Impeachment: Trump trial ‘political witch hunt brought by hatred’
Donald Trump reportedly refused to condemn the violence or call off the rioters in a phone call with leading Republican congressman.
Donald Trump reportedly refused to condemn the rioters in a phone call with a Republican congressman as his supporters stormed the Capitol, and had no intention of calling them off.
In new details of the phone call between House of Representatives minority leader Kevin McCarthy and Mr Trump during the riots, Mr McCarthy pleaded with Mr Trump to call off the mob.
Mr Trump responded: “Kevin, it’s not my people, it’s Anti-Fa,” CNN reports.
Mr McCarthy said: “No, it’s your people,” to which Mr Trump answered: “Well, Kevin, I guess those people are more upset about the election than you are.”
The congressman replied: “Who the f*** do you think you are talking to?”
A number of Republican senators have told CNN they believed Mr Trump’s comments proved the then president supported the rioters and facilitated the violence by failing to act.
However it is doubtful that the new details about the conversation with Mr McCarthy will change Republican senators’ minds over whether to convict or acquit the former president.
Mr McCarthy voted against impeaching Mr Trump and has made up with him in a meeting at Mar-a-Lago, Mr Trump’s private club in Florida.
The new details came as Mr Trump’s legal team finished laying out its defence in his second impeachment trial, calling Democrats’ claims he incited the January 6 riots “patently absurd” and accusing impeachment managers of “constitutional cancel culture.”
His team said Mr Trump’s call to his supporters to “fight” was ordinary political rhetoric, playing a nine minute video compilation of Democrats using the same word in a variety of speeches and interview.
“No thinking person could seriously believe that the president’s January 6 speech on the Ellipse was in any way an incitement to violence or insurrection,” said Trump lawyer Michael van der Veen.
The lawyers also accused impeachment managers of “manipulating” evidence against Mr Trump, and showing selectively edited videos and images during their presentation.
“We have reason to believe the House managers manipulated evidence and selectively edited footage,” David Schoen said.
Mr Trump was reportedly happier with his lawyers’ performance today than he was on Wednesday (AEDT) when lead lawyer Bruce Castor rambled and went far off topic while attempting to argue that the impeachment trial was unconstitutional.
His team wrapped up their case in just three hours, although they had been given 16 hours to lay it out.
The Senate will return tomorrow (Sunday) to decide whether to acquit or convict Mr Trump. Democrats need 17 Republicans to vote with them to convict but so far only six Republicans have indicated they might do so.
How today’s events unfolded
Anne Barrowclough 10.15am: ‘Have Trump testify to us’
Republican senator Bill Cassidy has asked both sides whether Mr Trump’s tweet attacking Mike Pence after Senator Tuberville told him the vice president was being evacuated suggested Mr Trump was tolerant of the intimidation posed by the rioters.
Mr Trump’s lawyer Michael Van der Veen responded: “Directly, no. But I dispute the premise of your facts. I dispute the facts that are laid out in that question. And, unfortunately, we’re not going to know the answer to the facts in this proceeding because the House did nothing to investigate what went on.”
Mr Van der Veen added he had “no idea” what the answer was because the House didn’t provide an opportunity to investigate further.
Lead House Impeachment manager Jamie Raskin replied that the managers invited Mr Trump to testify before Congress and gave him the chance to set the record straight. Mr Raskinpointed out that Mr Trump declined and said that according to the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, in civil cases, if the defendant refused to testify, then it implied guilt.
“Rather than yelling at us … bring your client here and have him testify under oath,” Raskin said.
Anne Barrowclough 9.50am: ‘Trump delighted’ in riots
Democrat senator Patty Murray has asked what the relevance of one of Donald Trump’s tweets in the hours after the Capitol riot was to his guilt.
The tweet, posted just after 6pmm ET on the night of the riot, read: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long.”
“Go home with love & in peace,” he continued. “Remember this day forever!”
Joaquin Castro said if the riot “wasn’t what he wanted, why would he say remember this day forever?”
Mr Trump would only say that if he “thought it was something to praise,” said Mr Castro.
“That statement was entirely consistent with everything he said leading up to the attack,” Mr Castro said, adding, “Senators, he revelled in this. He delighted in this.”
Anne Barrowclough 9.15am: Trump election loss ‘irrelevant’ to impeachment
Senator Bernie Sanders asks if the prosecutors were right when they claimed Donald Trump was perpetuating a lie by claiming the election was stolen from him.
After Senator Plaskett explained that Mr Trump, through the election and his numerous court cases that followed, definitively lost the election, Mr Trump’s lawyer Michael Van der Veen demanded to know who of the senators asked that question.
“I did!” Mr Sanders snapped.
Mr Van der Veen then said whether or not he believed Trump won the election was “irrelevant to this proceeding.”
Anne Barrowclough 8.45am: Did Trump’s ‘plot’ to stay in power radicalise supporters?
Democrat senator Alex Padilla has asked if Donald Trump’s “plot” to remain in power led to the radicalisation of his followers and the attack on the Capitol.
Mr Trump’s lawyers are reportedly concerned about questions on this subject because of the impact they may have on moderate Republicans.
Joaquin Castro says Mr Trump’s continued claims the election was stolen from him did radicalise his supporters.
“He said ‘fight to the death,’” he said. “Would you read that any other way?”
Answering the next question, Trump lawyer Michael van der Veen instead turned to this one, saying Mr Castro had illustrated the “smoke and mirrors” behind the Democrats’ case.
Mr Van der Veen said that instead of telling supporters to “fight to the death,” Mr Trump told them: “If the election was stolen from the Democrats all hell would break loose. We are smarter, we are stronger and we are not going to do what they did all summer long,” – suggesting that Mr Trump spoke against violence, not for it.
Anne Barrowclough 8.35am: Did Trump know Pence had been evacuated before tweeting?
Republican senators Mitt Romney and Susan Collins have asked if Donald Trump knew Mike Pence had been rushed from the Senate by the Secret Service when he sent a tweet attacking his vice-president.
Joaquin Castro says that during his phone call with Tommy Tuberville (to ask him to object to the Electoral College vote), Mr Tuberville told Mr Trump that Mr Pence had just been evacuated. Minutes later, Mr Trump sent his attack tweet.
But defence lawyer Michael Van der Veen denies that Mr Trump knew about Mr Pence’s evacuation. He also says the question is irrelevant to the impeachment charges.
Anne Barrowclough 8.00am: Trump ‘lit the flame’ of insurrection
The Defence has now finished presenting their case, and a Q&A sessions is starting. Senators can submit their questions to both the impeachment managers and Mr Trump’s defence lawyers. However the questions have to be submitted in writing.
The first question, from Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein is whether the riots would not have happened were it not for Mr Trump.
Impeachment manager Joquin Castro replied that Mr Trump: “lit the flame.”
“To answer your question very directly, Donald Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob,” Mr Castro said. “Although he could have forcefully intervened to stop the violence, he never did. In other words, this violent, bloody insurrection that occurred January 6th would not have occurred but for President Trump.
“That mob didn’t come out of thin air,” he added. “Mr Trump spread lie after lie about election fraud” months before the election took place. When he did lose, “he spent week after week telling supporters the election was stolen and it was their patriotic duty to fight like hell.
“That is a combustible situation,” he said.
Anne Barrowclough 7.20am: Defence accuses Dems of ‘constitutional cancel culture’
Concluding Mr Trump’s defence, lead lawyer Bruce Castor accused the Democrats of bringing the impeachment to “cancel” the former president’s voice and to “criminalise” political viewpoints.
“This is the only existential issue before us,” Mr Castor said, speaking about Mr Trump’s address on January 6 before his supporters stormed the Capitol. “It asks for constitutional cancel culture to take over in the US Senate. Are you going to allow cancelling and banning and silencing to be sanctioned in this body?”
He added: “To the Democrats who view this as a moment of opportunity, I urge you instead to look to the principles of free expression and free speech
“I hope truly that the next time you are in the minority, you don’t find yourself in this position. To the Republicans in this chamber, I ask when you are next in the majority, please resist what will be an overwhelming temptation to do this very same thing to the opposing party.”
Anne Barrowclough 7.10am: Biden ‘anxious to see if Republicans stand up’
Joe Biden has told reporters he was “anxious to see” whether Republicans would “stand up” over Donald Trump’s impeachment.
Mr Biden has commented sparingly on the trial, refusing to say whether Mr Trump would be convicted and saying he was determined to push on with his agenda.
But after he and first lady Jill Biden took an unannounced walk to the North Lawn of the White House, where the first lady’s office had assembled a surprise Valentine’s Day display, reporters asked him again about the trial.
“I’m just anxious to see what my Republican friends do, if they stand up,” Mr Biden said.
Anne Barrowclough 6.55am: Lead Republican open to censuring Trump
Lead Republican Senator John Thune, has suggested he could be open to censuring Donald Trump, if the resolution was framed in an “effective” way.
“I know there are a couple of resolutions out there. … I’ve seen a couple of resolutions at least that I think could attract some support,” Mr Thune, the No. 2 republican senator, told reporters.
Pressed if he was saying the resolutions could get support from him, he said: “Yeah.”
Democrat Senator. Tim Kaine has drafted a censure resolution that would also include language from the 14th Amendment that he hopes could be used to bar Mr Trump from future office.
Talk of trying to censure Trump has circulated in the Senate for some time after it became clear that Mr Trump would be acquitted in his impeachment trial, with only a handful of Republicans appearing to support his conviction.
A censure motion would need 60, not 67 votes, meaning Democrats would only need 10 GOP votes rather than the 17 they would need for conviction.
Anne Barrowclough 6.45am: ’Convict Trump’ banner flies over Mar-a-Lago
If Mr Trump looked out of the window of his private club Mar-a-Lago in Florida today, he would have seen a banner calling for him to be locked up.
During a short break in proceedings, a group of key Republican senators, who have also been counselling the Trump legal team, discussed the “standard” of impeachment, CNN reports.
Senator Ted Cruz, from Texas, told his colleagues: “The House has their standard of impeachment, but standard is different on this side.”
Eliza Collins 6.30am: Defence show video of Trump threatening GOP senators
In an effort to provide more context to former President Trump’s remarks on January 6, his defence team played a lengthy video of Mr. Trump talking about primarying (mounting a primary-election challenge to) Republican politicians who disagreed with him.
The video showed the 20 times his lawyers said he used the word “fight,” not just the two the Democrats had focused on.
But in showing the longer video, the lawyer also reminded Republican senators that the president threatened to primary them if they didn’t try to overturn the results of the presidential election.
“We have to primary the hell out of the ones that don’t fight. You primary them. We’re gonna let you know who they are,” he said.
The video included Mr. Trump repeating false claims of election fraud and encouraging then-Vice President Mike Pence to block the electoral count in Congress certifying Joe Biden’s victory, which Mr. Pence declined to do.
Anne Barrowclough 6.20am: Defence wrong over ‘peaceful’ tweets
Trump lawyer Michael van der Veen has claimed that the first two tweets Mr Trump sent once the rioters stormed the Capitol urged people to “stay peaceful” and called for “no violence.”
However Mr Trump’s first tweet, at 2.24pm ET did not urge peace but attacked his Vice President. The tweet read: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”
Rioters had already entered the US Capitol building by the time Mr Trump sent this tweet.
His “stay peaceful” tweet came 14 minutes later at 2.38pm and his “no violence” tweet came nearly an hour after that first tweet, at 3.13pm.
The Trump team says his false claims that the election was rigged and his remarks before the riot are protected speech.
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) February 12, 2021
"The House managers' suggestion that the First Amendment does not apply to this impeachment process is completely untenable," lawyer Michael van der Veen said pic.twitter.com/H2L705Ktgr
The Trump team are also arguing that Mr Trump’s false claims the election was stolen from him are protected speech under the First Amendment.
Anne Barrowclough 5.55am: ‘Fight like hell’ a Democrat cry too
Donald Trump’s lawyers have showed a compilation video to argue that prominent Democrats have consistently used the word “fight” and the phrase “fight like hell” in several speeches and interviews, with a particular focus on Elizabeth Warren urging supporters to fight a number of times.
Donald Trump urged supporters to “fight like hell” in his infamous address before the Capitol riots. “Fight like hell. If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” he said.
The lawyers are arguing that he did not mean that supporters should go to the Capitol and create violent mayhem.
“The House managers spoke about rhetoric, about a constant drumbeat of heated language,” David Schoen said. “We need to show you some of their own words.”
Some of the statements shown in the video were made during media interviews or at rallies, although one did urge people to “fight in the courts, in the streets.”.
AS the clips were shown to Senators, Democrat senators laughed and nodded, The Wall St Journal reports.
Elizabeth Warren fidgeted with her pen and nodded along as clips of her flashed up and when the montage showed a clip of Jon Tester saying “damn right,” some Democrats broke into giggles. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Chris Coons started to whisper back and forth.
When a clip of Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer himself appeared on the screen, he smiled.
At the end, Ms Klobuchar raised her hands slightly and could be heard saying, “Aw!” as though disappointed it was over.
Anne Barrowclough 5.45am: Wildcard Republican: I have questions for Trump lawyers
As Donald Trump’s lawyers laid out their case, Republican senators listened intently. While yesterday 15 Republican seats were empty, today only three were, CNN reports.
President Trump’s lawyers presented their arguments, only three GOP seats were empty, CNN reports.
Wildcard Bill Cassidy, who on Wednesday (AEDT) voted with Democrats that the trial was constitutional, took notes throughout. Earlier today he told reporters He wanted to ask the defence team about a call Mr Trump made during the riots to Tommy Tuberville, a Republican from Alabama, to ask him to object to the Electoral College vote.
During the call, Mr Tuberville says he told Mr Trump that then Vice President Mike Pence was being evacuated. Shortly afterward, Mr Trump tweeted: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”
“The President clearly had knowledge at that point and then the tweet went out,” Mr Cassidy said.
Bernie Sanders said he would ask the Trump team if they believed his claim that the election was stolen.
When Trump lawyer David Schoen brought up what he alleged was manipulation by House managers, lead House impeachment manager Jamie Raskin also began scribbling in his notepad furiously.
Eliza Collins 5.25am: Democrats ‘manipulated evidence’ during prosecution
Donald Trump’s lawyer David Schoen accused House Democrats of manipulating evidence and showing selectively edited videos and images during their presentation.
“We have reason to believe the House managers manipulated evidence and selectively edited footage,” Mr. Schoen said.
One example Mr. Schoen used was comments Mr. Trump made after violent, racially charged protests in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017.
Video of Mr. Trump saying there were “very fine people, on both sides” was condemned by Democrats and Republicans at the time. President Biden has said that moment inspired him to run for president.
Mr. Trump’s lawyer did not dispute the comment, which Democrats aired during their trial presentation. But Mr. Schoen said Democrats did not include video of Mr. Trump also saying that what took place in Charlottesville was “a horrible moment for our country,” and that some people had been there to protest peacefully and were not neo-Nazis or white nationalists.
Eliza Collins 5.20am: ‘Dems called for violence too’
Michael van der Veen played a video compilation of remarks from Mr. Trump saying he stood for law and order and of Democrats — including now President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — talking about the racial justice protests this summer, some of which turned violent.
“There needs to be unrest in the streets for as long as there is unrest in our lives,” said Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D., Mass.) in one video clip.
The video also included other comments made from Democrats, such as Mr. Biden during his campaign about beating Mr. Trump up behind a gym.
Mr. van der Veen said comments Democrats had seized on from Mr. Trump’s speech on Jan. 6 were just ordinary political rhetoric. Mr. van der Veen compared it to Mr. Biden’s campaign slogan “Battle for the Soul of America.”
Mr. Trump on Jan. 6 said, “Fight like hell. If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Mr. van der Veen said the riot on Jan. 6 was a small mob and questioned the political affiliation of those who had participated. The Wall Street Journal has reported that the far-right organisation the Proud Boys, seizing on Mr. Trump’s call, helped lead the Capitol attack.
Eliza Collins 5.00am: Trump lawyer: Trial a ‘witch hunt’
Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael T. van der Veen has opened the defence, declaring the impeachment article the Senate was considering “an unjust and blatantly unconstitutional act of political vengeance.”
“Like every other politically motivated witch hunt the left has engaged in over the past four years, this impeachment is completely divorced from the facts, the evidence, and the interests of the American people,” Mr. van der Veen said.
He disputed Democrats’ claim that Mr. Trump’s comments during the “Stop the Steal” rally Jan. 6 ignited the rioters who stormed the Capitol. Some Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, have said the president’s comments provoked the mob.
“No thinking person could seriously believe that the president’s Jan. 6 speech on the Ellipse was in any way an incitement to violence or insurrection,” Mr. van der Veen said. “Far from promoting insurrection against the United States, the president’s remarks explicitly encouraged those in attendance to exercise their rights peacefully and patriotically.”
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