Impeachment Trial: Day 2 Recap
"They were talking about assassinating the Vice President of the United States."
Wednesday afternoon marked the beginning of opening arguments in the historic second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump. Both House managers and the former President’s defense team have been given 16 hours apiece to make their arguments. The managers kicked things off with some never-before-seen security footage from inside the Capitol on the day of the riot, and videos of Trump supporters storming the Capitol looking for Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, chanting things such as “hang Mike Pence.” They also presented audio of police officers communicating with each other over their radios during the riots.
Virgin Islands Del. Stacey Plaskett presented several inaudible security videos of rioters breaking windows and banging on doors, security guards rushing Senators to safety, Vice President Pence being escorted out of the Senate chamber by Secret Service agents, and staffers to Speaker Pelosi barricading themselves in one of the offices. She also presented several court filings and affidavits from Trump supporters who have since been arrested in connection with the riots. One of the documents said that the rioters would have killed Vice President Pence if given the chance. “They were talking about assassinating the Vice President of the United States,” said Plaskett in what was probably the most chilling sentence from Wednesday’s proceeding.
That wasn’t the only piece of evidence that gave everyone goosebumps. Plaskett also presented security footage of Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, one of the former President’s harshest critics within the Republican Party. The video shows famed Capitol police officer Eugene Goodman whisking the Utah Republican away to safety as he was heading in the direction of the rioters.
The managers also tried to argue that Trump has been fanning the flames of violence since before the election. Plaskett reminded Senators of an incident in Texas the weekend before the election, when Trump supporters attempted to veer a bus full of Biden campaign volunteers off of the highway. She then presented a video that Trump tweeted of the altercation with fight music, as well as comments that he made at a rally joking about the incident. The group of Democrats also recounted Trump telling members of the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” at a presidential debate last fall, connecting members of the far-right organization to the violence at the Capitol on January 6.
Manager Madeleine Dean, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, went over the former President’s repeated attempts to try and overturn election results in states that he lost, and she focused heavily on Georgia. She played the audio of Trump’s now-infamous phone call with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which he pressured the Secretary to “find 11,780 votes” so that he could win the state (Trump lost Georgia by 11,779 votes). She then presented a video of Trump calling the Georgia Republican “an enemy of the people.” The Pennsylvania Democrat also got emotional during her argument when she recounted the phone calls she received from her relatives and the “banging” she heard on the chamber doors on the day of the riots.
Managers David Cicilline and Joaquin Castro rounded out the day by reminding the Senators of what President Trump was doing while the violence was unfolding. Castro displayed several tweets from Trump criticizing Pence for not overturning the election, and even presented an incredible video of a Trump rioter reading one of those harsh tweets about Pence word-for-word using a megaphone.
There was some chaos on the Senate floor at the end of Wednesday’s proceedings. Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah asked that the House managers withdraw part of their evidence from the record, accusing the Democrats of inaccurately characterizing a phone call he had with President Trump while he and his colleagues were being evacuated. From the Associated Press:
“It had been reported that Trump mistakenly called Lee when he was trying to reach Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the Republican from Alabama. According to the reports, including an account Lee gave to the Deseret News in Utah, Trump was trying to reach Tuberville to discuss objecting to the certification of Electoral College votes.”
House managers agreed to withdraw this reference from the record, but lead manager Jamie Raskin hinted that this may be revisited later in the trial.
A conviction of former President Trump remains unlikely, as Democrats would need to peel off 17 Republican Senators in order to convict. But some Republican Senators were alarmed by the unearthed security footage and praised the performances of House managers. Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana told reporters that everyone should be alarmed by the video that has been presented. “You realize that there were people, insurrectionists, who attempted to affect the peaceful transfer of power,” the Louisiana Republican said. “And that should give anyone who loves our republic great pause.”
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said that the evidence presented by House managers so far has “is pretty damning,” and says that the House managers have done a great job presenting their case.
However, other Republican Senators signaled that they are still unlikely to convict the former President. Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, a member of Senate Republican leadership who is running for re-election next year, attempted to equate the Capitol riot with the social justice protests in D.C. and other large cities last summer. Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, a fierce Trump ally who is also on the ballot in 2022, attempted to shift the blame away from the former President and towards those who wreaked havoc on the Capitol. Sen. Mike Braun, hailing from Vice President Pence’s home state of Indiana, said that he still believes that the process is “flawed.”
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says that the trial will resume on Thursday at 12:00PM ET.
President Joe Biden is still moving full steam ahead with his legislative agenda amidst the impeachment trial of his former rival. CNN White House reporter Kaitlan Collins says that the President will be meeting with a group of Senators tomorrow morning to discuss infrastructure, a few hours before they must return to Capitol Hill for the impeachment trial.
Publicly, Biden and his allies are not considered about the trial delaying key legislative priorities. But privately, it’s safe to say that the President’s team would like for the trial to be over as quickly as possible so that the country can focus on important issues, such as pandemic relief and distributing the vaccine.
Finally, I will be sharing my first Peach State Politics weekly newsletter with all of you on Friday morning. There’s a lot happening in Georgia, so we’ll be taking a look at the biggest political stories each week. I’m looking forward to it!