Biden Stimulus May Be Democrat-Only Despite Cordial GOP Meeting

There is no question that Donald Trump incited an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in an effort to stop the peaceful transfer of power, according to the initial argument from Democrats serving as prosecutors in the unprecedented second impeachment trial of the former president.

The nine House impeachment managers filed an 80-page brief Tuesday outlining their case for the single charge of inciting an insurrection when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 as Electoral College votes were being ratified, a violent siege that left five people dead.

House managers said Trump and his allies tried to overturn his Nov. 3 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, claiming without evidence there was a massive Democratic conspiracy to steal the election and trying unsuccessfully to get courts and elected Republicans to intervene. When those efforts failed, he incited the attack on the Capitol, the brief said.

“President Trump’s responsibility for the events of January 6 is unmistakable,” the managers said in their brief. “If provoking an insurrectionary riot against a Joint Session of Congress after losing an election is not an impeachable offense, it is hard to imagine what would be.”

Tuesday is the deadline for House managers to file their trial brief and for the former president’s legal team to file an initial response to the the Jan. 13 House impeachment. Trump’s second Senate trial is set to begin next week.

With two-thirds of the Senate needed for a conviction, at least 17 Republicans would have to vote with all 50 Democrats to find Trump guilty and potentially disqualify him from holding office again. In what amounted to a test vote, only five Republican senators voted with Democrats last week to block an effort to declare Trump’s impeachment trial unconstitutional.

The former president’s legal team is expected to argue that the trial is unconstitutional because Trump is no longer in office and that his Jan. 6 speech before the mob attacked the Capitol did not incite the violence and is protected by the First Amendment.

“This is the political weaponization of the impeachment process,” Trump attorney David Schoen said on Fox News on Monday night. “We don’t use our political preferences to tear down the Constitution.”

The House managers rejected the argument that Trump cannot be convicted because he is no longer in office, saying that he was still president when the House voted to impeach him. Invoking the authors of the Constitution, they argued there can be no impeachment exception for actions taken right before a president leaves office.

“It is unthinkable that those same Framers left us virtually defenseless against a president’s treachery in his final days, allowing him to misuse power, violate his Oath, and incite insurrection against Congress and our electoral institutions simply because he is a lame duck,” the managers’ brief says. “There is no “January Exception” to impeachment or any other provision of the Constitution.”

Democrats also sought to confront defense arguments that evidence showing some in the mob had planned action at the Capitol before the rally mean Trump’s words did not spark the insurrection. They cite his actions prior to Jan. 6 in “improperly pressuring state officials,” the Department of Justice and members of Congress to overturn the election outcome, insisting the election had been rigged or stolen.

“Indeed, it was obvious and entirely foreseeable that the furious crowd assembled before President Trump at the ‘Save America Rally’ on January 6 was primed (and prepared) for violence if he lit a spark,” the managers argue.

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