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Democrats Close Impeachment Case Using Trump’s Words Against Him
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February 11, 2021
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3:24Now PlayingHouse prosecutors concluded their case for convicting Donald Trump in his Senate impeachment trial, saying they’ve proven that the former president is guilty of inciting an insurrection when a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
“Senators, America, we need to exercise our common sense about what happened,” Representative Jamie Raskin, the lead impeachment manager, said in the Democrats final arguments. “Let’s not get caught up in a lot of outlandish lawyers’ theories here. Exercise your common sense about what just took place in our country.”
House managers spent three days highlighting Trump’s own tweets, speeches and comments to argue that his months-long campaign to stoke anger about the Nov. 3 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. The attempt to overturn the results with “the big lie” the election was stolen culminated in the riot he did nothing to prevent or stop, they argued.
Trump’s lawyers are expected to present their defense on Friday and may only need one day for their arguments, which will include video presentations after House managers played gripping footage of the assault on the Capitol and violent attacks on police officers.
The former president is “very upbeat” as his defense team prepares to present its case, David Schoen, one of his lawyers, said. He said in a Fox News interview that the nation will “be moved” by what they will see when the defense team takes over. He dismissed the edited package of videos presented by the House impeachment managers.
“This is what you get when you bring in a movie company and hire a large law firm to make a professional product that takes things out of context and presents it as an entertainment package,” Schoen said.
While some Republicans said the Democrats’ presentation was very effective, there was little sign that enough of them would be moved to convict Trump. Forty-four of 50 Republicans have already voted twice to indicate they view the trial of a president already out of office as unconstitutional. At least 17 GOP votes would be needed to reach the two-thirds majority necessary for conviction.
Biden, who has avoided comment on the impeachment proceedings, said in brief remarks to reporters Thursday that “some minds may have been changed” by the vivid case presented by House impeachment managers.
But Senator Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the chamber, said that he saw little evidence that more Republicans would join with Democrats to convict Trump of inciting an insurrection.
“Many of them are loyal to Donald Trump even to this day, despite what he may have said about them or their families in the past,” Durbin said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “And more of them are afraid of Donald Trump’s political power.”
GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress, suggested the prosecution was futile, with most of his Republican colleagues already decided against conviction. He said he had assured the former president “the case is over” and “it’s just a matter of getting the final verdict.”
Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma said the impeachment managers “did not connect the dots” for him Thursday in tying Trump’s words to the insurrection.
Democrats used their final day of arguments in Trump’s Senate trial to cement the link between Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric and the insurrection at the Capitol by highlighting the words of the insurrectionists, which House managers said show they were following the orders of Trump.
The House impeachment managers also said Trump inspired or condoned the domestic extremist plot to kidnap Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, the protests at state capitals around the country and the threats that required more than 25,000 National Guard troops to lock down Washington for Biden’s inauguration.
They said he must be convicted to prevent a future president from following the same destructive path.
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