U.S. congressional senators ask questions for about 16 hours on the impeachment of President Donald Trump (Trump) over two days on January 29 and 30, 2020, pictured at the impeachment trial.
U.S. House of Representatives Democratic impeachment representatives (managers) submitted an 80-page impeachment trial memorandum on Feb. 2, arguing that former President Donald Trump (Trump) should be convicted. Trump’s defense team also submitted a rebuttal, arguing that the impeachment was unconstitutional, Trump was innocent, and the charges should be dropped.
The House of Representatives passed a bill of impeachment last month largely along party lines, saying that former President Trump incited a mob to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, committing “high crimes and misdemeanors”; Trump became the only one ever to be held by the Democratic Party. Trump became the only Republican president ever to be impeached twice by the Democrat-held House of Representatives.
The House is suspected of selectively citing evidence against Trump
“After months of spreading his Big Lie that he won a landslide victory in the 2020 election, before and on January 6, 2021, President Trump called, gathered and incited a mob to attack the Capitol, killing three police officers and four others, threatening the Vice President and Congress, and successfully calling off the Electoral College vote count. ” Democratic impeachment representatives wrote in a joint statement issued.
The inquest memo also cited portions of Trump’s Jan. 6 speech in Washington as evidence that he incited the rebellion. For example, the impeachment materials say Trump told followers to “fight like hell [or] you’re not going to have a country anymore. (country anymore).
Compare that to Trump’s live public speech on Jan. 6, when he said this about his team’s challenge to the election results in court. “We’re going to fight to the end. If you don’t fight to the end, you won’t have a country anymore.” (We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.)
The interrogation memos also suffer from selective use of quotes from Trump. For example, they quoted Trump as saying, “You can never take back our country with weakness. You must show strength, you must be strong.” (You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.)
But the memo did not mention Trump’s previous line, which was directed at members of Congress preparing to challenge the election results, not at the people at the rally.
According to a transcript of Trump’s Jan. 6 public speech, his context at the Time reads as follows: “I know that everyone here will soon be marching toward the Capitol to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard …… anyone, if you want, and I think right here, we’re going to walk to the Capitol and we’re going to fight for our brave senators and congressmen and congresswomen, (but) we may not cheer as much for some of them. Because you can never take back our country with weakness. You must show strength, and you must be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count those electors who are legally provided for, legally provided for.”
House adds impeachment argument Impeachment of outgoing president not unconstitutional
The 80-page impeachment memo filed by the House on Tuesday also makes an argument as to why an impeachment trial of an outgoing president (in his civilian capacity) is constitutional.
In response to the question most questioned by senators, whether impeaching an outgoing president is unconstitutional, the House memo said it is constitutional to try Trump in the Senate because the framers of the Constitution tailored the prospect of former officials being tried after leaving office; Democrats also cited examples of former officials being tried in British and colonial history.
“As revolutionaries who overthrew kings, the Framers worked to protect their young republic from abuses of power. Based on the history of impeachment in Britain and the early states of the United States, it is axiomatic that they would argue that former officials like President Trump could be impeached and tried for felonies and demeanor committed while in office.” The House’s impeachment memo reads.
Trump Lawyers Rebut Public Speaking Protected by First Amendment
For their part, Trump’s team of impeachment defense lawyers rejected each of the House provisions, with Trump lawyers saying, first, that impeaching a former president is an unconstitutional act and calling on the Senate to drop the charges. Second, the rioters were planning to storm the Capitol before Trump gave his speech, and a Senate conviction of Trump would set a precedent that could severely limit future political speech. Third, Trump has consistently taken a stand to condemn violence.
The lawyers rejected the House impeachment representatives’ claim that Trump’s “fight to the end” rhetoric had nothing to do with the violence at the Capitol, as evidenced by recorded speeches; at the same time, the lawyers denied that President Trump intended to interfere with the counting of congressional votes in the election at the time.
The lawyers emphasized that Trump’s speech at the rally on Jan. 6 was protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.
President Trump has been condemning the violence,” said David Schoen, Trump’s lead attorney for the impeachment debate. Read the words of his speech. (He) called for peace. This (congressional violence) has nothing to do with President Trump.”
According to a timeline of the Jan. 6 incident compiled by The Epoch Times, there was a break-in at the Capitol even before Trump finished his rally speech. As the incident escalated, Trump took to Twitter continuously throughout that afternoon to call for peace and respect for law enforcement.
Following the incident, Trump denounced “violence, lawlessness and chaos” and said those who “infiltrated the Capitol have tarnished the seat of American democracy.
Later, the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also announced that they had charged the protesters who conspired to break into the Capitol in the days before the incident, and the Justice Department’s charges indirectly challenged the mainstream media’s claim that Trump’s Jan. 6 speech was an incitement to violence.
U.S. legal and intelligence experts also say there is growing evidence that the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 were pre-planned and coordinated, claiming that the rioters were incited by former President Trump, who was speaking to supporters 1.5 miles away at the time – a connection that has been increasingly undermined; and that the key to conviction is whether Trump had advance knew about the planning of the violence on Capitol Hill, and whether the violence would have occurred even without Trump’s speech that day.
Senators React to Possible Request to Call Witnesses for Extended Trials
Republicans are unhappy with the Democratic-led rush to impeach, arguing that the impeachment of Trump was launched without due process – no formal hearings, no evidence, no witnesses, no cross-examination.
Similarly, the Democrat-held House sent the second impeachment to the Senate in less than 2 weeks, and the House also had this time: the presidential swearing-in of new President Joe Biden and the Senate hearing several of Biden’s cabinet nominees. The first impeachment stayed in the hands of the House for four weeks.
“This impeachment was brought up by the House side in the most expeditious and streamlined process ever,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said publicly last month, “(but the next) sequel cannot be that the Senate, without adequate process just deny former President Trump due process or compromise the Senate or the presidency itself.”
Lindsey Graham, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has warned his fellow Democrats on Monday (Feb. 1) not to oppose calling witnesses during impeachment hearings and could ask the FBI to testify and prolong them.
“If you open a can of worms, we would want the FBI to step in and have them come in and tell us how people premeditated this attack and what exactly went wrong with the security of the Capitol.” Graham told Fox News on Monday, “If you call a witness, then you open Pandora’s box.”
Under Senate rules, the Senate must essentially stop all other work in progress as soon as an impeachment trial begins. Graham has accordingly denied a request by Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) for a Feb. 8 confirmation hearing for Merrick Garland, President Biden’s nominee for attorney general.
In his letter to Durbin, Graham wrote that there was not enough time to hold a one-day confirmation hearing the day before the impeachment trial.
Senate President Pro Tempore Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) will preside over Trump’s impeachment hearing in place of Supreme Court Justice John Roberts (R-Va.), with the formal hearing beginning Feb. 8.
During the trial, representatives of the House of Representatives will be selected to bring the case against President Trump, while President Trump’s legal team will conduct the defense and senators will serve as jurors. The entire impeachment process is lengthy and will be scheduled for six days a week for a maximum of six to eight weeks of defense and trial.
According to the Constitution, a two-thirds vote in favor of the Senate is required to decide impeachment or not.
Although there are no clear figures on how many Republican senators would agree with Trump’s impeachment charges, based on the unanimous vote in the House and the new 50-50 pattern in the Senate, the likelihood of securing a certain number of affirmative votes from Senate Republicans and ultimately convicting President Trump remains extremely low.
Forty-five Republican senators voted for a resolution last month saying the Senate’s impeachment trial violated constitutional procedures because Trump is no longer president. Democrats need 17 Republican endorsements to ensure a final conviction for Trump, and currently, they have up to five votes.
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