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His warning that the former president remains a danger to democracy and can encourage even more violence if he is prevented from running for re-election convinces his fellow Republicans.
By Peter Baker and Nicholas Fandos
House indictment officials on Thursday concluded their case of incitement to emotional provocation against former President Donald J. Trump warning that he remains a transparent and existing danger to American democracy and that he can encourage even more violence if prevented from re-running.
As the sounds of an angry crowd still echoed in the Senate chamber, leaders sought to channel surprise and outrage rekindled through videos that showed last month’s attack on the Capitol in a bipartisan repudiation of the former president who enraged his supporters with false statements. . of a stolen choice.
“Ladies and gentlemen, is there any political leader in this room who thinks that if the Senate ever allowed him to return to the Oval Office, Donald Trump would avoid inciting violence to get away with it?”Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat and leader in the political trial rate, asked the senators, “Would you bet more cops’ lives on this?Would you bet your family’s protection on that?Would you bet the long term of your democracy?” In that?”
The argument was intended to disprove Republicans who said that conducting a political trial for a former president is unnecessary and even unconstitutional because he has already left the workplace and can no longer get rid of it. But if Trump is convicted, the Senate can simply save him from occupying a public workplace in the future, and the leaders are under pressure that the trial is not about punishing him, but about saving him.
“I’m not afraid that Donald Trump will back down in four years,” said Rep. Ted Lieu, a California Democrat, some of the other leaders. “I’m afraid you’ll go back and lose, because you can do it. back. “
On the last day of their main arguments, leaders also sought to anticipate the defense that Trump will advance Friday by rejecting his statement that he is only exercising his right to freedom of expression when he sent a frantic crowd to the Capitol as lawmakers told the Electoral College to vote and tells him to “fight like hell. “The First Amendment, the leaders said, does not protect a president who installs a political powder room and then lights up a match.
“President Trump wasn’t just a politically minded guy who showed up at a rally on January 6 and made debatable comments,” said Rep. Joe Neguse, a Colorado Democrat and some other manager. “He was the president of Ettas-Unis. ” Et had spent months the exclusive strength of this office, his bully chair, to spread this wonderful lie that the election had been stolen to convince his supporters to avoid theft».
But despite the drama of the prosecution case, top Republican senators seemed unperturnable and Trump gave the impression of withholding enough to block two-thirds of the votes required by the Constitution for a conviction on the count of bachelor “incitement to insurrection. “”While it’s possible that a handful of Republican senators will simply break up with the former president, others gave the impression of doing everything they could on Thursday to express their impatience with the trial, the moment Trump faced.
With the hardening of President Biden’s republican positions and agfinisha slowed down during the process, Democratic senators began to report that they had also noticed enough, and members on both sides were gathered in a plan to temporarily end the trial with a vote of guilt or innocence. Saturday.
Confident in acquittal, Trump was seen on a golf course in Florida as his defense team prepared a truncated presentation to offer Friday that would take the full two days for arguments allowed by demand regulations.
After an initial appearance before the court very debatable this week, Trump planned to argue that he was being prosecuted for partisan enmity, that he had never brazenly called for violence, and that he was not guilty of his supporters’ movements.
Republican senators have shown little willingness to protect Trump, rather than explaining his most likely vows of acquittal by arguing that it is unconstitutional and reckless to bring a former president to justice and accusing Democrats who use fierce speech to keep a political enemy at a double, the norm. On Tuesday, the Senate rejected the constitutional argument by 56 votes to 44, allowing the trial to continue, but Republicans said they were not required to settle for the ruling.
“My opinion hasn’t changed as to whether or not we have the strength to do so, and in fact I’m not bound by the fact that 56 other people think so,” said Senator Roy Blunt, Missouri Republican. “I can vote and you can’t accuse a former president, and if the former president did illegal things, there’s a procedure you have to stick to for it.
Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, proposed similar reasoning: “What happened on January 6, I said when it started, unpathotic, anti-American, treacherous, a crime, unacceptable,” he said. “The basic consultation for me,” and I don’t know for everyone, is whether a political trial is right for someone who’s no longer in office. I don’t think that’s the case. “
To convict, at least 17 Republican senators would have to vote against the former president, a situation that is not plausible, but either side was watching to see how many prosecutors were finally returning, which can still give the case a two-party credibility based on the number.
All eyes set on the six Republicans who voted with Democrats this week to reject the Trump Democrats’ constitutional objection: Senators Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania.
No other Republican said they were in a position to vote for the conviction. In fact, after silently keeping the managers’ heartbreaking presentation video a day earlier, several of them began on Thursday to show their tiredness in the trial just as the managers made their last arguments.
Senator Rick Scott of Florida can be seen filling out a blank map of Asia; Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina retired to his party locker room to read on his phone; at times, a dozen or more Republican senators were far from their mahogany desks.
“To me, they lose credibility as they speak,” Senator James M said. Oklahoma Republican Inhofe on leaders.
But leaders argued that the president’s movements posed a risk to democratic institutions, the culmination of months of incendiary lies about voter fraud that they sought to generate for their efforts to cling to the force despite the will of voters. Trump continually told donors that they deserve to prevent the election from ending.
They also argued that Trump had shown a propensity for mafia violence over the years, encouraging supporters of the demonstration to bring down those who annoyed and praising a congressman who criticized a journalist as my type of person. They were “other very intelligent people on both sides” after a 2017 white supremacy march in Charlottesville, Virginia, became fatal and they noticed that he did nothing to deter armed extremists who broke into Michigan. Statehouse last year.
They argued that Trump not only incited the crowd on January 6, but ignored calls from his Republican colleagues to more explicitly call on troublemakers to prevent the attack, endangering his own vice president, Mike Pence, whom he criticized for not trying. to overturn the election. Even though 16 members of his own administration resigned in protest, Trump did not repent and defended his movements as “totally appropriate. “
“President Trump has perverted it by attacking the same Constitution he swore to uphold,” Trump said. Raskin.
Rep. David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat, quoted a police officer shaken by the Capitol seat and wondering if he was still the United States.
“Is this America?” Mr. Cicilline repeated addressing the senators: “What is your answer to this?Is that correct? If not, what are we going to do about it?”
During their presentation days, the nine-member control team tried to apply Trump’s classes last year. The team is younger with less delight in Congress (Mr Neguse is only 36), but altogether he is more polite. And they were willing to avoid the endless repetition of last year’s performances that baffled senators from both parties, sticking to a more rigorous department of labor to weave a tight narrative.
While last year’s trial allowed the party to fight for up to 24 hours for 3 days, this year’s leaders used only about 10 of the 16 hours assigned to them and were less conflicted when addressed to Republican senators, who in reaction praised their functionality. even though it did not replace their minds in the matter and, unlike their predecessors, they had the merit of having video sequences documenting the occasions in question, which many of them lived.
Aware that senators should close the trial, Raskin seemed unlikely to ask for witnesses, another deviation from last year when a request for live testimony sparked fierce debate and was eventually rejected by the Republican majority at the time.
Trump’s current legal team also seemed determined not to curb the patience of senators. David I. Schoen, one of the former president’s lawyers, said they would use only three to four of the four in the afternoon, which would allow senators to continue their own question-and-answer era later on Friday and the highest likely maximum a final vote on Saturday.
Since the senators lived at the headquarters of the Capitol, either party indicated that they were conscious enough of the unrest to take a resolution over the weekend.
“It’s a pretty transparent image right now,” said Senator Martin Heinrich, Democrat of New Mexico. “If you can revel in this and see it all in one place, and not think that those things are directly related, it’s hard to imagine. “
Emily Cochrane contributed to the report.
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