Second impeachment trial of Donald Trump

"This was an organized attack on the counting of the electoral college votes in under the Twelfth Amendment and under the , to prevent Vice President Mike Pence and to prevent us... from counting sufficient electoral college votes to certify Joe Biden's victory of 306 to 232... a margin that President Trump had declare "a landslide" in 2016."

"[W]e know this case is not about blaming an innocent bystander for the horrific violence and harm that took place on January 6th. This is about holding accountable the person that is singularly responsible for inciting the attack."

"Let's start with December 12th. You will see during this trial, a man who praised, and encouraged, and cultivated violence. "We have just begun to fight!" he says, more than a month after the election has taken place, and that's before the second Million MAGA March, a rally that ended in serious violence, and even the burning of a church, and as the president forecast, it was only the beginning."

"On December 19th, 18 days before January 6th, he told his base about where the battle would be that they would fight next. January 6th would be wild, he promised, "Be there, will be wild!" said the President of the United States of America, and that too, turned out to be true."

"You'll see in the days that followed, Donald Trump continued to aggressively promote January 6th to his followers."

"The event was scheduled at the precise time that Congress would be meeting in joint session to count the electoral college votes, and to finalize the 2020 Presidential Election."

"[I]n the days leading up to the attack, you'll learn there were countless social media posts, news stories, and most importantly, credible reports from the FBI and Capitol police, that the thousands gathering for the President's Save America March were violent, organized with weapons, and were targeting the Capitol."

"This mob got organized so openly because, as they would later scream in these halls, and as they posted on forums before the attack, they were sent here by the President; they were invited here by the President of the United States of America."

"And when they showed up, knowing of these reports that the crowd was angry, and it was armed... President Trump whipped the crowd into a frenzy, exhorting followers, "...if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country any more" and then he aimed straight at the Capitol declaring, "You'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.""

"He told them to fight like Hell, and they brought us Hell on that day."

"Incited by President Trump, his mob attacked the Capitol. ...According to those around him at the time, this is how President Trump reportedly responded to the attack that we saw him incite in public: Delight, enthusiasm, confusion as to why others around him weren't as happy as he was."

"Trump incited the January 6th attack, and when his mob overran and occupied the Senate, and attacked the House, and assaulted law enforcement, he watched it on TV like a reality show."

"He reveled in it, and he did nothing to help us as commander-in-chief. Instead he served as the inciter-in-chief, sending Tweets that only further incited the rampaging mob."

"He made statements lauding and sympathizing with the insurrectionists. At 4:17 PM, over three hours after the beginning of the siege, for the very first time he spoke out aloud, not on Twitter... he spoke to the American people. Here is what he said."

"So you might be saying all right, the President is going to console us now. He is going to reassure America. He knows our pain. He knows we're hurt. We've just seen these horrific images of officers being impaled and smashed over the head... We've just been under attack for three hours, but here's what he actually goes on the say."

"So, you think he's about to decry the mayhem and violence, the unprecedented spectacle of this mob attack on the U.S. Capitol, but he's still promoting the big lie that was responsible for inflaming and inciting the mob in the first place!"

"If anyone had any doubt about his focus that day, it was not to defend us, it was not to console us, it was to praise and sympathize and commiserate with the rampaging mob! It was to continue to act as inciter-in-chief, not commander-in-chief, by telling the mob that their election had been stolen from them."

"Even then, after that vicious attack, he continued to spread the big lie, and as everyone here knows, Joe Biden won by more than 7 million votes, and 306 to 232 in the electoral college, but Donald Trump refused to except his loss, even after this attack, and he celebrated the people who violently interfered with the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in American history, and [who] did that at his urging, and when he did, in this video, finally tell them to go home in peace, he added this message. "We love you. You're very special.""

"Distinguished members of the Senate, this is a day that will live in disgrace in American history, that is, unless you ask Donald Trump, because this is what he Tweeted before he went to bed that night at 6:01 PM. Not consoling the nation, not reassuring everyone that the government was secure, not a single word that entire day condemning the violent insurrection. This is what he says. "These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landscape election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!""

"In other words, this was all perfectly natural and foreseeable to Donald Trump. At the beginning of the day he told you it was coming. At the end of the day he basically says, I told you this would happen, and then he adds, "Remember this day forever!" but not as a day of disgrace, a day of horror and trauma, as the rest of us remember it, but as a day of celebration, a day of commemoration, and if we let it be, it will be a day of continuation. A call to action, and a rallying cry for the next rounds of insurrection or injustice, because all of this was "totally appropriate.""

"Senators, the stakes of this trial could not be more serious. Every American, young and old, and in between is invited to participate with us in this essential journey to find the facts and share the truth. Trials are public events in a Democracy, and no trial is more public or significant than an impeachment trial. Because the insurrection brought shocking violence, bloodshed and pain in the nation's Capitol, and we will be showing relevant clips of the mob's attack on police officers and other innocent people... The impeachment managers will try to give warnings before the most graphic and disturbing violence that took place as shown."

"We believe that the managers' comprehensive and meticulous presentation will lead to one powerful and irresistible conclusion. Donald Trump committed a massive crime against our Constitution and our People, and the worst violation of the presidential oath of office in the history of the United States of America."

"For this he was impeached by the House of Representatives and he must be convicted by the United States Senate."

"I want to address a Constitutional issue still lingering from yesterday's argument. The president, obviously is still exploring ways to change the subject, and talk about anything other than his responsibility for inciting the attack. We heard a lot yesterday about his claim that this incitement of the insurrection was perfectly appropriate because it's somehow protected by the First Amendment, and this little diversion caught my eye because I've been a professor of constitutional law and the First Amendment for decades."

"[T]he factual premise and the legal underpinnings of that claim are all wrong. They present president Trump as merely like a guy at a rally expressing a political opinion that we disagree with, and now we're trying to put him in jail for it. That has nothing to do with the reality of these charges or his constitutional offense."

"The particular political opinions being expressed are not why we impeached the president, and have nothing to do with it. It makes no difference what the ideological content of the mob was, and if we license and forgive incitement to violent insurrection by militant Trump followers this week, you can be sure that there will be a whole bunch of new ideological flavors coming soon."

"As we'll demonstrate with overwhelming evidence, portraying Trump as a guy on the street being punished for his ideas is the false description of his actions, his intent, and the role that he played on January 6th when he willfully incited... an insurrectionary mob to riot at the Capitol."

"Last week 144 constitutional scholars, including , a ferocious defender of free speech, , president Reagan's solicitor general, Steven Calabresi, the co-founder of the , released a statement calling the president's First Amendment arguments legally frivolus... adding "We all agree that the First Amendment does not prevent the Senate from convicting president Trump, in disqualifying him from holding future office." They went on to say, "No reasonable scholar or jurist could conclude that president Trump had a First Amendment right to incite a violent attack on the seat of the legislative branch, or then to sit back and watch on television, as Congress was terrorized and the Capitol sacked.""

"Incitement to violence is, of course, not protected by the First Amendment. That's why most Americans have dismissed Donald Trump's First Amendment rhetoric simply by referring to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' handy phrase "You can't shout fire in a crowded theater" but even that time-honored principle doesn't begin to capture how off-base the argument is."

"This case is much worse than someone who falsely shouts "Fire" in a crowded theater. It's more like a case where the town fire chief, who's paid to put out fires, sends a mob, not to yell "Fire" in a crowded theater, but to actually set the theater on fire, and who then, when the fire alarms go off, and the calls start flooding into the fire department asking for Help, does nothing but sit back, encourage the mob to continue its rampage, and watch the fire spread on TV with glee and delight."

"So then we say this fire chief shouldn't ever be allowed to hold this public job again, and you're fired, and you're permanently disqualified, and he objects, and... says we're violating his free speech rights just because he's "pro-Mob" or "pro-Fire" or whatever... Come on!"

"You really don't need to go to law school to figure out what's wrong with that argument. Here's the key. Undoubtedly a private person can run around on the street expressing his or her support for the enemies of the United States and advocating the overthrow of the United States government. You've got a right to do that under the First Amendment, but if the president spent all of his days doing that, uttering the exact same words, expressing support for the enemies of the United States and for overthrowing the government, is there anyone here who doubts that this would be a violation of his oath of office to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and that he or she could be impeached for doing that."

"If your president of the United States and you've chosen a side with your oath of office, and if you break it, we can impeach, convict, remove and disqualify you permanently from holding any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States."

"As Justice Scalia once said, memorably, "You can't ride with the cops and root for the robbers" and if you become inciter-in-chief to the insurrection, you can't expect to be on the payroll as commander-in-chief for the Union."

"Trump was the President of the United States and he had sworn to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. He had an affirmative, binding duty. One that set him apart from everyone else in the country, to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, including all the laws against assaulting federal officers, destroying federal property, violently threatening members of Congress and the Vice President, interfering with federal elections and dozens of other federal laws that are well known to all of you."

"When he incited insurrection on January 6th, he broke that oath. He violated that duty, and that's why we're here today, and that's why he has no credible Constitutional defense."

"One of our Capitol officers who defended us that day was a long-time veteran of our force, a brave and honorable public servant who spent several hours battling the mob, as part of one of those blue lines defending the Capitol in our Democracy. For several hours straight, as the marauders punched and kicked and mauled and spit upon and hit officers with baseball bats and fire extinguishers, cursed the cops and stormed our Capitol, he defended us and he lived every minute of his oath of office. And afterwards, overwhelmed by emotion, he broke down in the Rotunda, and he cried for fifteen minutes, and he shouted out "I got called an N-word fifteen times today" and then he reported, "I sat down with one of my buddies, another Black guy, and tears just started streaming down my face and I said, What the F— man? Is this America?" That's the question before all of you in this trial."

"Is this America?"

"Can our country and our Democracy ever be the same, if we don't hold accountable the person responsible for inciting the violent attack against our country, our Capitol and our Democracy, and all of those who serve us so faithfully and honorably? Is this America?"

"Like many of you, I'm an attorney... tried a lot of cases... never a case as important than this one, nor a case with such a... weighty constitutional question... Thankfully... the Framers answered that question... and you don't need to be a constitutional scholar to know that the argument president Trump asks you to adopt is not just wrong. It's dangerous."

"This body... the United States Senate has reached that same conclusion... over the past 200 years on multiple occasions... Over 150 constitutional scholars, experts, judges, conservative, liberal... overwhelmingly have reached the same conclusion that of course, you can try, convict and disqualify a former president."

"[T]he text of the Constitution makes clear: there is no January exception to the impeachment power, that presidents can't commit grave offenses in their final days and escape any congressional response. That's not how our Constitution works."

"The nation's very first impeachment case... was actually of a former official. In 1797... a senator... ... was caught conspiring with the British to try to sell Florida and Louisiana. ...President Adams caught him. He turned over the evidence to Congress. Four days later the House of Representatives impeached him. A day after that... the United States Senate expelled him from office, so he was very much a former official. Despite that, the House went forward with its impeachment proceeding in order to disqualify him from ever again holding federal office. ...[T]he Senate proceeded with the trial with... Thomas Jefferson presiding. ...Blunt argued that the Senate couldn't proceed because he had already been expelled. ...He expressly disavowed any claim that former officials can't ever be impeached. Unlike president Trump, he was very clear. He respected and understood that he could not even try to argue that ridiculous position. Even impeached Senator Blunt recognized the inherent absurdity of that view. Here is what he said. "I certainly never shall contend that an officer may first commit an offense, and afterwards avoid [punishment] by resigning his office." ...[T]here was no doubt because the Founders were around to confirm that that was their intent and the obvious meaning of what is in the Constitution"

"The trial of... William Belknap... in 1876 the House discovered that he was involved in a massive kickback scheme. Hours before the House committee had discovered this conduct released its report documenting the scheme, Belknap... rushed to the White House to... tender his resignation to president Ulysses Grant to avoid any further inquiry into his misconduct and... to avoid being disqualified from holding federal office in the future. ...[A]ware of that resignation ...the House moved forward and unanimously impeached him, making clear its power to impeach a former official, and when his case reached the Senate... Belknap made the... same argument the president Trump is making today, that you all lack jurisdiction, any power to try him, because he's a former official. ...[M]any senators, at that time, when they heard that argument ...were outraged by that argument. Outraged. You can read their comments in the record. They knew it was a dangerous... argument with dangerous implications. It would literally mean that a president could betray their country, leave office, and avoid impeachment and disqualification entirely. [T]hat's why... the United States Senate decisively voted that the Constitution required them to proceed with the trial."

"The Belknap case is clear precedent that the Senate must proceed with this trial since it rejected pretrial dismissal, affirmed its jurisdiction and moved to a full consideration of the merits. ...Belknap was ultimately not convicted, but only after a thorough public inquiry into his misconduct, which created a record of his wrongdoing. It insured his accountability and deterred anyone else from considering such corruption, by making clear that it was intolerable. The trial served important constitutional purposes."

"Given that precedent. Given all that that precedent imparts, you could imagine [our] surprise as we were reviewing the trial brief filed by the president, in which his counsel insists that the Senate... didn't decide anything in the Belknap case. They say... "It cannot be read as foreclosing an argument that they never dealt with." Never dealt with? The Senate... debated this very question for two weeks. The Senate spent an additional two weeks deliberating on the jurisdictional question, and at the end of those deliberations they decided decisively that the Senate has jurisdiction, and... that it must proceed to a full trial."

"[U]nlike Belknap... president Trump was not impeached for run of the mill corruption, misconduct. He was impeached for inciting a violent insurrection. An insurrection where people died in this building. An insurrection that desecrated our seat of government, and if Congress were just to stand completely aside in the face of such an extraordinary crime against the Republic, it would invite future presidents to use their power without any fear of accountability, and none of us... no matter our party or politics, wants that."

"A hallmark of our Republic since the days of George Washington has been the . For centuries we've accepted it as fact. Unfortunately, sadly we know now that we can no longer take that for granted, because... on January 6th, the peaceful transition of power was violently interrupted when a mob stormed this Capitol and desecrated this chamber."

"As you'll see during the course of this trial, that mob was summoned, assembled, and incited by the former president of the United States, Donald Trump; and he did that because he wanted to stop the transfer of power, so that he could retain power, even though he had lost the election; and when the violence erupted, when they were here in our building with weapons, he did nothing to stop it."

"If we are to protect our Republic and prevent something like this from ever happening again, he must be convicted."