[ad_1]
On the second day of this historic trial, prosecution leaders set out to place the attack on Capitol Hill in the context of Donald Trump’s post-election crusade to challenge rival Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election.
The former real estate mogul, who is retiring in Florida, declined to testify before senators. But his voice continued to resonate in the upper house of Congress, where the prosecution screened many excerpts from his heated speeches, reproduced his incendiary tweets and cited his most controversial words.
The facts show that “President Trump was not an innocent witness in an accident,” as his lawyers suggest, but rather “renounced his role as commander-in-chief to become the instigator and leader of a dangerous insurgency,” Jamie summarized. Raskin, who leads this prosecution team.
“The great lie”
“Donald Trump has committed an enormous crime against our Constitution and our people,” and “must be condemned by the United States Senate,” which would make him ineligible, the Raskin Democrats said.
Though he’s unlikely to convince two-thirds of senators to find him guilty, a high threshold set by the Constitution, Democratic senators aim to at least make an impression during these live hearings across the United States.
The “big lie”: this is how they described the long campaign of disinformation about the presidential elections carried out by the 45th US president who repeated, without proof, that he was the victim of massive electoral fraud.
After the failure of his legal actions and his multiple pressures on electoral agents in key states, “President Trump was deprived of non-violent options to remain in power,” said Senator Ted Lieu.
He then addressed “groups he has been cultivating for months,” such as the far-right group Proud Boys, several of whose members were among the Capitol attackers, his colleague Stacey Plaskett added, recalling that the president had called them in October. be prepared”.
“Absurd,” say Trump’s lawyers
At the beginning of the process, the prosecutors focused on the fateful January 6, broadcasting a shocking video to commemorate the violence of the attack on the Capitol, in which five people died.
His montage juxtaposed the president’s speech in front of the protesters gathered in Washington (“fight like hell”) and images of protesters forcing the Capitol into the halls in search of legislators.
To say that the former president could be responsible for the violence of a “small group of criminals” is “absolutely incomprehensible” and “simply absurd,” his lawyers insisted in writing on Monday. They note that Trump “urged them to remain in peace.”
“I reviewed the 11,000 words of his speech, the president used the term ‘peaceful’ only once, in the face of more than 20 exhortations” to fight, “Madeleine Dean responded on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, the debates centered on a point of law: can we try a former president in the context of the impeachment procedure?
This issue was finally decided by a simple majority: in addition to the 50 Democrats, six Republican senators thought that the process could continue.
If this balance of power is confirmed in the final vote, Donald Trump will be acquitted, as in his first impeachment proceedings a year ago, as it would take 67 votes to convict him.
But his horizon will remain the same: in addition to the investigations into his cases in New York, a Georgia prosecutor announced on Wednesday the opening of an investigation into the pressure he has exerted on electoral officials in this key state.
