Trump lawyers: Impeachment based on hatred, not facts
WASHINGTON – Donald Trump’s impeachment lawyers accused Democrats of waging a campaign of “hatred” against the former president as they sped through their defense of his actions and fiery words before the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, hurtling the Senate toward a final vote in his historic trial.
The defense team vigorously denied on Friday that Trump had incited the deadly riot and said his encouragement of followers to “fight like hell” at a rally that preceded it was routine political speech. They played a montage of out-of-context clips showing Democrats, some of them senators now serving as jurors, also telling supporters to “fight,” aiming to establish a parallel with Trump’s overheated rhetoric.
“This is ordinary political rhetoric that is virtually indistinguishable from the language that has been used by people across the political spectrum for hundreds of years,” declared Trump lawyer Michael van der Veen. “Countless politicians have spoken of fighting for our
principles.”
But the presentation blurred the difference between general encouragement to battle for causes and Trump’s fight against officially accepted national election results. The defeated president was telling his supporters to fight on after every state had verified its results, after the Electoral College had affirmed them and
after nearly every election lawsuit filed by Trump and his allies had been rejected in court.
The case is speeding toward a vote and likely acquittal, perhaps as soon as Saturday, with the Senate evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans and a two-thirds majority required for conviction. Trump’s lawyers made an abbreviated presentation that used less than three of their allotted 16 hours.
Their quick pivot to the Democrats’ own words deflected from the central question of the trial – whether Trump incited the assault on the Capitol – and instead aimed to place impeachment managers and Trump adversaries on the defensive. His lawyers contended he was merely telling his rally crowd to support primary challenges against his adversaries and to press for sweeping election reform.
After a two-day effort by Democrats to sync up Trump’s words to the violence that followed, including through raw and emotive video footage, defense lawyers suggested that Democrats have typically engaged in the same rhetoric as Trump.
But in trying to draw that equivalency, the defenders minimized Trump’s months-long efforts to undermine the election results and his urging of followers to do the same. Democrats say that long campaign, rooted in a “big lie,” laid the groundwork for the mob that assembled outside the Capitol and stormed inside. Five people died.
On Friday, as defense lawyers repeated their own videos over and over, some Democrats chuckled and whispered among themselves as many of their faces flashed on the screen. Some passed notes. Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal threw up his hands, apparently amused, when his face appeared. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar rolled her eyes. Most Republicans watched intently.
During a break, some joked about the videos and others said they were a distraction or a “false equivalence” with Trump’s behavior.
“Well, we heard the word ‘fight’ a lot,” said Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats.
Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet said it felt like the lawyers were “erecting straw men to then take them down rather than deal with the facts.”
“We weren’t asking them fight like hell to overthrow an election,” Blumenthal said.
After the arguments ended, senators asked more than 20 questions of the lawyers, read by a clerk after submission in writing, including several from Republicans who are being closely
educators and communities with the resources they need, we can get kids back to school safely in more parts of the country sooner.”
The new guidance includes many of the same measures previously backed by the CDC, but it suggests them more forcefully. It emphasizes that all of the recommendations must be implemented strictly and consistently to keep school safe. It also provides more detailed suggestions about what type of schooling should be offered given different levels of virus transmission, with differing advice for elementary, middle and high schools.
“We know that most clusters in the school setting have occurred when there are breaches in mask wearing,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director, said in a call with reporters.
Vaccinating teachers can provide “an additional layer of protection,” she said.
Asked how the guidance differed from that offered by the Trump administration, Walensky said, “We’ve used stronger languages than prior guidance. We’ve been much more prescriptive here as to putting some guardrails on what can and should be done to get to a safe reopening.”
“And I can assure you that this is free from political meddling,” she added.
There’s wide agreement that learning in the classroom is more effective and that students can face isolation and learning setbacks at home. But teachers unions in some areas say schools have failed to make buildings safe enough to return.
The new guidance was embraced by both sides of the debate, with each saying it bolstered their position. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said it’s further evidence that schools are equipped to reopen now.
The new information “affirms what many of us, including students and parents, have known for months: It is critical for schools to open as safely and as soon as possible,” he said.
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, applauded the guidance but said schools are failing to meet it. Most still have outdated ventilation systems, she said, and few have the type of virus testing programs suggested by the CDC.
“CDC standards still aren’t being met in too many of our schools,” Pringle said. “We can and must provide students the opportunity to return to in-person learning, but we also must ensure that every school has the safety measures in place to keep students and educators safe.”
In Florida, which ordered schools to reopen in August, Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran called the new guidance “informative” but warned schools not to veer from their current plans. He said the state has shown in-person teaching is safe. But the state has dealt with school-related infections, including an outbreak at a high school wrestling tournament in December in which 38 attendees tested positive.
CDC officials emphasized that in-person learning has not been identified as a substantial driver of coronavirus spread in U.S. communities, and that transmission among students is now considered relatively rare.
The CDC also stressed that the safest way to open schools is by making sure there is as little disease in a community as possible. The agency urged local officials to assess whether a bad outbreak is occurring in a community when making decisions about sending adults and children in to schools.
The guidance included a color-coded chart, from blue to red, on assessing community spread, including rates of new cases per 100,000 people and the percentage of positive tests.
That said, high community transmission does not necessarily mean schools cannot be open – especially those at the elementary level. If school mitigation measures are strictly followed, the risk of spread in the schools should still be low, the guidance suggests.
The document suggests that when things get risky, elementary schools can go hybrid, providing in-person instruction at least on some days, but that middle and high schools might go virtual.
“The older children get ... the more they act like adults in terms of transmission and disease,” Walensky explained. “So when we are in areas of high transmission, we have pushed more for elementary school hybrid learning.
Government officials estimate that about 60% of K-12 schools right now have some form of in-person learning going on, though in many cases it may be part-time.
Schools also can tighten up restrictions for the in-person learning that is going on. For example, the CDC continues to recommend that children be spaced 6 feet apart in school settings. But it should be required when there’s a worrisome surge of new infections in the community, said Greta Massetti, a CDC official who led much of the work on the new guidance.
Biden has been caught between competing interests as he works to get students in the classroom without spurning the powerful teachers unions that helped get him elected. Critics say he has bowed to unions instead of taking more aggressive action on reopening.
Unlike former President Donald Trump, who pressured schools to open and blasted the CDC for issuing guidance that he said was impractical, Biden has kept his distance from the CDC as it works on recommendations. Even after the CDC’s director recently said that vaccinations are not a prerequisite for reopening, the White House declined to take a firm stance on the question.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday that “no one on our senior staff” had seen the CDC guidelines ahead of their release. “I can assure you that the White House is not directing the CDC.”
Biden’s national strategy says the administration “will also work with states and local school districts to support screening testing in schools, including working with states to ensure an adequate supply of test kits.”
But the CDC guidance stops short of recommending testing, saying “Some schools may also elect to use screening testing as a strategy to identify cases and prevent secondary transmission.”
In the early days of the U.S. epidemic, some health experts worried that schools might become cauldrons of coronavirus infection, with kids infecting each other and then spreading it to family members – as seems to be the case during cold and flu season.