(GNB Desk): The second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump started Tuesday in the U.S. Senate. The impeachment trail will examine the events leading up to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6 and whether Trump acted alone in encouraging his supporters to storm the Capitol.
One week after the riot, Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives, becoming the first president to be impeached twice.
Trump would not be allowed to hold office in the future, keeping him from running for president in 2024, only If convicted by the Senate.
Former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial over inciting the January 6 Capitol riot is underway.
Below are the latest updates on the trial.
On Wednesday, House impeachment manager Joaquin Castro addresses a big data point that’s been cited in Trump’s defense: a tweet well into the attack when Trump finally urged people to respect the police and “stay peaceful.”
Castro shows one of Trump’s tweets alongside what was happening at the time at the Capitol, including video of rioters violently attacking police and grabbing a mask off one officer’s face, who was being squeezed in a door. Trump’s tweet said: “I am asking for everyone at the US Capitol to remain peaceful… Thank you!” “Thank you for what?” says Castro on the Senate floor. “Thank you for injuring more than 140 police officers? Thank you for putting in danger all of our lives and the lives of our families? How about instead of thank you, Trump on that day acted like our commander in chief and stopped this as only he could and told those people to leave.”
It was long after things had turned violent, and as Castro notes, multiple Trump allies publicly and privately begged him to condemn the rioters and tell them to stop the attack without ambiguity.
A clip of Congressman Mike Gallagher on Fox News comparing the violence to what he had seen in Iraq was shown. Even then, Trump would just tweet a reminder that “WE are the party of Law & Order” and ask the mob to be peaceful. To the extent that Trump was willing to upbraid the people he had riled up for months, it sounded like a tactical tip from the coach rather than an order to stand down.
After noting Trump’s lack of involvement in the decision to bring in National Guard units to back up the police, Castro addresses his tweet four-and-a-half hour after the attack began telling the mob to “go home,” after reminding them of the righteousness of their causes and telling them “I love you.” And with their description of Trump’s conduct, the impeachment managers wrapped for the day.
In one of the slides from the first minutes of the attack, Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman can be seen on surveillance footage sprinting down a hallway to meet the rioters as they breached the doors, warning Utah Senator Mitt Romney to get to safety. Goodman would lead the rioters up a set of stairs and away from the Senate chamber.
Castro shows how Trump “fueled the fire” of rioters’ threats against Vice President Mike Pence. In a video of the riots — shortly after Trump’s speech, in which he called out Pence 11 times — crowds outside the Capitol are heard chanting “hang Mike Pence.”
On Jan. 6, an hour and a half after rioters breached police lines, Trump tweeted: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should’ve been done.” Castro plays video showing a rioter reading out Trump’s tweet through a megaphone to the rowdy crowd. Another clip shows a rioter inside the Capitol, from which Pence and his family had to be evacuated, saying: “Mike Pence, we’re coming for you.”
Trump tweeted about Vice President Pence not having “courage” more than an hour after the Capitol attack began. Rep. Joaquin Castro plays a clip of a rioter reading Trump’s tweet word-for-word through a megaphone — followed by rioters searching for Pence.
David Cicilline, picking up the impeachment managers’ presentation, is focusing on Trump, and again, is hammering in the point that at a time when he should have been condemning the riot and the rioters, did nothing. “The only person he condemned that day was his own vice president, Mike Pence, who was hiding in the Capitol with his family.”
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