Category: US Senate

A running tally of Trump’s misleading impeachment defense

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“Contrast the President’s repeated condemnations of violence with the rhetoric from his opponents.”

— Former president Donald Trump’s defense lawyer Michael T. van der Veen, introducing an edited video montage featuring several Democratic lawmakers out of context, Feb. 12

For the past few days, House managers have taken great pains to connect the dots between Trump’s rhetoric leading up and after the deadly Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol. Lawmakers came armed with hours of source video, a barrage of presidential tweets and never-before-seen surveillance video of the attack. Their case to prove Trump indeed incited the violence of Jan. 6 has hinged on the concept that words, and more importantly context, matter.

Trump’s defense team has responded by arguing the House managers took Trump’s remarks out of context — and offered its own series of clips. But these often were taken out of context. Continue reading.

In an avalanche of words, there’s no sign of regret from Trump

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The first day of the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump began in silence and dignity. It ended with a tale of grievance and fury told by a team of last-minute lawyers who looked and sounded more than a little worse for wear.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Democratic House managers marched soberly through Statuary Hall and onto the Senate floor. The assembled legislators voted on the rules of the proceedings and then the managers, in their rainbow of tailored gray suits, took to the microphone to analyze, parse and massage a multitude of words focused on interpreting the intent of the Constitution, the mind-set of the former president and the meaning of the noun “person.” They even coined a new phrase for the occasion: January exception.

The House managers spent the bulk of their allotted time explaining precisely why Trump’s impeachment trial was constitutional. And in arguing their case, they quoted from the history books and from modern legal scholars. They appealed to a sense of logic, noting that if a former president could not be held to account by the Senate, then sitting presidents could simply save their most egregious behavior for the final weeks of their administration and then go wild without fear of repercussions. Continue reading.

‘It was inciting,’ ‘provoked by the president’: What GOP senators said before about Trump’s culpability for the Capitol riot

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Republican senators sent their latest signal Tuesday that former president Donald Trump is headed for acquittal in his impeachment trial, with 44 out of 50 of them voting that the Senate doesn’t have jurisdiction to try him. The Republican National Committee followed that up by distributing talking pointsfrom Trump’s legal team.

“Nothing the president said on January 6 was inciteful, let alone impeachable,” one of them read, “and in fact, President Trump urged supporters to exercise their rights ‘peacefully and patriotically.’ ”

That first part might be news to some of the party’s top leaders, though. Although the GOP has rallied around Trump lately, even many GOP senators who appear likely to acquit him have said Trump bore at least some blame for the events of Jan. 6. And that poses problems as Trump’s defense moves beyond constitutionality and into culpability. Continue reading.

Impeachment trial recap, day 2: House managers air unseen riot footage

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House impeachment managers began presenting their prosecution of former President Trump on Wednesday, laying out their evidence — including previously unseen Capitol security footage from the Jan. 6 insurrection — before a divided Senate.

The big picture: One by one, managers detailed how Trump laid the groundwork for his supporters to believe “the big lie” — that the election would be stolen — for months leading up to the attack. Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) called Trump’s false claims “the drumbeat being used to inspire, instigate, and ignite them,” stressing that the incitement didn’t just begin with the president’s speech on Jan. 6.

Highlights:

  • Lead impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) opened by stating the evidence his team will present demonstrates that Trump was “no innocent bystander”— and that he “assembled, inflamed and incited his followers” on his way to the “greatest betrayal of the presidential oath in the history of the United States.”

Trump’s Senate allies Graham, Lee and Cruz huddle with defense team

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After the Senate trial adjourned Thursday, three of Donald Trump’s chamber allies, Sens. Lindsey O. Graham, Mike Lee and Ted Cruz, were seen entering a room to meet with the former president’s attorneys.

After their meeting, Trump attorney David Schoen told reporters the senators were just “talking about procedure,” called them “friendly guys” and said they did not tip him off to questions they would be asking.

They discussed “just how this format goes, you know, the question-and-answer period, all that,” Schoen said. “And then just talking about where they’re from and all that, but it’s just very nice. I said to them it was a great honor to have the opportunity to talk to them.” Continue reading.

Four takeaways from Day 3 of Trump’s impeachment trial

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Day three of former president Donald Trump’s impeachment trialfeatured the remainder of Democratic House impeachment managers’ case against Trump.

Below, some takeaways.

1. A novel appeal to GOP senators about the consequences of acquittal

If there is one quote that summed up the Democrats’ argument for conviction of Trump, it came Thursday from Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.).

The fact that Trump is no longer in office renders the biggest punishment of the impeachment process — removal from office — moot. Beyond that, it’s about sanctioning him and preventing Trump from being able to hold high office again. Continue reading.

On a day of legal wrangling, the trauma of Jan. 6 becomes the centerpiece of Trump impeachment trial

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The second impeachment trial of Donald Trump opened Tuesday heading toward what seemed a preordained conclusion. But as the day revealed, the events that led to this moment — Trump’s efforts to overturn an election and his role in inciting a mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol — will have left an indelible mark on his presidency and on the history of the country, no matter the trial’s outcome.

The first day had been set aside for what some anticipated might be a dry constitutional argument over whether the Senate had the authority to conduct a trial for a president who no longer is in office. That debate did provide the backdrop, but the horrors of Jan. 6 became the emotional centerpiece and highlight of the day — and, no doubt, the days to come.

House managers, led by Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.), presented a powerful opening argument — asserting with historical documentation and contemporary legal analysis that the Senate must go ahead with the trial, lest it create a “January exception” to impeachment that could allow future presidents to rampage at will in their final days in office without fear of being held accountable. Continue reading.

Meandering Performance by Defense Lawyers Enrages Trump

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The former president was particularly angry at Bruce L. Castor Jr., one of his lawyers, for acknowledging the effectiveness of the House Democrats’ presentation.

On the first day of his second impeachment trial, former President Donald J. Trump was mostly hidden from view on Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, Fla., moving from the new office that aides set up to his private quarters outside the main building.

Mr. Trump was said to have meetings that were put on his calendar to coincide with his defense team’s presentation and keep him occupied. But he still managed to catch his two lawyers, Bruce L. Castor Jr. and David I. Schoen, on television — and he did not like what he saw, according to two people briefed on his reaction.

Mr. Castor, the first to speak, delivered a rambling, almost somnambulant defense of the former president for nearly an hour. Mr. Trump, who often leaves the television on in the background even when he is holding meetings, was furious, people familiar with his reaction said. Continue reading.

Nicolle Wallace breaks down Democrats’ three-part impeachment strategy — and why it’s working

MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace offered her analysis during the first break in Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial on Tuesday.

“I’ve been baking my way through the pandemic…I will use the cake analogy here,” Wallace began.

“I thought that what the Democrats presented was a three-layer cake. The foundation, that appears to be squarely on their side, was a legal case about the constitutionality,” she explained. “And they made it with the words of some of the most revered and respected conservative legal all-stars. They used Chuck Cooper, they used judges appointed by former President Bush, they used Jonathan Turley, who was an impeachment manager on the Trump side in the first impeachment.” Continue reading.

One of Trump’s impeachment lawyers sued him last year — and accused him of making claims about fraud with ‘no evidence’

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Last year, Philadelphia lawyer Michael T. van der Veen filed a lawsuit against then-President Donald Trump accusing him of making repeated claims that mail voting is “ripe with fraud” despite having “no evidence in support of these claims.”

This week, van der Veen is adopting a different posture as part of the team of attorneys defending Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election result in his Senate impeachment trial.

How a longtime personal-injury lawyer found himself at the center of that trial, which opened Tuesday, may say more about his client than his own legal career. Trump struggled to find lawyers to take on his case, parting ways with several who were unwilling to claim that the 2020 election was stolen, as the president is said to have wanted them to do. Continue reading.