Tag: Trump insurrection

Mounting evidence suggests Trump knew of danger to Pence when he attacked him as lacking ‘courage’ amid Capitol siege

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Mounting evidence emerging as former president Donald Trump’s impeachment trial unfolds in the Senate this week indicates Trump may have been personally informed that Vice President Mike Pence was in physical danger during the Jan. 6 Capitol siege, just moments before denigrating him on Twitter.

Trump’s decision to tweet that Pence lacked “courage” — a missive sent shortly after the vice president had been rushed off the Senate floor — underscores how he delayed taking action to stop his supporters as they ransacked the Capitol.

Many of them were intent on doing harm to Pence, whom Trump had singled out at a rally earlier in the day, falsely claiming the vice president had the power to stop Congress from formalizing Joe Biden’s electoral college victory. Continue reading.

Analysis reveals Trump operation paid $3.5m to organizers of the rally that led to deadly capitol attack

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A new political spending analysis released Wednesday shows that former President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign and its joint fundraising committees paid more than $3.5 million to the individuals and firms involved in organizing the January 6 “Stop the Steal” rally that presaged the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Investigators at OpenSecrets, a project of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics that examines how money influences U.S. elections and public policy, analyzed recent Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings and found “newly identified payments… [that] show people involved in organizing the protests on January 6 received even larger sums from Trump’s 2020 campaign than previously known.”

The findings come in the midst of the Senate impeachment trial that will determine whether or not Trump will be convicted for inciting the violent insurrection carried out by a mob of his supporters. Continue reading.

Justice Department says an Oath Keepers leader waited for Trump’s direction before Capitol attack

The Justice Department is now making clear that a leader among the Oath Keepers paramilitary group — who planned and led others in the US Capitol siege to attempt to stop the Biden presidency — believed she was responding to the call from then-President Donald Trump himself.”

As the inauguration grew nearer, [Jessica] Watkins indicated that she was awaiting direction from President Trump,” prosecutors wrote in a filing Thursday morning. 

This is the most direct language yet from federal prosecutors linking Trump’s requests for support in Washington, D.C., to the most militant aspects of the insurrection. Continue reading.

Trump’s acquittal is a sign of ‘constitutional rot’ – partisanship overriding principles

The Senate’s decision to acquit former President Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial may have been a victory for Trump, but it is a clear sign that democracy in the U.S. is in poor health. 

As a constitutional scholar, I believe the United States – the world’s first constitutional democracy – is in a state of what I call “constitutional rot.”

In a constitutional democracy, the majority’s authority to govern is limited by the rule of law and by a set of legal rules and principles set out in the Constitution. Continue reading.

Trump attorneys falsely claim he was denied ‘due process’

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“Our Constitution and any basic sense of fairness require that every legal process with significant consequences for a person’s life, including impeachment, requires due process under the law, which includes fact-finding and the establishment of a legitimate evidentiary record with an appropriate foundation.”

— David I. Schoen, attorney for former president Donald Trump, in an argument to the Senate about Trump’s second impeachment, Feb. 12, 2021

“The due process clause applies to this impeachment hearing, and it’s been severely and extremely violated.”

— Trump attorney Michael van der Veen, responding to senators’ questions at Trump’s impeachment trial, Feb. 12, 2021

This falsehood is rich with hypocrisy.

The day before these remarks, Trump’s legal team was meeting with Republican senators to strategize on Trump’s defense. Forget about due process. Any lawyer who tried this with jurors in court would be sanctioned or disbarred.

Luckily for Trump, it was not a judicial proceeding. It was political. The House and Senate each set their own rules on impeachment. Each chamber votes. There’s no appeal. The end. Continue reading.

Will impeachment even be a blip in 2022 battle for Senate control?

NRSC Chairman Rick Scott says midterms will focus on job creation

Former President Donald Trump’s historic second impeachment has dominated recent headlines, but neither party expects the votes cast Saturday by senators from battleground states to be a major factor in the fight for Senate control next year.

Seven Republican senators crossed party lines and joined all 50 Democrats in voting to convict Trump for inciting the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 to stop Congress from confirming Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential race. But that was 10 short of the two-thirds majority, or 67 votes, required by the Constitution. Forty-three Republicans voted to acquit Trump.

Two GOP senators in competitive races voted to acquit Trump. Just one Senate Republican up for reelection in 2022, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, voted to convict the former president. Two other Republicans in states with competitive Senate races who opted not to run for reelection, Pennsylvania’s Patrick J. Toomey and North Carolina’s Richard M. Burr, both also voted to convict.  Continue reading.

Capitol rioters searched for Nancy Pelosi in a way that should make every woman’s skin crawl

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As rioters made their way through the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, some went looking for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. New footage of this was released at Wednesday’s session of the impeachment trial. The mob roamed hallways, searching for her office, and as they did, they called for her. “Oh, Nancy,” one man cried out, three syllables ricocheting off the walls. “Oh, Naaaaaaancy.”

If you cannot stomach reading an entire column about three syllables, you should stop here.

Oh, Naaaaaaancy is a very specific scene from a horror movie. Oh, Nancy is what the protagonist hears when she is hiding in a parking garage, or in a stairwell, or crouched under her desk, or pressed flat on the ground in a damp cornfield. Her terror is played out for entertainment, whether that means a narrow escape or a bloody death. Continue reading.

Trump on acquittal: MAGA ‘has only just begun’

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Former President Trump declared victory on Saturday after Senate Republicans voted to acquit him for a second time, saying that his political movement “has only just begun” and that he would have more to share in the near future.

Trump thanked his legal team for “upholding justice and defending truth.”

“Our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun. In the months ahead, I have much to share with you, and I look forward to continuing our incredible journey together to achieve American greatness for all of our people,” he said in the statement. Continue reading.

How Democratic and Republican senators voted on Trump’s second impeachment

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The Senate acquitted former president Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial, weeks after the House voted to impeach him for his alleged role in inciting an angry mob to storm the U.S. Capitol.

Two-thirds of senators present and voting were needed to convict the former president, which meant the seven Republicans who joined every Democrat and independent were not enough to reach the 67 votes needed for conviction. But it was the most bipartisan impeachment vote in history.

In addition to Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Mitt Romney (Utah) and Ben Sasse (Neb.), who were expected to join Democrats on the vote, Sens. Richard Burr (N.C.), Bill Cassidy (La.) and Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.) also voted for conviction. Continue reading.

Lie After Lie: Listen to How Trump Built His Alternate Reality