Tag: Trump insurrection

Impeachment trial recap, day 2: House managers air unseen riot footage

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House impeachment managers began presenting their prosecution of former President Trump on Wednesday, laying out their evidence — including previously unseen Capitol security footage from the Jan. 6 insurrection — before a divided Senate.

The big picture: One by one, managers detailed how Trump laid the groundwork for his supporters to believe “the big lie” — that the election would be stolen — for months leading up to the attack. Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) called Trump’s false claims “the drumbeat being used to inspire, instigate, and ignite them,” stressing that the incitement didn’t just begin with the president’s speech on Jan. 6.

Highlights:

  • Lead impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) opened by stating the evidence his team will present demonstrates that Trump was “no innocent bystander”— and that he “assembled, inflamed and incited his followers” on his way to the “greatest betrayal of the presidential oath in the history of the United States.”

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.

A majority of the people arrested for Capitol riot had a history of financial trouble

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Trail of bankruptcies, tax problems and bad debts raises questions for researchers trying to understand motivations for attack

Jenna Ryan seemed like an unlikely participant in the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. She was a real estate agent from Texas. She flew into Washington on a private jet. And she was dressed that day in clothes better suited for a winter tailgate than a war.

Yet Ryan, 50, is accused of rushing into the Capitol past broken glass and blaring security alarms and, according to federal prosecutors, shouting: “Fight for freedom! Fight for freedom!”

But in a different way, she fit right in. Continue reading.

Man who wore horns, hat apologizes for storming Capitol

PHOENIX — An Arizona man who participated in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol while sporting face paint, no shirt and a furry hat with horns said he regrets storming the building, apologized for causing fear in others and expressed disappointment with former President Donald Trump.

In a statement released late Monday through his attorney, defendant Jacob Chansley said he has re-evaluated his life since being jailed for over a month on charges stemming from the Jan. 6 riot and realizes he shouldn’t have entered the Capitol building. Chansley, who previously said Trump inspired him to be in Washington that day, said Trump “let a lot of peaceful people down.”

Chansley said he’s coming to terms with events leading to the riot and asked people to “be patient with me and other peaceful people who, like me, are having a very difficult time piecing together all that happened to us, around us, and by us. We are good people who care deeply about our country.” Continue reading.

On a day of legal wrangling, the trauma of Jan. 6 becomes the centerpiece of Trump impeachment trial

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The second impeachment trial of Donald Trump opened Tuesday heading toward what seemed a preordained conclusion. But as the day revealed, the events that led to this moment — Trump’s efforts to overturn an election and his role in inciting a mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol — will have left an indelible mark on his presidency and on the history of the country, no matter the trial’s outcome.

The first day had been set aside for what some anticipated might be a dry constitutional argument over whether the Senate had the authority to conduct a trial for a president who no longer is in office. That debate did provide the backdrop, but the horrors of Jan. 6 became the emotional centerpiece and highlight of the day — and, no doubt, the days to come.

House managers, led by Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.), presented a powerful opening argument — asserting with historical documentation and contemporary legal analysis that the Senate must go ahead with the trial, lest it create a “January exception” to impeachment that could allow future presidents to rampage at will in their final days in office without fear of being held accountable. Continue reading.

Michigan’s top-ranked Republican says MAGA riot was a staged hoax — and ‘Mitch McConnell was in on it’

Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey is floating a conspiracy theory that claims the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was actually a “staged” event, adding that it was “hoax” that was not carried out by Trump supporters, according to the Detroit Free Press.

Shirkey made the claims in a Youtube video posted by the account R.O.A.R. (Reclaim Our American Republic), which shows him attending a meeting in a restaurant with a small group of party officials on same day the Hillsdale County Republican Party censured him for not doing enough to support former President Trump and stand up to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

“That wasn’t Trump people. That’s been a hoax from day one,” Shirkey says in the video. “It was all staged.” 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.

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.

Even Alan Dershowitz is stunned by Bruce Castor speech: ‘I have no idea what he’s doing’

Trump defense lawyer Bruce Castor had not even finished his opening remarks in the U.S. Senate before he was harshly criticized by Alan Dershowitz, who defended Donald Trump in his last impeachment trial.

Dershowitz was interviewed on Newsmax during Castor’s presentation.

“What are you making of Bruce Castor’s arguments so far?” the host asked. “Where is he going with this?”

“There is no argument,” Dershowitz replied. “I have no idea what he’s doing.” 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.