Impeachment trial: Donald Trump ‘laid groundwork for riots for months’
Democrats accused Trump of refusing to intervene as Pence hid behind locked doors, rioters screaming for his execution.
Democrats have finished the first day of their prosecution of Donald Trump, accusing him of having laid the groundwork for the riots of January 6 for months.
On the first day of Mr Trump’s impeachment trial - after Senators voted on Wednesday (AEDT) the impeachment was constitutional and the trial could proceed - Senate impeachment managers accused the former president of “inflaming and inciting” his supporters in a last-ditch effort to overturn the result of the election.
They accused Mr Trump of refusing to intervene even as Mike Pence hid behind locked doors as protesters screamed for his execution, shouting “Hang Pence” and erecting a gallows.
Impeachment managers also showed chilling, previously unseen security video footage of the attack on the Capitol, in which congressmen and women were forced to flee the violence, many fearing for their lives.
Both Republican and Democrat senators sat in stunned silence, some with their heads in the hands, as videos showed:
- Mike Pence being rushed from the chamber
- Hero police officer Eugene Goodman helping Mitt Romney flee before luring the mob away
- Rioters breaking through windows with wooden poles
- A police officer crushed in a metal door
- Republicans pleading for Trump to intervene
- Staffers hiding in offices as rioters screamed threats at them
- The man who broke into Nancy Pelosi was carrying a 950,000 volt stun gun
Despite the dramatic footage, it is still unlikely the Democrats will find the 17 Republicans they need to convict Mr Trump. But some have described today’s evidence as “compelling,” saying it “joined the dots” between the violence and Mr Trump.
Most, however, say the evidence hasn’t changed their mind. Lindsey Graham, a long time Trump ally, told reporters he spoke to Mr Trump today and yesterday, and he assured him that his acquittal was a done deal.
Democrats will present more evidence on Friday (AEDT). They have 16 hours for their presentation, after which Mr. Trump’s team will have the same amount of time to present its defence. Each trial day is expected to last eight hours.
How the impeachment trial unfolded
Kristina Peterson 11.45am: Trial highlights Republican rift
The impeachment trial on Wednesday reignited some of the intraparty fight that flared up among Republicans last week in the House.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, one of ten House Republicans to vote to impeach Mr. Trump last month, singled out Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) on Twitter.
“Would be nice if @HawleyMO would actually put his Presidential ambitions (which will fail) aside for a moment to actually be a grown up Senator, come to terms with what he did, and seek redemption,” Mr. Kinzinger said, retweeting a story about how some Senate Republicans appeared to be not paying full attention during parts of the trial.
Would be nice if @HawleyMO would actually put his Presidential ambitions (which will fail) aside for a moment to actually be a grown up Senator, come to terms with what he did, and seek redemption. #RestoreOurGOP https://t.co/RH53ZiboYv
— Adam Kinzinger (@RepKinzinger) February 10, 2021
Mr. Kinzinger recently launched a political action committee aimed at pushing back against conspiracy theorists and extremism. He has been one of the most vocal defenders of House GOP Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R., Wyo.), who fended off a leadership challenge last week after she voted to impeach Mr. Trump.
Mr. Hawley was the first senator to say he would object to the results of the 2020 presidential election, and he continued with his objections when Congress resumed on Jan. 6 after the riot. On Tuesday he could be seen watching the trial from the gallery above, rather than on the Senate floor with most of the other lawmakers.
Mr. Hawley told reporters he had chosen to sit in the gallery because it “had a little bit better view, kind of where I sit over in the Senate chamber is kind of in the corner,” he said. “It’s just not quite as crowded.”
Wall St Journal
Anne Barrowclough 11.05am: ‘They are going to kill people’
Democrats are focussing on Donald Trump’s failure to act as the riots continued. Joagquin Castro told Senators that as Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was entering the Oval Office, aides pleaded with him to ask Mr Trump to intervene. One of them told Mr Meadows: “They are going to kill people,” Mr Castro said.
Mr Castro also highlights tweets from Mr Trump’s former chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former White House Communications Director Alyssah Farah, calling on Mr Trump to condemn the violence and tell people to go home.
He described a tweet from Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican, who posted a video of himself barricaded in his office addressing the president: “You are the only person who can call this off, call it off.”
Mr. Gallagher then went on MSNBC and repeated his plea for the president to urge his supporters to stop the attack.
“The message around the president was clear from everyone, you need to call this off. Stop it. But does he? No,” said Mr. Castro.
Earlier, David Cicilline asked the senators, rhetorically, what Mr Trump was doing to help them as they sought help from the White House.
“Nothing,” Mr Cicilline said. “Not a thing.”
Insead, he said, Mr Trump tried to reach Republican senator Tommy Tuberville to ask him to issue additional objections to the electoral college vote count
Anne Barrowclough 10.50am: ‘But for the grace of God they'd have gotten us’
David Cicilline, one of the House impeachment managers, has argued that as violence took hold in the Capitol, Donald Trump “did not once condemn this attack.”
“He did not once condemn the attackers,” Mr Cilline said.. “In fact, on January 6th, the only person he condemned is his own Vice President Mike Pence, who was hiding in this building with his family, in fear for his life. In the first crucial hours of this violent attack, he did nothing to stop it, nothing to help us.”
Playing security footage of the rioters breaking into the Capitol, Mr Cilline said: “But for the grace of God they would have gotten all of us.”
I am humbled that Speaker Pelosi has asked me to serve as an impeachment manager when we try Donald Trump before the United States Senate.
— David Cicilline (@davidcicilline) January 13, 2021
The President is a clear and present danger to our republic. We will hold him accountable.
He tweeted: “The President is a clear and present danger to our republic. We will hold him accountable.”
Lindsay Wise 10.30am: ‘Tears at your heart’: Senators shocked at video
A tense silence fell over the Senate chamber as House impeachment managers showed a video presentation of the attack on the Capitol.
“Graphic. Disgusting,” said Sen. Jerry Moran (R., Kan.).
Some Senators audibly reacted to a video of a rioter who broke into Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D., Calif.) office with a stun gun and called her “b---” afterward. Several politicians shook their heads.
“Wow,” said Sen. Jacky Rosen (D., N.V.). Sen. Bill Cassidy (R., La.), who voted with Democrats to proceed with the trial, shook his head, and jotted down some notes.
As the senators watched footage that showed how close rioters had come to intercepting some of them, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.) watched with her hand pressed against her forehead and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York nodded his head.
A few jotted down notes, but the most had their eyes glued to the television screens at the front of the chamber.
Sen. James Lankford (R., Okla.) – one of the GOP senators who had objected to the certification of electoral votes on Jan. 6 – bent his head down at his desk. Sen. Steve Daines (R., Mont.), who sits next to him, put his hand on his colleague’s arm to comfort him.
“It’s very damning,” said Sen. Bob Menendez (D., N.J.), as he left the chamber.
New Capitol security footage shows Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman directing Sen. Mitt Romney out of the path of the rioters https://t.co/uCFeWZqcTK
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) February 10, 2021
“It tears at your heart and brings tears to your eyes,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R., Utah). “Overwhelmingly distressing and emotional.”
Some of the newly aired security footage showed Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman directing Mr. Romney away from rioters who had just breached the building. The senator said he had no idea how close he came to encountering the mob.
“The footage is horrific,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas). “We all witnessed a terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol. That was horrendous, it was violent, it was criminal. And everyone involved in that terrorist attack should be fully prosecuted and should go to jail for a very long time.”
But Mr. Cruz said the managers had not connected the rioters’ criminality to the former president.
“They spent a great deal of time focusing on the horrific acts of violence that were played out by the criminals, but the language from the president doesn’t come close to meeting the legal standard for incitement,” he said.
Sen. John Thune (R., S.D.) said the House managers ‘’were very effective.”
Asked if he thought managers had made a connection between the president’s words and the Jan. 6 attack, Mr. Thune said that “they’ve done a good job connecting the dots,” and that “the President’s Twitter feed is a matter of public record.” He added, “they’ve done I think I said an effective job of going back several months and just showing that public record.”
At about 5:20, the session broke for dinner, leaving the senators with a final video of the screams of Officer Daniel Hodges, who was crushed in a door by rioters.
Anne Barrowclough 10.10am: Senate Minority whip: Video evidence ‘very compelling’
Senate Minority Whip John Thune has told reporters the new security footage of the riots was “very compelling” and suggested he’s not ruling out voting to convict Donald Trump.
The managers had a “strong, strong presentation, put together in a way that I think makes it very compelling,” Mr Thune said.
— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 10, 2021
Asked whether the presentations would sway him to convict Mr Trump, he said: “I said all along I was gonna listen to the arguments and look at the evidence and I’m doing that.”
Asked if he saw the connection between Mr Trump’s actions and the violence at the Capitol, Mr Thune said: “They’ve done a good job connecting the dots.”
Anne Barrowclough 9.50am: Video shows Pence, Romney rushed to safety
Former Vice-President Mike Pence is shown being rushed to safety as staffers barricaded themselves into officers, in the on-going video footage shown by Democrats.
— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 10, 2021
One video shows Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman running down a hallway and steering Mitt Romney away from the mob before he returns to the rioters and lures them away from the chamber.
Security video also shows then-Senate Minority Leader Schumer being escorted down a hallway by his security detail and then turning around and being rushed in the opposite direction.
“President Trump put a target on their backs, and his mob broke into the Capitol to hunt them down,” said Ms Plaskett.
— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 10, 2021
Another showed the fatal shooting of one of the rioters, Ashli Babbitt, as she tried to climb through a shattered window leading into a lobby right off the House chamber where Ms. Pelosi was presiding.
A masked policeman can be seen inside the lobby steadily pointing his gun at Ms. Babbitt, who is at the vanguard of the mob. He holds his gun for at least 15 seconds before a shot is fired and Ms. Babbitt falls from the heights of the window to the floor.
Anne Barrowclough 9.30am: ‘Turn on the gas’
Rep Eric Swalwell has describedhow he rang his wife to tell her how much he loved her and their babies as rioters rampaged through the Senate.
Mr Swalwell played some of the deadliest video of the riots, including the moment Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt was killed as she tried to break through a barricaded door behind which were the congressional politicians.
Body camera footage shows rioters attacking police at entrance of US Capitol on Jan. 6. pic.twitter.com/e3nLP0Rtx4
— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 10, 2021
.
Mr Swalwell said impeachment managers had been careful, in their video presentations, not to reveal where politicians hid on the day of the attack.
“But that very issue was under discussion by the insurrectionists themselves,” said Mr Swalwell, who said that one affidavit by the FBI stated that the leader of the Oath Keepers militia group was being given directions to where representatives were “thought to be sheltering.”
Mr Swalwell said that the leader was given directions to “turn on the gas” and “seal them in.”
Anne Barrowclough 9.15am: Pelosi office intruder had 950,000 stun gun
Stacey Plaskett has revealed that the man photographed sitting at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk on Jan. 6 was carrying a 950,000 volt “stun gun walking stick.”
“The weapon could have caused serious pain and incapacitated anyone Barnett had used it against,” said Ms Plaskett, displaying a zoomed in photograph of the device, tucked into Richard Barnett’s trousers.
Ms Plaskett said the FBI had later identified the device from the photo.
Lawmakers removed their congressional pins as the mob rioted through the Capitol, impeachment manager Eric Swalwell told the Senate.
“Out of fear that they would be seen or taken by the mob, my colleagues were telling each other to take off their congressional pins,” he said.
A video from Rep. Dan Kildee, showed politicians trapped inside the gallery. They can be heard telling each other, “Take your pins off,” and “Pins off.”
Anne Barrowclough 9.00am: ‘They’re trying to find Pelosi’
The newly released security footage also shows Nancy Pelosi’s staffers rushing into a room, where they barricaded themselves. Sevenminutes later, rioters tried to break the door down to enter.
“They’re pounding on doors trying to find (Pelosi)”, one staffer is heard whispering.
Newly released security video shows several Speaker Pelosi staffers rushing into a room in which they'd barricade themselves.
— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 10, 2021
7 minutes later, Capitol rioters attempt to enter the room.
"They're pounding on doors trying to find" Speaker Pelosi, one staffer is heard whispering. pic.twitter.com/1Xj9UxMzdQ
In audio of police dispatchers, a police officer is heard saying: “Multiple Capitol injuries. Multiple Injuries.”
The dispatcher says, “You’ve got a group of about 50 charging up the hill on the west front just north of the stairs. They are approaching the wall.”
Anne Barrowclough 8.40am: Unseen video shows Capitol breach
Democrats have played dramatic, unseen video of the rioters breaching the Capitol on January 6 as police called desperately for back-up.
The footage from security cameras shows a rioter breaking a window with a wooden beam, with rioters shouting threats against then-Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as they rampaged through the Capitol “Hunt them down” they cry as senators flee the chamber.
Newly released security video shows several Speaker Pelosi staffers rushing into a room in which they'd barricade themselves.
— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 10, 2021
7 minutes later, Capitol rioters attempt to enter the room.
"They're pounding on doors trying to find" Speaker Pelosi, one staffer is heard whispering. pic.twitter.com/1Xj9UxMzdQ
It goes on to show how police officer Eugene Goodman first led Mitt Romney to safety before rushing to lead the rioters away from the chamber.
House impeachment manager Stacy Plaskett also played police radio communications in which one officer is heard pleading for reinforcements while another declares the incident a riot.
At Trump impeachment trial, newly released police audio from Jan. 6:
— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 10, 2021
Officer: "We need units. We're surrounded ... They are behind our lines." pic.twitter.com/0zEU7Str2H
“During the assault on the Capitol, extremists reportedly coordinated online and discussed how they could hunt down the vice president. Journalists in the Capitol reported they heard rioters say they were looking for Pence in order to execute him,” said Ms Plaskett.
“As the rioters reached the top of the stairs, they were within 100 feet of where the vice president was sheltering with his family, and they were just feet away from one of the doors to this chamber,” she said.
In one video shown, the crowd can be heard chanting “hang Mike Pence” as they stood in the open door of the Capitol building. A photo showed a gallow outside on the lawn.
“After President Trump had primed his followers for months and inflamed the rally-goers that morning, it is no wonder that the Vice President of the United States was the target of their wrath, after Pence refused to overturn the election results,” Ms Plaskett said.
“They were talking about assassinating the Vice President of the United States.”
Anne Barrowclough 8.10am: ‘I’ll never forget the terrifying banging on the doors’
In her evidence, Madeleine Dean became emotional as she recalled the events of January 6, saying they were “forever etched in our memories.”
Ms Dean said she went to work that day “with a sense of excitement” because it was the first time she would participate in the counting of electoral votes in Congress.
Congresswoman @RepDean was right next to me in the chamber on January 6th.
— Haley Talbot (@haleytalbotnbc) February 10, 2021
She was very brave.
📷: the amazing Tom Williams pic.twitter.com/xa9Nxanjoz
She said as she stood in the House gallery she and colleagues heard on police radios that the building had been breached.
“Someone shouted up to us, ‘Duck!’” she recounted, saying they all then got down on the floor. “Shortly after, there was a terrifying banging on the chamber doors.”
“I will never forget that sound,” she said, adding that she began calling her husband and children.
“You saw a man (Trump) willing to attack anyone and everyone who got in his way, and you saw a man who thought he could play by different rules,” she said.
.@RepDean breaks down the actual 1/6 speech: Trump made one reference to being "peaceful," and 20 to "fight" or "fighting." File that away for when the defense replays this speech and highlights the one call for peaceful march.
— Garrett Haake (@GarrettHaake) February 10, 2021
Anne Barrowclough 8.00am: Republicans: acquittal assured
Many Republican senators are blatantly ignoring the evidence in the senate, reading books and briefing papers while Democrat impeachment managers lay out their prosecution evidence.
Lindsay Graham, a long time Trump ally, told The Wall St Journal he had spoken with Mr Trump this week and assured him acquittal was a certainty.
“I reinforced to the president, the case is over. It’s just a matter of getting the final verdict now,” Mr Graham said.
Republican senator Jim Inhofe told the newspaper: “I just don’t think that any minds have been changed.”
On Wednesday (AEDT) six Republicans joined the Democrats in a 56-44 vote to proceed with the trial; an indication of how difficult it will be for Democrats to secure the 17 Republican votes they need to convict the former president.
Republican senator Rob Portman said he voted to dismiss the trial because he is concerned impeachment is becoming too commonly used as a political tool. But on conviction, he added, “I’m a juror. I haven’t decided yet.”
The decision to convict or acquit is a vote of conscience for Republicans, said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R., N.D.). Mr. Cramer added there has been no pressure from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) to vote a certain way. “None whatsoever.”
Mr. Cramer said he has “thought a lot” about whether the constitutional question can be separated from the question of Mr. Trump’s guilt, and he has decided they can.
“You know, we are unique in that our constitutional question isn’t asked of a judge or another entity and we govern ourselves,” Mr. Cramer said. “And if a majority says it’s constitutional, I think we’re obligated to hear the case. And I as a member of the jury I’m obligated to first presume innocence and second of all, listen to both the managers and the defence team.”
Rebecca Ballhaus 7.35am: Georgia pressure campaign ‘a prelude to Jan 6’
Madeleine Dean (D., Pa.) described Donald Trump’s efforts to pressure Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn Joe Biden’s win in the state as a microcosm of a broader pattern of behaviour.
Mr. Trump and his supporters pressed for Mr. Raffensperger and others to reverse the November election results, including in a widely reported telephone conference in which Mr. Trump said he wanted to “find” votes to win the state.
Ms Dean noted that after Mr. Raffensperger and his family received death threats, Mr. Trump didn’t intervene to tell his supporters not to act on their anger. Instead, in televised remarks, Mr. Trump called Mr. Raffensperger “an enemy of the people.”
Even after Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling warned Mr. Trump on live television to step up and tell people to stop inspiring violence, Mr. Trump pursued his claims of election fraud, she noted.
“We must not become numb to this,” she said. “Trump did this across state after state so often, so loudly, so publicly,” she said. “All because Trump wanted to remain in power.”
The top prosecutor for Georgia’s most populous county said Wednesday that an investigation was under way into attempts to influence the 2020 election in Georgia.
Anne Barrowclough 7.25am: Trump won’t be allowed back on Twitter
Donald Trump won’t be allowed back on Twitter even if he runs for office again and wins.
The company’s Chief Financial Officer tolder CNBC the former president’s ban was permanent, even if he became president again.
“The way our policies work, when you’re removed from the platform, you’re removed from the platform whether you’re a commentator, you’re a CFO, or you are a former or current public official,” said CFO Ned Segal.
“Remember, our policies are designed to make sure that people are not inciting violence, and if anybody does that, we have to remove them from the service and our policies don’t allow people to come back.”
Anne Barrowclough 7.00am: ‘Trump ran out of non-violent options’
House Impeachment Manager Ted Lieu has told the Senate Mr Trump “ran out of nonviolent options to maintain power.”
“After his efforts and — of course, threatening officials — failed, he turned to privately and publicly attacking members of his own party in the House and in the Senate. He would publicly bait senators, naming them in social media,” Mr Lieu said.
“President Donald J. Trump ran out of nonviolent options to maintain power,†House impeachment manager Ted Lieu says, describing Trump's efforts to threaten officials and call out senators https://t.co/Mm8vGfXGJ2 pic.twitter.com/unAIMckMGt
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) February 10, 2021
Mr Lieu cited a number of Trump tweets, including one that falsely claimed he won the election and called on Republican senators to “fight for it” and another in which he told Republican senators, including then Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, that he would
Lieu also showed a tweet from Dec. 24 in his presentation in which Trump called out “never forget” if they just “sit back and watch me fight.”
“President Trump was telling you that you owe him, that if you don’t help him fight to overcome the results, he will never forget and there will be consequences,” Mr Lieu said.
“The President wasn’t just coming for one or two people, or Democrats like me. He was coming for you — or Democratic and Republican senators. He was coming for all of us, just as the mob did at his direction,” Lieu added.
Rebecca Ballhaus 6.30am: Democrats’ case ‘easily rebutted’
During the first break in the trial, Trump adviser Jason Miller on Fox News said he had spoken to the former president minutes earlier and that Donald Trump “agrees with my position that the Democrats, everything they are saying today is very easily rebutted.”
He accused Democrats of quoting selectively from Mr. Trump’s Jan. 6 speech and said the defence team would “point out just how hypocritical they’re being.”
Just as Democrats have sought to use Mr. Trump’s words against him, Mr. Miller said the defence team would seek to show “Democrats in their own words.”
Mr. Miller was also asked about the president’s opinion of his defence team’s Tuesday presentation, which several Republicans criticised as meandering and ineffective.
Mr. Trump was unhappy with his defence, people familiar with the matter previously told The Journal.
“The president thinks David Schoen did a very excellent job, also there were some good points that Bruce Castor made, there are a few things we need to tighten up,” Mr. Miller said.
Eliza Collins 5.30am: Trump laid groundwork for riots for months
One of the Democrat House Impeachment Managers, Joe Neguse, has argued that former President Donald Trump had been laying the groundwork for the riot ahead of January 6 and then used the same language to encourage his supporters to storm the Capitol.
Mr. Neguse, broke down what he says was Mr. Trump’s three-part set of orders into phrases used by Mr. Trump. He said Mr. Trump first said the election was stolen, then said his supporters needed to “stop the steal, and fight like hell.”
Mr. Neguse, with the help of video clips of Mr. Trump, said the president began to sow doubt on the election even before it took place. Mr. Trump told his supporters that the only way he could lose would be through fraud, Mr. Neguse said.
After Mr. Trump lost, the president urged his supporters to not let then President-elect Joe Biden take office, Mr. Neguse said. At the same time, Mr. Trump made a variety of attempts to overturn the election results, but nothing worked, Mr. Neguse said.
“With his back against the wall, when all else had failed, he turns back to his supporters who he already spent months telling them the election was stolen and he amplified it further. He turned it up a notch. He told them that they had to be ready to not just stop the steal but to fight like hell,” Mr. Neguse of Colorado said.
Then Mr. Neguse said Mr. Trump selected the date and time of his rally to take place at the same time as Congress was set to confirm the election results. Mr. Neguse said when Mr. Trump told his supporters it was their patriotic duty to march on the Capitol.
“When they heard his speech they understood his words and what they meant because they had heard it before,” he said.
With The Wall St Journal
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