Tag: Trump insurrection

Trump lawyers decline impeachment managers’ request for him to testify

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Former President Trump’s lawyers on Thursday declinedlead House impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.)’s request that he testify under oath before or during his Senate trial next week, calling the invitation a “public relations stunt.” 

Why it matters: Trump has been charged by the House with inciting the insurrection at the Capitol, but has disputed “many factual allegations set forth in the article of impeachment,” Raskin notes. Testimony under oath would allow the former president to clarify “critical facts” about his role in the events of Jan. 6.

Details: “We would propose that you provide your testimony (of course including cross-examination) as early as Monday, February 8, 2021, and not later than Thursday, February 11, 2021. We would be pleased to arrange such testimony at a mutually convenient time and place,” Raskin wrote in the letter. Continue reading.

Congress risks losing ‘bridle’ on the executive in Trump impeachment trial

An acquittal on the grounds Trump is no longer president could weaken a uniquely congressional power

Senators will determine not only the political fate of Donald Trump during the former president’s second impeachment trial next week but also whether or not to weaken their own congressional power to rein in presidential misconduct.

If that happens, it could undermine the reason the founders gave Congress the impeachment power in the first place: as one of the checks and balances in the Constitution to keep a president from becoming a tyrant, members of Congress, historians and constitutional scholars say.

“The fact that we can’t come together, both as a political body and as a nation, around the notion that an incumbent commander in chief cannot stage a coup against his own government in order to overturn the will of the people speaks to how far we have strayed from our ideals as a nation, without question,” said Mark Updegrove, a presidential historian for ABC News who is president and CEO of the LBJ Foundation. Continue reading.

Harvard Law Professor Explains Why Donald Trump’s Free Speech Defense May Not Stick

Laurence Tribe likened the former president to a fire chief “urging a mob to burn the theater down.”

Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe has poured cold water on the free speech defense being put forward by former President Donald Trump’s legal team ahead of his Senate impeachment trial for inciting the deadly U.S. Capitol riot.

Trump impeachment counsel David Schoen argued in an interview with The New York Times on Tuesday that the former president’s provocative comments to his supporters before they ransacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, for which the House impeached Trump for a second time last month, was actually protected by the First Amendment.

“We can’t control the reaction of the audience,” Schoen was quoted as saying. Continue reading.

House votes to impose fines of up to $10,000 on lawmakers who flout security screening

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The House voted Tuesday night to penalize lawmakers who seek to bypass the security screening measures that have been enacted in the wake of the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, with members facing a $5,000 fine for the first offense and $10,000 each time thereafter.

The measure passed on a 216-to-210 vote, with all but three Democrats present voting in favor and all Republicans present voting “no.”

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Rules Committee, defended the move in an impassioned floor speech in which he blasted the “elitist mentality” of those who have ignored the screening procedures, imploring his fellow lawmakers to recognize that “the rules apply to us, too — and it’s time all of us acted like it.” Continue reading.

Five takeaways from Trump impeachment trial briefs

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Congressional Democrats and lawyers for former President Trump released competing briefs Tuesday outlining their legal strategies for next week’s Senate impeachment trial over Trump’s role in inciting a violent mob to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6.

The 80-page brief from House Democrats lays blame for the deadly siege directly at Trump’s feet, saying he intentionally “whipped [the crowd] into a frenzy.” The former president’s new legal team, which was formed on Sunday night, filed a 14-page response arguing the trial is unconstitutional and that Trump’s rhetoric did not inspire the riot.

Here are five takeaways from the rival briefs. Continue reading.

AOC explains why Republicans can’t just tell her to forget about the insurrection and move on

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she was told that trauma victims should “tell their stories” as a part of their healing. And that is what she did Monday night in the most compelling, heartbreaking and infuriating 60 minutes available on any screen, at any time this week. The New York congresswoman initiated a live stream on Instagram and, against a plain white wall and with little fanfare, recounted what had happened to her during the violent invasion of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

She talked about flattening herself behind her bathroom door as someone entered her office, screaming, “Where is she? Where is she?” It turned out to be a police officer, but until she learned that, “I thought I was going to die.”

She talked about eventually escaping to the office of Rep. Katie Porter (Calif.), where the two Democratic congresswomen rifled through staffers’ gym bags, searching for sneakers they could change into in case they needed to jump out a window or run. About how they debated what to do if they had to flee again, wondering: “Are some offices safer than others, because they have white-sounding names or male-sounding names?” Continue reading.

Trump lawyers call impeachment trial unconstitutional in laying out defense

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Lawyers representing former President Trump on Tuesday detailed the defense they’ll lay out at next week’s impeachment trial, arguing that it is unconstitutional to impeach a former president and that Trump’s speech did not directly lead to the deadly siege on the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6.

The defense brief argues that Trump’s speech before a group of supporters, some of whom later sacked the Capitol, was protected under the First Amendment. And it accuses Democrats of depriving Trump of due process by rushing impeachment through the House.

“It is denied that the 45th president of the United States ever engaged in a violation of his oath of office,” the defense attorneys wrote. “To the contrary, at all times Donald J. Trump fully and faithfully executed his duties as the president of the United States and at all times acted to the best of his ability to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States while never engaging in any high crimes or misdemeanors.” Continue reading.

The Boogaloo Bois have guns and military training. Now they want to overthrow the government

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Hours after the attack on the Capitol ended, a group calling itself the Last Sons of Liberty posted a brief video to Parler, the social media platform, that appeared to show members of the organization directly participating in the uprising. Footage showed someone with a shaky smartphone charging past the metal barricades surrounding the building. Other clips show rioters physically battling with baton-wielding police on the white marble steps just outside the Capitol.

Before Parler went offline — its operations halted at least temporarily when Amazon refused to continue to host the network — the Last Sons posted numerous statements indicating that group members had joined the mob that swarmed the Capitol and had no regrets about the chaos and violence that unfolded on Jan. 6. The Last Sons also did some quick math: The government had suffered only one fatality, U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, 42, who was reportedly bludgeoned in the head with a fire extinguisher. But the rioters had lost four people, including Ashli Babbitt, the 35-year-old Air Force veteran who was shot by an officer as she tried to storm the building.

In a series of posts, the Last Sons said her death should be “avenged” and appeared to call for the murder of three more cops. Continue reading.

Impeachment managers say Trump conduct demands conviction

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House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled a thorough outline of their legal case against former President Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, arguing that he incited the mob attack and bears direct responsibility for the deadly violence that followed.

The Democrats’ 80-page trial brief describes Trump as unmistakably and singularly responsible for the events at the U.S. Capitol and states that his conduct “requires” that he be convicted and barred from holding office again.

“President Trump’s conduct must be declared unacceptable in the clearest and most unequivocal terms. This is not a partisan matter. His actions directly threatened the very foundation on which all other political debates and disagreements unfold,” the brief states. “They also threatened the constitutional system that protects the fundamental freedoms we cherish.” Continue reading.

Trump’s actions described as ‘a betrayal of historic proportions’ in trial brief filed by House impeachment managers

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House Democrats made their case to convict former president Donald Trump of inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in a sweeping impeachment brief filed with the Senate on Tuesday, accusing Trump of jeopardizing the foundations of American democracy by whipping his supporters into a “frenzy” for the sole purpose of retaining his hold on the presidency.

In the brief, the House’s nine impeachment managers made an impassioned case that Trump was “singularly responsible” for the mayhem, accusing him of “a betrayal of historic proportions.” They argued that he is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, the threshold for conviction laid out in the Constitution, primarily because he used the powers of his office to advance his personal political interests at the expense of the nation.

To bolster their case, the managers turned to the words and actions of the country’s founders, citing lofty passages from the Federalist Papers and contrasting Trump’s efforts to stay in office despite his electoral loss with George Washington’s insistence upon relinquishing the presidency after two terms in the interest of preserving democracy. Continue reading.