Tag: Trump election fraud lie

Four takeaways from Day 3 of Trump’s impeachment trial

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Day three of former president Donald Trump’s impeachment trialfeatured the remainder of Democratic House impeachment managers’ case against Trump.

Below, some takeaways.

1. A novel appeal to GOP senators about the consequences of acquittal

If there is one quote that summed up the Democrats’ argument for conviction of Trump, it came Thursday from Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.).

The fact that Trump is no longer in office renders the biggest punishment of the impeachment process — removal from office — moot. Beyond that, it’s about sanctioning him and preventing Trump from being able to hold high office again. Continue reading.

Meandering Performance by Defense Lawyers Enrages Trump

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The former president was particularly angry at Bruce L. Castor Jr., one of his lawyers, for acknowledging the effectiveness of the House Democrats’ presentation.

On the first day of his second impeachment trial, former President Donald J. Trump was mostly hidden from view on Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, Fla., moving from the new office that aides set up to his private quarters outside the main building.

Mr. Trump was said to have meetings that were put on his calendar to coincide with his defense team’s presentation and keep him occupied. But he still managed to catch his two lawyers, Bruce L. Castor Jr. and David I. Schoen, on television — and he did not like what he saw, according to two people briefed on his reaction.

Mr. Castor, the first to speak, delivered a rambling, almost somnambulant defense of the former president for nearly an hour. Mr. Trump, who often leaves the television on in the background even when he is holding meetings, was furious, people familiar with his reaction said. Continue reading.

Fox News receives brutal fact-check for claim of ‘evenhanded’ election coverage

Fox News is having difficulty trying to repair its reputation after spending months airing the unfounded conspiracy theories of election fraud that culminated in the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

“In the days after the presidential election, an entire ecosystem emerged to bolster President Donald Trump’s false claims that rampant fraud had mired the election results. No credible evidence of significant fraud existed at the time, just as no credible evidence to that end exists today. For Trump and his allies, though, hyping sketchy, unfounded allegations served to strengthen Trump’s efforts to somehow overturn the will of the electorate and generated an enormous amount of attention from a Republican base eager to wrench victory from the jaws of reality,” The Washington Post’s Philip Bump explainedTuesday.

Fox News repeatedly aired the conspiracy theories about election fraud. Continue reading.

Nicolle Wallace breaks down Democrats’ three-part impeachment strategy — and why it’s working

MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace offered her analysis during the first break in Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial on Tuesday.

“I’ve been baking my way through the pandemic…I will use the cake analogy here,” Wallace began.

“I thought that what the Democrats presented was a three-layer cake. The foundation, that appears to be squarely on their side, was a legal case about the constitutionality,” she explained. “And they made it with the words of some of the most revered and respected conservative legal all-stars. They used Chuck Cooper, they used judges appointed by former President Bush, they used Jonathan Turley, who was an impeachment manager on the Trump side in the first impeachment.” Continue reading.

One of Trump’s impeachment lawyers sued him last year — and accused him of making claims about fraud with ‘no evidence’

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Last year, Philadelphia lawyer Michael T. van der Veen filed a lawsuit against then-President Donald Trump accusing him of making repeated claims that mail voting is “ripe with fraud” despite having “no evidence in support of these claims.”

This week, van der Veen is adopting a different posture as part of the team of attorneys defending Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election result in his Senate impeachment trial.

How a longtime personal-injury lawyer found himself at the center of that trial, which opened Tuesday, may say more about his client than his own legal career. Trump struggled to find lawyers to take on his case, parting ways with several who were unwilling to claim that the 2020 election was stolen, as the president is said to have wanted them to do. Continue reading.

Trump’s lawyers say he was immediately ‘horrified’ by the Capitol attack. Here’s what his allies and aides said really happened that day.

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President Donald Trump was “horrified” when violence broke out at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, as a joint session of Congress convened to confirm that he lost the election, according to his defense attorneys.

Trump tweeted calls for peace “upon hearing of the reports of violence” and took “immediate steps” to mobilize resources to counter the rioters storming the building, his lawyers argued in a brief filed Monday in advance of Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate. It is “absolutely not true,” they wrote, that Trump failed to act swiftly to quell the riot.

But that revisionist history conflicts with the timeline of events on the day of the Capitol riot, as well as accounts of multiple people in contact with the president that day, who have said Trump was initially pleased to see a halt in the counting of the electoral college votes. Some former White House officials have acknowledged that he only belatedly and reluctantly issued calls for peace, after first ignoring public and private entreaties to do so. Continue reading.

5 takeaways from Day 2 of Trump’s impeachment trial

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Democratic House impeachment managers on Wednesday began formally laying out their case that President Donald Trump incited the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. They are allowed 16 hours, spread over two days, to make their arguments.

Below are some takeaways from Day 2 of the Senate impeachment trial.

1. The new video

Before Tuesday’s proceedings, the House impeachment team sent word that its presentation would include never-before-seen video. Continue reading.

Lawyer for Rioter Accused of Pinning D.C. Cop With Shield Calls Trump ‘Un-Indicted Co-Conspirator’

He’s not the first alleged Capitol rioter to try the “Blame Trump” defense, but this Connecticut man might be the most aggressive yet.

Patrick Edward McCaughey III, 28, was charged last month with a slew of crimes, including assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers, for his role in the siege. Specifically, he is accused of pinning a police officer against a doorway with a riot shield. But in a Monday motion for his release, his lawyers allege former President Donald Trump is “somewhat of a de facto un-indicted co-conspirator in this case” and thus his client should not be totally blamed for the violent incident. 

The motion adds that the 28-year-old came to the Capitol with his father to support Trump and “to implore his Representatives in Congress to investigate the many outstanding allegations of election fraud before they voted to certify the electors for President Biden.” Prosecutors allege McCaughey, who is being held in custody pending trial, is seen in photos and videos pinning an officer between a police riot shield and a Capitol door as he tried to storm the building—even as the cop cried out in pain. Continue reading.

Trump Claimed Election ‘Rigged’ Or ‘Stolen’ Over 100 Times Ahead Of Capitol Riot

Then-President Donald Trump falsely claimed more than 100 times that Democrats had “rigged” or “stolen” the 2020 election ahead of January’s deadly insurrectionist attack on the U.S. Capitol, a HuffPost analysis found.

In reviewing all of Trump’s tweets and speeches between Election Day on Nov. 3 and the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, HuffPost mapped out the rhetoric his followers absorbed as their defiance against President Joe Biden’s win mounted.

Over the course of those two months, Trump ― the most powerful politician in the country and, arguably, the entire world ― lied that the election was rigged at least 68 times and that it was stolen or in the process of being stolen at least 35 times. He made claims of voter fraud and ballot-counting irregularities more than 250 times, specifically making baseless claims that voting machines tossed or changed votes at least 45 times. Continue reading.

Trump Is Calling Us to Fight!’: Georgia Teen Charged in Capitol Riots

Prosecutors allege Bruno Cua—who recently got busted for allegedly blaring his horn from a MAGA-themed truck in his hometown—was at the front of the pack.

Federal prosecutors on Monday unsealed charges against a MAGA-loving Georgia teen who allegedly shoved a police officer to enter the Senate chamber during the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot and encouraged his social media followers for days to show up to Washington, D.C., to “fight.”

Bruno Joseph Cua, 18, was arrested Friday and charged with several crimes—including assault on a federal officer and civil disorder—for his role in the unprecedented siege. In a criminal complaint, prosecutors allege that after encouraging his social media followers for almost two weeks to support former President Donald Trump and protest against the election, the Georgia teenager stormed the Capitol.

The Milton, Georgia, resident is seen in several photos and videos at the Capitol wearing a MAGA hat and a sweatshirt adorned with an eagle—including a New Yorker video showing a slew of rioters fighting their way onto the Senate floor. Continue reading.