Trial gave the most complete account so far of Jan. 6,
The pure savagery of the mob that rampaged through the Capitol that day was breathtaking, as cataloged by the injuries inflicted on those who tried to guard the nation’s elected lawmakers. One police officer lost an eye, another the tip of his finger. Still another was shocked so many times with a Taser gun that he had a heart attack.
They suffered cracked ribs, two smashed spinal disks and multiple concussions. At least 81 members of the Capitol force and 65 members of the Metropolitan Police Department were injured, not even counting the officer killed that day or two others who later died by suicide. Some officers described it as worse than when they served in combat in Iraq.
And through it all, then-President Donald Trump served as the inspiration if not the catalyst. Even as he addressed a rally beforehand, supporters could be heard on the video responding to him by shouting, “Take the Capitol!” Then they talked about calling the president at the White House to report on what they had done. And at least one of his supporters read over a bullhorn one of the president’s angry tweets to charge up the crowd.
If nothing else, the Senate impeachment trial served at least one purpose: It stitched together the most comprehensive and chilling account to date of last month’s deadly assault on the Capitol, shedding light on the biggest explosion of violence in the seat of Congress in two centuries. In the new details it revealed and the methodical, minute-by-minute assembly of known facts it presented, the trial proved revelatory for many Americans — and even for some who lived through the events.
Yet for all the heartpounding narrative of that day and the weeks leading up to it presented on the Senate floor, what was also striking after it was all over was how many questions remained unanswered on issues like the financing and leadership of the mob, the extent of the coordination with extremist groups, the breakdown in security and the failure in various quarters of the government to heed intelligence warnings of pending violence.
And then, most especially, what the president was doing in the hours that the Capitol was being ransacked, a point that several wavering Republican senators tried to home in on through questions to the prosecution and defense and that briefly blew up the trial on Saturday.
The House managers were able to introduce a statement from a Republican congresswoman, Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, describing what she was told about a profanity-laden telephone call that Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California had with Trump in the middle of the attack.
Herrera Buetler said McCarthy, the House Republican leader, had told her that when he pleaded with the president for help on the call, Trump seemed to side with the rioters disrupting the counting of the Electoral College votes ratifying his defeat. “I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump told the House Republican leader in this telling.
The Trump camp has never provided a definitive and official account of the former president’s knowledge or actions during the attack. But advisers speaking on the condition of anonymity have told reporters that he was initially pleased, not disturbed, that his supporters had disrupted the election count and that he never reached out to Vice President Mike Pence to check on his safety even after Pence was evacuated from the Senate chamber.
Resisting pleas from Republican allies like McCarthy to explicitly call off the attack, Trump delivered a mixed message that day, embracing the rioters and endorsing their cause even as he called for peace and told them to go home. While one of his lawyers told the Senate on Friday that “at no point” was Trump informed that the vice president was in danger, that was contradicted by a phone call described by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.
Despite conflicting and sometimes fragmentary accounts, the House decided to proceed with impeachment and the trial without conducting a real investigation or calling witnesses, eager to get the constitutional showdown over with expeditiously so that President Joe Biden could get on with his agenda.