House Democrats prosecuting Donald Trump's impeachment said the Capitol invaders believed they were acting on "the president's orders" to stop Joe Biden's election, arguing it was the culmination of the defeated president's pattern of spreading false and violent rhetoric that will continue to vex American politics if left unchecked.
The prosecutors described in stark, personal terms the horror faced that day, some of it in the very Senate chamber where Mr Trump's trial is underway.
They displayed the many public and explicit instructions Mr Trump gave his supporters — long before the White House rally that unleashed the deadly Capitol attack as Congress was certifying Biden's victory.
Five people died in the chaos and its aftermath, a domestic attack unparalleled in US history.
LIVE UPDATES: Donald Trump impeachment trial continues
Videos of rioters, some posted to social medial by themselves, talked about how they were doing it all for Mr Trump.
"What makes you think the nightmare with Donald Trump and his law-breaking and violent mobs is over?" asked Rep. Jamie Raskin, the lead prosecutor. He said earlier, "When Donald Trump tells the crowd as he did on January 6, 'Fight like hell, or you won't have a country anymore,' he meant for them to 'fight like hell.'"
Mr Trump's lawyers will launch their defence on Friday (local time), and the trial could finish by the weekend.
READ MORE: Chilling new footage details how Capitol riot played out
Prosecutors wrapped up an emotional two days of opening arguments, with Mr Trump's defence to take the floor on Friday (local time).
The proceedings could wind up with a vote this weekend. The Democrats, with little hope of conviction by two-thirds of the Senate, are making their most graphic case to the American public, while Mr Trump's lawyers are focused on legal rather than emotional or historic questions, hoping to get it all behind him as quickly as possible.
At the White House, President Joe Biden said he believed "some minds may be changed" after senators saw chilling security video Wednesday of the deadly insurrection at the Capitol, including of rioters searching menacingly for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence.
Mr Biden said he didn't watch any of the previous day's proceedings live but later saw news coverage.
This second impeachment trial, on the charge of incitement of insurrection, has echoes of last year's impeachment over the Ukraine matter, as prosecutors warn senators that left unchecked Mr Trump poses a danger to the civic order.
READ MORE: Biden reveals first call with Chinese leader
Even out of office, the former president holds influence over large swaths of voters.
The prosecutors on Thursday drew a direct line from his repeated comments condoning and even celebrating violence — praising "both sides" after the 2017 outbreak at the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and urging his rally crowd last month to go to the Capitol and fight for his presidency.
"There's a pattern staring us in the face," said Representative Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the lead prosecutor.
"When Donald Trump tells the crowd as he did on January 6 to fight like hell, or you won't have a country anymore. He meant for them to fight like hell."
Lawyers for Mr Trump will argue later this week that his words were protected by the Constitution's First Amendment and just a figure of speech.
READ MORE: 'Trump left everyone in this Capitol for dead': President failed to call off rioters
Though most of the Senate jurors seem to have made up their minds, making Mr Trump's acquittal likely, the never-before-seen audio and video released Wednesday is now a key exhibit in Mr Trump's impeachment trial as legislators prosecuting the case argue Mr Trump should be convicted of inciting the siege.
Senators sat riveted as the jarring video played in the chamber.
Senators shook their heads, folded their arms and furrowed their brow.
Screams from the audio and video filled the Senate chamber.
Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma bent his head at one point, another GOP colleague putting his hand on his arm in comfort.
Senator Mitt Romney, R-Utah, saw himself in the footage, dashing down a hallway to avoid the mob.
Mr Romney said he hadn't realised that officer Eugene Goodman, who has been praised as a hero for luring rioters away from the Senate doors, had been the one to direct him to safety.
"That was overwhelmingly distressing and emotional," he said.
Videos of the siege have been circulating since the day of the riot, but the graphic compilation shown to senators Wednesday amounted to a more complete narrative, a moment-by-moment retelling of one of the nation's most alarming days.
READ MORE: Senators to hear opening arguments as Trump fumes over trial
In addition to the evident chaos and danger, it offered fresh details on the attackers, scenes of police heroism and cries of distress.
And it underscored how dangerously close the rioters came to the nation's leaders, shifting the focus of the trial from an academic debate about the Constitution to a raw retelling of the assault.
The footage showed the mob smashing into the building, rioters engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police and audio of Capitol police officers pleading for back-up.
Rioters were seen roaming the halls chanting "Hang Mike Pence," and eerily singing out "Where's Nancy?" in search for Ms Pelosi.
Mr Pence, who had been presiding over a session to certify Mr Biden's election victory over Trump — thus earning Mr Trump's censure — was shown being rushed to safety, where he sheltered in an office with his family just 100 feet from the rioters.
Ms Pelosi was seen being evacuated from the complex as her staff hid behind doors in her suite of offices.
"President Trump put a target on their backs and his mob broke into the Capitol to hunt them down," said House prosecutor Stacey Plaskett, the Democratic delegate representing the Virgin Islands.
The goal of the presentation was to cast Mr Trump not as an innocent bystander but rather as the "inciter in chief" who spent months spreading falsehoods about the election.
READ MORE: Biden announces Pentagon taskforce to review China strategy
"This attack never would have happened, but for Donald Trump," Representative Madeleine Dean, one of the impeachment managers, said as she choked back emotion.
"And so they came, draped in Trump's flag, and used our flag, the American flag, to batter and to bludgeon."
The difficulty facing Mr Trump's defence became apparent at the start as his lawyers leaned on the process of the trial, unlike any other, rather than the substance of the case against the former president.
Mr Trump's lawyers are likely to blame the rioters themselves for the violence.
The first president to face an impeachment trial after leaving office, Mr Trump is also the first to be twice impeached.
His lawyers also say he cannot be convicted because he is already gone from the White House.
READ MORE: What our Aussie cities used to look like
Even though the Senate rejected that argument in Tuesday's vote to proceed to the trial, the legal issue could resonate with Senate Republicans eager to acquit Mr Trump without being seen as condoning his behavior.
While six Republicans joined with Democrats to vote to proceed with the trial on Tuesday, the 56-44 vote was far from the two-thirds threshold of 67 votes needed for conviction.
Minds did not seem to be changing Wednesday, even after senators watched the graphic video.
Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who was among those leading the effort to challenge the Electoral College tally, said, "The president's rhetoric is at times overheated, but this is not a referendum on whether you agree with everything the president says or tweets."
It appears unlikely that the House prosecutors will call witnesses, and Mr Trump has declined a request to testify.
Mr Trump's second impeachment trial is expected to diverge from the lengthy, complicated affair of a year ago.
In that case, Mr Trump was charged with having privately pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden, then a Democratic rival for the presidency.
The Democratic-led House impeached the president swiftly, one week after the attack.
from 9News https://ift.tt/2OpNjBn
via IFTTT
0 Comments