Prosecutors at former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial have another day to make their case Thursday that Trump incited the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol last month.
The prosecution, made up of Democratic members of the House of Representatives, showed graphic, previously undisclosed videos of the mayhem to the senators serving as jurors in the case on Wednesday.
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The videos showed hundreds of insurgents – Trump supporters he had urged to go to the Capitol to try to stop the official certification of his loss for reelection – storming through the building and into both chambers of Congress. Some of the rioters rifled through documents lawmakers left behind as they fled to safety.
Some of the rioters, the January 6 videos showed, shouted that they were trying to find former Vice President Mike Pence to hang him because he had rejected Trump’s demand that he block the certification of the Electoral College outcome so that Trump and Pence could remain in power for another four years.
Other surging protesters hunted for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the videos showed.
The demonstrators stormed into her office, but the prosecutors said authorities had already whisked her away from the Capitol to safety, while some of her staff huddled in a nearby conference room behind a locked door.
“The mob was looking for Pence because of his patriotism in order to execute him,” House impeachment manager Stacey Plaskett of the U.S. Virgin Islands told the 100-member Senate hearing, referring to the vice president’s looming certification of Biden’s victory.
Another impeachment manager, Congressman Eric Swalwell of California, narrated one video captured from a security camera inside the Capitol, telling lawmakers, “Most of the public does not know how close you came to the mob” before escaping to safety.
“We all know that awful day could have been much worse,” Swalwell said.
Earlier, the lead House impeachment manager, Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, contended that Trump was “no innocent bystander” to the violence.
Raskin and other Democratic lawmakers said Trump laid the groundwork for the storming of the Capitol over a period of weeks leading up to the election with dozens of unfounded claims that the only way he could lose was if the election was rigged against him.
Raskin alleged that Trump, by urging hundreds of his supporters to “fight like hell” in confronting lawmakers at the Capitol on January 6, ignited the mayhem that left five people dead, including a Capitol Police officer.
“He incited this attack,” Raskin told the Senate, which will decide whether Trump should be convicted of a single article of impeachment brought by the House, which accuses him of “incitement of insurrection.”
“He clearly surrendered his role as commander in chief and became the inciter in chief,” Raskin argued. He contended that Trump “was singularly responsible” in exhorting his supporters to try to upend Biden’s victory.
Hundreds of Trump supporters – perhaps about 800, according to law enforcement authorities – rampaged through the Capitol, breaking windows, bashing doors, ransacking some congressional offices and scuffling with police. Dozens of the rioters, many of whom bragged on social media about storming into the two chambers of Congress, have been charged with criminal offenses as the investigation of the chaos continues.
The House impeachment managers showed dozens of Twitter comments and video clips in which Trump claimed election fraud and urged his supporters to show up in Washington January 6 as Congress met to certify the 306-232 Electoral College vote favoring Biden.
“Will be wild!” Trump tweeted.
After nearly four hours of mayhem, lawmakers certified the Biden victory in the middle of the night early on January 7.
Now, Raskin said, in 2021 the usually routine certification of U.S. presidential election results will be remembered as “a day that will live in disgrace.”
Democratic Congressman Joe Neguse of Colorado, another House impeachment manager, said that in rallying supporters before the storming of the Capitol complex, Trump “wanted to stop the transfer of power even though he had lost the election.”
“This attack was provoked by the president,” Neguse said. “It was predictable and foreseeable. He had the power to stop it and he didn’t.”
Plaskett said the rioters “were doing the duty of their president. He knew of the violence they were capable of.”
Congresswoman Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania contended that Trump was “desperate to retain power by any means possible.” The Democratic lawmaker said Trump told the protesters “exactly what he wanted them to do.”
Dean quoted from Trump’s speech to his supporters at a rally near the White House where he told them, “We will never give up. We will never concede.”
After the House impeachment managers finish their case on Thursday, Trump’s lawyers will have up to 16 hours to present his defense on Friday and Saturday.
Trump’s lawyers say that he bears no responsibility for the attack on the Capitol.
Instead, they say that Trump’s rhetoric amounted to permissible political discourse and was protected by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech.
The Senate voted 56-44 on Tuesday to move ahead with the trial, rejecting Trump’s claim that it was unconstitutional to try him on impeachment charges since he has already left office.
Raskin said Tuesday that not holding the trial would create a “dangerous” new “January exception” during which future U.S. presidents could act with impunity in their final weeks in office.
A two-thirds majority is needed to convict Trump, meaning 17 Republicans would have to vote with the Democrats.
Whatever the outcome, Trump is the only U.S. president to be impeached twice.
Trump declined Democrats’ offer to testify in his defense and is not expected to attend the trial.
