Steve Benen has a decent summary of the prosecution’s case over Wednesday and Thursday. You really must view the hours of video evidence presented with narration and timeline to get the full impact of this highly effective presentation of the evidence. The Impeachment Managers drew a straight line from Trump’s words and actions to the words and action of his violent Trump mob who sieged the Capitol. Even under the tougher standard of proof in a criminal trial for proving incitement of insurrection, an impartial jury of citizens called to jury duty doing their duty would be compelled to convict Donald Trump.
The one witness I would have called is Vice President Mike Pence, but he would have objected to a witness subpoena, taking up valuable time in court, only to likely have continued to be an ass-kissing Trump sycophant, Impeachment trial shows him under attack, but Pence remains loyal to Trump, even as the evidence showed how Trump incited his violent MAGA mob to hunt him down to “Hang Mike Pence!” They even erected a gallows for him.
Unfortunately, we are dealing with Republican senators with no sense of shame or commitment to their oath of office and doing their their duty as jurors. Their only motivation is getting primaried in their next election by some Trump/Qanon cult member. Doing justice and defending the Constitution, and defending American democracy against sedition and insurrection barely registers with them.
As House Impeachment Manager Rep. Jaime Raskin said to the jury on the opening day of the trial, “If that’s not an impeachable offense, then there is no such thing.” Which is exactly what Republicans are hoping to achieve, nullify the impeachment provisions of the U.S. Constitution only as applied to Republicans. You can bet Republicans will not hesitate to bring an impeachment against a Democratic president. In fact, the QAnon Queen Marjorie Taylor Greene has already filed retaliatory, and baseless Articles of Impeachment Against Biden. Kick this crazy chick’s sorry ass out of Congress.
Steve Bene writes, Shredding every defense, impeachment trial proves Trump’s guilt:
The House impeachment managers wrapped up their presentation yesterday, and for those clinging to hope that perhaps Donald Trump deserved to be acquitted on the merits, it was a brutal two-day exercise. The New Republic‘s Matt Ford summarized matters nicely:
The House managers, for their part, did not merely connect the dots between pieces of evidence or bits of testimony. They just played video clips of what had happened in a stark, simple chronological order. All they needed was the footage of the year Trump spent crafting his “Big Lie” about election fraud, as well as footage of his followers’ unambiguous — and undisputed — belief that he wanted them to commit violence against Congress. They had both. The House managers did not present a theory of Trump’s guilt. They merely showed it.
I’m mindful, of course, of the fact that most Senate Republicans entered the proceedings with no intention of honoring their responsibilities. For these GOP “jurors,” the quality of the arguments, and the merits of the case, were irrelevant long before the trial got underway. Trump has an “R” after his name to denote his party affiliation, and as far as these senators are concerned, little else needs to be said.
But this does not change the fact that the Democratic impeachment managers proved their case beyond a reasonable doubt. The arguments floated in defense of the former president lay in ruins.
Maybe it’s unconstitutional to convict a former official? The claim has been discredited and rejected by a bipartisan majority. [56-44, that claim “has been put to bed.”]
Maybe Trump had a First Amendment right to incite an insurrectionist riot? This may be a favorite of Trump’s defense lawyers, but it’s been exposed as nonsense. Impeachment managers invested a fair amount of time yesterday explicitly explaining the irrelevance of the First Amendment in this case.
Maybe an impeachment conviction requires a statutory crime? The managers shredded that, too.
Maybe Trump didn’t know his followers would launch an attack on the Capitol? Of course he did. The impeachment managers documented the lengthy pattern in which Trump pleaded with his followers to come to D.C. on the day in which lawmakers would certify the results, in order to “stop the steal.” As the trial documented, he cultivated support from extremists for months for this express purpose, feeding them lies and stoking their misguided rage.
Maybe the Capitol attackers weren’t summoned, but merely came to D.C. on their own? After their arrests, one rioter after another explicitly declared that they were directed by their president. They were there at Trump’s request and instruction. During their attack, they repeatedly said they were following Trump’s instructions.
Maybe the riot was some kind of aberration? If only that were true. “These tactics were road tested,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) explained, after pointing to extensive evidence. [Trump’s tweets to “Liberate Michigan!” and other states from COVID Lockdowns, and the siege of the Michigan Capitol by armed militias. It was a road test of Trump’s “call and response” from his MAGA cult members. Some of these militia members plotted to kidnap the Governor of Michigan to try her and to execute her, exactly like the insurrectionists planned to do to Vice President Mike Pence.] “January 6 was a culmination of the president’s actions, not an aberration from them. The insurrection was the most violent and dangerous episode so far in Donald Trump’s continuing pattern and practice of inciting violence.”
Maybe Trump’s “fight” rhetoric was routine? It’s a ludicrous defense based on the idea that context has no meaning.
The former president’s lawyers have been allotted 16 hours to present their defense to the Senate, and according to many accounts, they may end up using as few as three hours. That would at least make a degree of sense: there is no credible defense for the indefensible.
As a Washington Post editorial put it, “Senators will bring disgrace upon their chamber if they fail to hold the former president accountable. No reasonable listener this week could fail to find him culpable for the Capitol assault.” E.J. Dionne added that the Democratic impeachment managers took great pains to “close off the escape hatches and back doors for Senate Republicans.”
In all likelihood, these GOP “jurors” will express nothing but indifference to Trump’s obvious guilt. The shame will follow them indefinitely.
But in the meantime, I hope they’ll remember a question Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) posed to senators yesterday: “We humbly, humbly ask you to convict President Trump for the crime for which he is overwhelmingly guilty of. Because if you don’t, if we pretend this didn’t happen or worse if we let it go unanswered, who’s to say it won’t happen again?”
More violence to come? QAnon Thinks Trump Will Become President Again on March 4.
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The AP reports, “Herrera Beutler urges ‘patriots’ to talk about Trump call”, https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-jaime-herrera-beutler-washington-impeachments-vancouver-1e43ec592aeb9fcd58a492999c682663
Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler said in a statement House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told her he spoke with Trump as rioters were storming the Capitol. She said McCarthy asked Trump to publicly “call off the riot” and told Trump the violent mob were Trump supporters, not far-left antifa members.
In her statement, released via Twitter, Herrera Beutler said: “That’s when, according to McCarthy, the president said: ‘Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.’”
Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler late Friday urged people with knowledge of conversations Trump had during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot to come forward.
Herrera Buetler, who represents Washington’s 3rd Congressional District in the southwestern part of the state, said she has relayed parts of her conversation with McCarthy before to constituents and local media.
She then called on people with knowledge of Trump’s conversation with McCarthy to speak out.
“And to the patriots who were standing next to the former president as these conversations were happening, or even to the former vice president: if you have something to add here, now would be the time,” she said.
Greg Sargent writes, “Democrats have one big weapon left against Trump. Will they use it?”, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/12/democrats-call-witnesses-trump-impeachment/
Evidence is mounting that Donald Trump knew Mike Pence was in grave danger from the mob rampaging into the Capitol when the then-president sent out a tweet blasting his vice president.
During the Jan. 6 assault, Trump tweet-slammed Pence for lacking the “courage” to overturn the election, which further infuriated the insurrectionists. Trump essentially pointed the mob like a loaded gun at Pence — and newly unearthed facts suggest Trump may have understood what he was doing in exactly these terms.
These new circumstances hand Democrats one last big weapon to wield against Trump at his impeachment trial. They also impose on them an obligation.
Specifically, the impeachment managers can still call witnesses. And the case for this has gotten stronger, now that we are so close to showing that Trump may have knowingly endangered Pence’s life.
Democrats can try to call witnesses to nail down exactly what Trump knew when he again directed the rampaging mob toward Pence. The trial rules stipulate that after senators question the impeachment managers and Trump’s lawyers, there can be debate over whether to subpoena witnesses. That means the managers can subpoena witnesses if they want to.
Such witnesses could include people inside the White House, who could potentially detail that Trump was perfectly aware that Pence had been hurriedly removed from the path of the mob — to save his life — when Trump again whipped it up against him.
The Post also reports that Pence’s Secret Service detail typically informs the White House about any significant movements involving him.
Jonathan Wackrow, a former Secret Service agent, tells me there are several pathways by which Trump might have been informed of the level of danger Pence faced. Pence’s Secret Service detail might have communicated with Trump’s, or the military aides to both men might have been in touch. White House aides might know what Trump learned from this.
Wackrow notes that the managers might at least try to subpoena people who could reconstruct these communications, and Trump’s understanding of Pence’s plight, though the Secret Service would challenge this.
Heck, as Andy Kroll suggests, what about calling Pence himself?
We all know the vast majority of Republican senators won’t vote based on the evidence. This is all about creating a full reckoning into the most comprehensive effort to overturn U.S. democracy in modern times — including through deliberately cultivated mob intimidation and violence — not for Republicans, who are beyond reach, but for the American people, and for history.
How can such a reckoning not include a full accounting into Trump’s true intentions, given that we now know that he may have directed his mob at Pence while knowing it could put his life in greater danger?
Politico reports on the phone call central to the prosecution’s case. “Tuberville says he informed Trump of Pence’s evacuation before rioters reached Senate”, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/11/tuberville-pences-evacuation-trump-impeachment-468572
Sen. Tommy Tuberville revealed late Wednesday that he spoke to Donald Trump on Jan. 6, just as a violent mob closed in on the the Senate, and informed the then-president directly that Vice President Mike Pence had just been evacuated from the chamber.
“I said ‘Mr. President, they just took the vice president out, I’ve got to go,’” Tuberville (R-Ala.) told POLITICO on Capitol Hill on Wednesday night, saying he cut the phone call short amid the chaos.
Pence was evacuated from the chamber at about 2:15 p.m. and Trump sent his tweet attacking Pence at 2:24 pm. The entire Senate was cleared by about 2:30pm.
The existence of the phone call had been previously reported, but the detail that Tuberville informed Trump his vice president was in danger is a new and potentially significant development for House prosecutors seeking Trump’s conviction: it occurred just around the time that Trump sent a tweet attacking Pence for not having “the courage” to unilaterally stop Joe Biden’s victory. And Trump never indicated publicly that he was aware of Pence’s plight, even hours after Tuberville says he told him.
It’s long been unclear precisely when Trump learned of the danger that Congress and his vice president faced — though it was broadcast all over live television — but Tuberville’s claim would mark a specific moment Trump was notified that Pence had to be evacuated for his own safety.
Trump’s lawyer today stated that Trump never knew Pence was in danger. He is either ignorant or was lying to the Senate.
Ana Cabrera at CNN tweets https://twitter.com/AnaCabrera/status/1360393866663374849
A source close to former VP Mike Pence tells @Acosta Trump’s legal team was not telling the truth when attorney Michael van der Veen said “at no point” did the then president know Pence was in danger on January 6th.
Asked whether van der Veen was lying, the source said “yes.”
Sen. Mike Lee, who is acting as an advisor to Trump’s defense team, tried to make a scene about this phone call on Wednesday. POLITICO points out that “Trump accidentally phoned Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) as he sought to get in touch with Tuberville to request that the Alabama senator continue objecting to the election results in order to buy time. Lee, according to reports in Utah’s Deseret News and CNN, passed his phone to the newly elected lawmaker for the brief call.” Sen. Lee tried to deny his previous statements to the media.
Sen. Tuberville just confirmed the phone call that Sen. Lee tried to deny.
See, “AP FACT CHECK: The senator and Trump’s misdialed phone call”, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ap-fact-check-the-senator-and-trumps-misdialed-phone-call-mike-lee-tommy-tuberville-donald-trump-david-cicilline-house-b1801162.html
[T]here’s no question, as the Democrat said, that Lee took a call from Trump, realized the president was intending to call Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville and handed his phone to his colleague, standing nearby as Trump and Tuberville talked. We know this because Lee himself has described that scene.
He recounted it in text messages to Bryan Schott, a reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune.
“I went and found Senator Tuberville, handed him my phone, and explained that the president would like to speak to him,” Lee texted. “I stood nearby for the next five or ten minutes as they spoke, not wanting to lose my phone in the middle of a crisis.
“Then the Capitol Police became very nervous and ordered us to evacuate the chamber immediately. As they were forcing everyone out of the chamber, I awkwardly found myself interrupting the same telephone conversation I had just facilitated.
‘“Excuse me, Tommy, we have to evacuate. Can I have my phone?’
“Senator Tuberville promptly ended the call and returned my phone to its rightful owner.”
UPDATE 2/13/21: Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) on Saturday gave House impeachment managers and former president Donald Trump’s defense attorneys a copy of a log from his cellphone, which shows that as the Jan. 6 riot unfolded, he received a call from the White House at 2:26 p.m. that lasted for four minutes, the Washington Post reports. “Sen. Mike Lee turns over phone record to House impeachment managers, Trump defense”, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/02/13/trump-impeachment-trial-live-updates/#link-IFIB3TEPTREOBLTVIZUK2BEVWQ
CNN reports new evidence, “New details about Trump-McCarthy shouting match show Trump refused to call off the rioters”, https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/12/politics/trump-mccarthy-shouting-match-details/index.html
In an expletive-laced phone call with House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy while the Capitol was under attack, then-President Donald Trump said the rioters cared more about the election results than McCarthy did.
“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump said, according to lawmakers who were briefed on the call afterward by McCarthy.
McCarthy insisted that the rioters were Trump’s supporters and begged Trump to call them off.
Trump’s comment set off what Republican lawmakers familiar with the call described as a shouting match between the two men. A furious McCarthy told the President the rioters were breaking into his office through the windows, and asked Trump, “Who the f–k do you think you are talking to?” according to a Republican lawmaker familiar with the call.
The newly revealed details of the call, described to CNN by multiple Republicans briefed on it, provide critical insight into the President’s state of mind as rioters were overrunning the Capitol. The existence of the call and some of its details have been previously reported and discussed publicly by McCarthy.
The Republican members of Congress said the exchange showed Trump had no intention of calling off the rioters even as lawmakers were pleading with him to intervene. Several said it amounted to a dereliction of his presidential duty.
Trump’s comment about the would-be insurrectionists caring more about the election results than McCarthy did was first mentioned by Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Republican from Washington state, in a town hall earlier this week, and was confirmed to CNN by Herrera Beutler and other Republicans briefed on the conversation.
“You have to look at what he did during the insurrection to confirm where his mind was at,” Herrera Beutler, one of 10 House Republicans who voted last month to impeach Trump, told CNN. “That line right there demonstrates to me that either he didn’t care, which is impeachable, because you cannot allow an attack on your soil, or he wanted it to happen and was OK with it, which makes me so angry.”
“We should never stand for that, for any reason, under any party flag,” she added, voicing her extreme frustration: “I’m trying really hard not to say the F-word.”
“I think it speaks to the former President’s mindset,” said Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, an Ohio Republican who also voted to impeach Trump last month. “He was not sorry to see his unyieldingly loyal vice president or the Congress under attack by the mob he inspired. In fact, it seems he was happy about it or at the least enjoyed the scenes that were horrifying to most Americans across the country.”
As senators prepare to determine Trump’s fate, multiple Republicans thought the details of the call were important to the proceedings because they believe it paints a damning portrait of Trump’s lack of action during the attack. At least one of the sources who spoke to CNN took detailed notes of McCarthy’s recounting of the call.
It’s unclear to what extent these new details were known by the House Democratic impeachment managers or whether the team considered calling McCarthy as a witness. The managers have preserved the option to call witnesses in the ongoing impeachment trial, although that option remains unlikely as the trial winds down.
“A failed coup attempt, without consequences, is just a training exercise” for the next coup attempt. – Ari Melber.