statements were attributed to me moments ago by the House impeachment managers (that) were not made by me, they’re not accurate.” He added: “They are not true. I never made those statements.”
THE FACTS: By his own admission, Lee made the statements directly attributed to him. He did not publicly characterize what was said on the phone call — but Democrats did not claim that he had done so.
Cicilline said that on the call, Trump “reportedly” asked that Senate Republicans delay the certification of Joe Biden as the next president. Indeed, published new reports said just that, citing anonymous sources. The Associated Press has not confirmed those reports.
But there’s no question, as the Democrat said, that Lee took a call from Trump, realized the president was intending to call Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville and handed his phone to his colleague, standing nearby as Trump and Tuberville talked. We know this because Lee himself has described that scene.
He recounted it in text messages to Bryan Schott, a reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune.
“I went and found Senator Tuberville, handed him my phone, and explained that the president would like to speak to him,” Lee texted. “I stood nearby for the next five or ten minutes as they spoke, not wanting to lose my phone in the middle of a crisis.
“Then the Capitol Police became very nervous and ordered us to evacuate the chamber immediately. As they were forcing everyone out of the chamber, I awkwardly found myself interrupting the same telephone conversation I had just facilitated.
‘“Excuse me, Tommy, we have to evacuate. Can I have my phone?’
“Senator Tuberville promptly ended the call and returned my phone to its rightful owner.”
The House prosecutors produced a number of public statements by Trump as he openly stirred the anger of his supporters over the Congress’s action to affirm Biden’s election victory. They said this phone call was not central to their argument. But they said they might come back to it.
After the insurrectionists had been cleared from the Capitol, lawmakers certified Biden’s Electoral College victory. Lee did not vote to object to the certification. Tuberville was one of six Republican senators who voted to sustain an objection raised against Arizona’s electoral votes.
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EDITOR’S NOTE — A look at the veracity of claims by political figures.
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