Lie after lie: Listen to how Donald Trump built an alternate reality about an election that he lost.
— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 10, 2021
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Tag: Trump insurrectionists stormed the capitol
5 takeaways from Day 4 of Trump’s impeachment trial
Former president Donald Trump’s legal defense made its presentation Friday at his impeachment trial.
Below are some takeaways.
1. A heavy dose of whataboutism
The early part of the Trump team’s presentation was overwhelmingly focused on things that didn’t involve him. It was almost 100 percent whataboutism.
Democrats over the past three days have played lengthy videos of the insurrection at the Capitol, so Trump’s team played video of the unrest at racial justice protests this summer. Continue reading.
‘It was inciting,’ ‘provoked by the president’: What GOP senators said before about Trump’s culpability for the Capitol riot
Republican senators sent their latest signal Tuesday that former president Donald Trump is headed for acquittal in his impeachment trial, with 44 out of 50 of them voting that the Senate doesn’t have jurisdiction to try him. The Republican National Committee followed that up by distributing talking pointsfrom Trump’s legal team.
“Nothing the president said on January 6 was inciteful, let alone impeachable,” one of them read, “and in fact, President Trump urged supporters to exercise their rights ‘peacefully and patriotically.’ ”
That first part might be news to some of the party’s top leaders, though. Although the GOP has rallied around Trump lately, even many GOP senators who appear likely to acquit him have said Trump bore at least some blame for the events of Jan. 6. And that poses problems as Trump’s defense moves beyond constitutionality and into culpability. Continue reading.
Impeachment trial recap, day 2: House managers air unseen riot footage
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.”
A majority of the people arrested for Capitol riot had a history of financial trouble
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.
Before the insurrection, Alex Jones told MAGAites Biden is a ‘slave of satan’ who ‘will be removed one way or another’
InfoWars’ Alex Jones, a notorious conspiracy theorist who has been kicked off multiple platforms for his extremism, was welcomed onto the stage at a Dec. 12 “prayer rally” organized by religious-right supporters of former President Donald Trump’s effort to stay in power as well as a Jan. 5 rally in Washington, D.C., the day before the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Jones was in sync with the rallies’ themes of Christian nationalism and rebellion intertwined with the persona and presidency of Donald Trump.
At the Dec. 12 “prayer rally,” Jones said that God had raised up Trump and that Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and other “miserable globalists” are “slaves of Satan.” Jones said he didn’t know who would be going to White House in January, but he did know this: “Joe Biden is a globalist, and Joe Biden will be removed one way or another.”
At the Jan. 5 rally on the eve of the insurrection, Jones said that God had sent Donald Trump as a “deliverer.” He said the following day would be “Waterloo” for the “globalists” he said were behind the election fraud. He concluded by screaming, “The globalists are in fear! The globalists want to play God! They are not God! And the answer to their 1984 tyranny is 1776! 1776! 1776! 1776!” Continue reading.
Impeachment trial: Research spanning decades shows language can incite violence
Senators, acting in the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump that begins on Feb. 9, will soon have to decide whether to convict the former president for inciting a deadly, violent insurrection at the Capitol building on Jan. 6.
A majority of House members, including 10 Republicans, took the first step in the two-step impeachment process in January. They voted to impeach Trump, for “incitement of insurrection.” Their resolution states that he “willfully made statements that, in context, encourage – and foreseeably resulted in – lawless action at the Capitol, such as: ‘if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore.’”
Impeachment proceedings that consider incitement to insurrection are rare in American history. Yet dozens of legislators – including some Republicans – say that Trump’s actions leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol contributed to an attempted insurrection against American democracy itself. Continue reading.
Arrested Trump supporter threatened Mitch McConnell’s grandkids on Parler: DOJ
On Monday, George Washington University Program on Extremism analyst Seamus Hughes reported that the FBI has arrested Brad Houck, an Oklahoma Trump supporter who has made public death threats against a number of government officials on Facebook and alternative social-media site Parler.
According to the complaint, Houck targeted Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and his family, writing on Parler, “hey mitch, how are your grandkids doing?” He also went after Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, saying, “Hey justice Roberts, we are coming for you and your illegal adopted kids!! finished! they will get to watch you hang”
Houck also called for executing pharmaceutical executives “on the spot” and killing them “like animals” for “committing attempted murder for years,” saying that “slimy” politicians in both parties “are not going to make it,” and proclaiming that “WE MUST STORM THAT CAPITAL [sic] AND REMOVE THESE PEOPLE BY FORCE!” Continue reading.
Opinion: My fellow Republicans, convicting Trump is necessary to save America
Adam Kinzinger, a Republican, represents Illinois’s 16th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Winston Churchill famously said, “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” All Americans, but especially my fellow Republicans, should remember this wisdom during the Senate’s trial of former president Donald Trump.
I say this as a lifelong Republican who voted to impeach Trump last month. Virtually all my colleagues on the right side of the aisle took the opposite path. Most felt it was a waste of time — political theater that distracted from bigger issues. The overwhelming majority of Senate Republicans appear to feel the same way about conviction.
But this isn’t a waste of time. It’s a matter of accountability. If the GOP doesn’t take a stand, the chaos of the past few months, and the past four years, could quickly return. The future of our party and our country depends on confronting what happened — so it doesn’t happen again. Continue reading.
On cusp of impeachment trial, court documents point to how Trump’s rhetoric fueled rioters who attacked Capitol
Storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was no spur-of-the-
moment decision for Jessica Marie Watkins, an Ohio bartender and founder of a small, self-styled militia, federal prosecutors allege.
In documents charging her with conspiracy and other crimes for her role in the insurrection, they say she began planning such an operation shortly after President Donald Trump lost the November election, ultimately helping recruit and allegedly helping lead dozens of people who took violent action to try to stop congressional certification of the electoral college vote last month.
In text messages cited in court documents, Watkins was clear about why she was heading to Washington. “Trump wants all able bodied patriots to come,” she wrote to one of her alleged co-conspirators on Dec. 29, eight days before prosecutors say they invaded the building. Continue reading.