Rioters’ words set against Trump.
Mob acted at order of president, Dems say to rest their case
WASHINGTON — House prosecutors concluded two days of emotional arguments in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial late Thursday, insisting the Capitol invaders believed they were acting on “the president’s orders” to stop Joe Biden’s election, the deadly culmination of Trump’s pattern of spreading false and violent rhetoric that will continue to vex American politics if left unchecked.
The Democratic prosecutors described in stark, personal terms the horror faced Jan. 6, including in the very Senate chamber where Trump’s trial is underway. They displayed the many public and explicit instructions Trump gave his supporters — long before the White House rally that unleashed the Capitol attack as Congress was certifying Biden’s victory. Five people died in the chaos and its aftermath, a domestic attack unparalleled in U.S. history.
In videos, some posted to social media by rioters themselves, invaders talked about how they were doing it all for Trump.
“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.
Trump’s defense will take the floor Friday, and the proceedings could finish with a vote this weekend.
The Democrats, with little hope of conviction by two-thirds of the evenly divided Senate, are 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.
This second impeachment trial, on the 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 do it again, posing a danger to the civic order unless he is convicted and banned from future office. Even out of the White House, the former president holds influence over large swaths of voters.
The prosecutors on Thursday drew a direct line from his 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, even there has been no evidence of it, 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.”
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 is now a key exhibit as lawmakers prosecuting the case argue he should be convicted of inciting the siege.
The footage showed the mob smashing into the building, rioters engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police and audio of Capitol police officers pleading for back-up. Rioters were seen roaming the halls chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” and eerily singing out “Where are you, Nancy?” in search of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Trump attorney David Schoen said the presentation was “offensive” and that they “haven’t tied it in any way to Trump.”
He told reporters Thursday at the Capitol 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.
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. James 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.
They are seeking not just conviction, but to bar him from future office.
“This attack never would have happened but for Donald Trump,” Rep. Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania, 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, and have argued he cannot be convicted because he is out of the White House.
The first former president to face an impeachment trial, Trump is also the first chief executive to be twice impeached.