And it WILL be a three ring circus having little to do with the violent actions of January 6 at the nation’s Capitol, which is were the court room will be for the trial…
The nine House impeachment managers leading Trump’s prosecution made clear in an 80-page brief filed last week that they will argue that his role in inspiring the crowd to action began long before the 70-minute speech he gave that day.
They assert that the violence was virtually inevitable after Trump spent months falsely claiming that the election had been stolen from him.
“He amplified these lies at every turn, seeking to convince supporters that they were victims of a massive electoral conspiracy that threatened the Nation’s continued existence,” the House impeachment managers wrote.
After refusing to take the “honorable path” and admit defeat in the election, they wrote, Trump “summoned a mob to Washington, exhorted them into a frenzy and aimed them like a loaded cannon down Pennsylvania Avenue.”.
Evidence to bolster the Democratic case has already emerged in federal criminal cases filed against more than 185 people so far in the aftermath of the insurrection.
Trump’s pull on his supporters is a dominant theme. Court documents show that more than two dozen people charged in the attack specifically cited Trump and his calls to gather that day in describing on social media or in conversations with others why they decided to take action by coming to Washington.
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Trump’s lawyers have denied that his attacks on the 2020 election can be proved false — or that his comments in the run-up to Jan. 6 or at his rally that day constituted incitement.
“The 45th President exercised his First Amendment right under the Constitution to express his belief that the election results were suspect,” attorneys Bruce Castor Jr. and David Schoen wrote in a response to the trial summons.
In addition to arguing that the Constitution does not allow a former president to be tried in a Senate impeachment proceeding, Trump’s defenders have sought to parse the language of the fiery speech he delivered shortly before the riot. His lawyers argue that while Trump called on the crowd to “march” to the Capitol, he did not urge them to attack and, at one point, asked them to act “peacefully.”
And they have sought to focus just on his remarks that day. In a tweet last month, Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. wrote that if some rioters were planning an attack in advance, then “POTUS didn’t incite anything.”
Barring a dramatic development, House impeachment managers appear unlikely to secure a conviction. A majority of Republican senators have signaled that they plan to vote against such a move….
Update….
Biden’s strategy for Trump’s impeachment: Sit back and STFU
It “just makes no sense” for him to engage…..
Washington may be consumed by Donald Trump’s impeachment trial this week, but the White House has a decidedly different view of it: Impeachment? What impeachment?
The Biden team has shut down question after question about where Biden stands on this week’s trial, even with its massive historical, constitutional and political ramifications. On Monday, press secretary Jen Psaki wouldn’t even say whether the president would receive daily updates on the trial’s progress….