THE historic second impeachment case of former president Donald Trump opened in the US Senate yesterday, with prosecuting Democrat representatives arguing he should be convicted for inciting a violent mob of his supporters to attack the Capitol on January 6.
After hearing a rambling 48-minute speech in defence of Trump by his lawyer Bruce Castor, last night the Senate voted 56-44 that the trial was constiutional and should proceed, meaning that six Republican senators voted to try their former President.
The impeachment case will now proceed to the formal trial stage at noon (Eastern Time), 5pm GMT.
Perhaps appropriately for the former reality television star, the proceedings yesterday opened with a dramatic video of the devastating attack on the Capitol, including horrific scenes of mob violence against police and the shooting of Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt, one of five people to die on the day.
The video included a clip of Trump telling the rioters on January 6: “We love you. You’re very special.”
After the video concluded, lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin, a Democrat representative from Maryland, said the footage from January 6 made it clear that Donald Trump had violated his oath of office by inciting insurrection.
Raskin said: “You ask what a high crime and misdemeanour is under our Constitution? That’s a high crime and misdemeanour – if that’s not an impeachable offence, then there’s no such thing.”
Raskin said the Framers of the Constitution included the mechanism of impeachment because they feared a leader would seek to subvert democracy in the way that Trump attempted to.
He said: “President Trump may not know much about the Framers, but they knew a lot about him.”
Trump’s legal team had already lodged a defence that the Senate has no jurisdiction to conduct an impeachment trial because the former president has already left office.
Raskin argued that Trump had committed his offences and been impeached while in office and could still be tried.
He added: “There can be no doubt that the Senate has the power, the sole power to try all impeachments.
“It most certainly has jurisdiction to try this one.”
In a powerful address to the Senate, Democrat representative David Cicilline read out Trump’s tweet at 6.01pm on January 6: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly and unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love and in peace. Remember this day for ever.”
Cicilline said: “Every time I read that tweet it chills me to the core. The president of the United States sided with the insurrectionists, he celebrated their cause, he validated their attack, he told them remember this day forever hours after they marched though these halls looking to assassinate vice president Pence, the Speaker of the House and any of us they could find.”
The defence team argued that putting Trump on trial was not only unconstititional but would open "new and bigger wounds across the nation" and was only going ahead because the Democratic Party was scared of having to face Trump in the next election.
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