Politicstrump White House Fume As House Debates Impeachment
Some Republicans accused Democrats of havving plotted to impeach the president since he was elected. After Democrats took control of the House in January, Pelosi pushed back on lawmakers who’d been advocating for impeachment, calling it “divisive” and saying of trying to remove Trump, “He’s just not worth it.”
That position changed in September after a whistleblower filed a complaint with the Senate and House intelligence committees alleging that the president had used “the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 election.”
On Sept. 23, Trump confirmed media reports that a call he had with the Ukrainian leader involved the Bidens and the withholding of aid, but he maintained that he had done nothing wrong.
“We want to make sure that country is honest. It’s very important to talk about corruption. If you don’t talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt?” Trump asked reporters.
Pelosi announced the next day that she was launching a formal impeachment inquiry. On Wednesday night, after the vote, she suggested that she was not yet ready to send the two impeachment articles to the Senate for its trial, saying she needed to know more about the Senate’s rules for the trial before she would transmit the articles. Only then could the Senate begin its trial.
Trump Lawyer: His Call To Georgia Officials To ‘find’ Votes Was Taken Out Of Context
Trump’s lawyers largely sidestepped Trump’s false claims of election fraud. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., asked during the question-and-answer session: “Are the prosecutors right when they claim that Trump was telling a big lie, or in your judgment did Trump actually win the election?”
Trump lawyer Michael van der Veen shot back, “My judgment? Who asked that?”
“I did,” Sanders replied.
“My judgment is irrelevant,” van der Veen said.
“You represent the president of the United States!” Sanders yelled back before Sen. Patrick Leahy, the presiding officer, gaveled the chamber back to order.
Trump’s rhetoric about widespread fraud and a stolen election was false, dismissed by many courts stemming from dozens of lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign and allies across several key states.
Biden Calls For Accountability
In a statement Wednesday evening, Biden called the riot at the Capitol an armed insurrection against the United States of America.
And those responsible must be held accountable, he said.
The president-elect said those who voted to impeach trump followed the Constitution and their conscience.
Biden said the country remains in the grip of a deadly virus and a reeling economy.
I hope that the Senate leadership will find a way to deal with their Constitutional responsibilities on impeachment while also working on the other urgent business of this nation, he said.
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Trump Makes History Once Again
Donald Trump has made history once again, this time as the first president to be impeached twice.
A year ago, the move was opposed in lockstep by the Republican Party. This time, a handful of conservatives backed the move. It is a reflection not only of the gravity of the moment, but also the president’s declining influence in the final days of his administration.
Impeachment sets up a Senate trial for Mr Trump that now appears destined to stretch into the early days of Joe Biden’s presidency, creating yet another challenge for the incoming president. It also will stoke an ongoing debate among Republicans over the direction their party takes in the days ahead.
The party is on a path that splits in two very different directions. On one side is continued allegiance to the president’s brand of politics – one that created a new coalition of voters that delivered the White House and Congress in 2016, but lost both in 2020.
On the other is an uncertain future – but one free from the president’s unique style of heat and rhetoric – unfiltered invective that even many Republicans now believe contributed to last week’s Capitol riot
Rep Jim Clyburn Trump’s Actions Pose An ‘existential Threat’ To Democracy
Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., said President Donald Trump must be “prevented from ever attempting to seize power again.”
Clyburn, the House majority whip, said Trump’s “refusal to participate in the peaceful transfer of power and his role in the inciting of the last week’s violence pose an existential threat to our constitutional democracy.”
“This threat must be extinguished immediately. This president must be impeached and convicted,” Clyburn said.
Kevin Breuninger
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Trump Lawyer Says House Managers Didn’t Have A Case
From CNNs Jason Hoffman
President Trumps attorney Michael van der Veen said the House impeachment managers were like a dying animal that we had trapped in the corner, when they initially voted to call witnesses in President Trumps second impeachment trial on Saturday. Ultimately, no witnesses were called to testify in the trial.
What had happened was the day before we demolished their case, and they were like a dying animal that we had trapped in the corner. And so this morning their last gasp were swinging out at us trying to save their case, and it didn’t work, van der Veen said after the Senate found Trump not guilty of inciting the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol.
He added that House managers didnt have a case.
They shouldn’t have brought this impeachment from the beginning. It really does stem from political hatred, he said.
Van der Veen would not say whether he has spoken with Trump since the acquittal vote, but said the former President was vindicated today.
He had a good day in court today. He was vindicated. He was found not guilty. The political witch hunt that they had, that the Democrats had thrown at him was defeated, so he should feel quite pleased, van der Veen said.
The Philadelphia attorney said his home was attacked as the trial was ongoing and that his business is under siege.
Raskin: We Defended Our House
From CNN’s Josiah Ryan
Lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin hailed Democrats’ efforts to convict former President Trump as the “most bipartisan presidential impeachment in the history of the United States,” and said Democrats successfully defended Congress from Trump’s attack.
“Trump stormed our House with the mob he incited and we defended our House,” said Raskin. “He violated out Constitution and we defended the Constitution.”
“They tried to trash our democracy and we revived it, and we protected,” he added.
Raskin then pointed to remarks made by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell shortly after the acquittal as proof that they had succeeded in making their argument.
“Senator Mitch McConnell just went to the floor, essentially to say that we made our case on the facts, that he believed that Donald Trump was practically and morally responsible for inciting the events of January 6th. He described it as we did, as a disgraceful dereliction of duty, a desertion of his office.”
Watch the moment here:
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Will Trump Be Found Guilty
On the face of it, it seems unlikely. An impeachment trial requires a two-thirds majority for a conviction. If every senator votes, then at least 17 Republicans would need to vote against their former president to reach the required 67-vote threshold.
At the beginning of the trial, 44 Republican senators voted that the process itself is unconstitutional and against holding it at all. It would be quite a leap for them in the space of a few days to go from saying the trial should not take place, to finding Trump guilty.
For many Republican senators the calculation is political. House Representatives who voted to impeach Trump, such as Republican Liz Cheney, have already faced protest and censure from their state Republican parties over their failure to back Trump, who still has strong grassroots support despite losing Novembers election.
Trump Reacts To Impeachment Vote At Rally
Minutes before the vote on Wednesday night, Trump took the stage at a campaign rally in Battle Creek, Michigan.
“It doesn’t really feel like we’re being impeached,” he told the cheering crowd. “The country is doing better than ever before. We did nothing wrong. And we have tremendous support in the Republican Party like we ave never had before. Nobody has ever had this kind of support.”
Download the NBC News app for full coverage of Trump’s impeachment
Hours before the vote, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., took to the House floor to say it was imperative to impeach a president for the first time in two decades because Trump is “an ongoing threat to our national security and the integrity of our elections.”
“It is an established fact the president violated the Constitution,” Pelosi said, standing next to a sign with aa U.S. flag that quoted a line from the Pledge of Allegiance: “To the Republic, for which it stands …”
Emotions ran high inside the Capitol ahead of the vote, with Democrats and Republicans accusing one another of acting in bad faith during 10 hours of debate.
Speaking on the floor, Rep. Debbie Lesko, R.-Ariz., said, “I believe this is the most unfair, politically biased rigged process that I have seen in my entire life.”
“This is the most partisan impeachment in the history of the United States,” she added. “Not one Republican voted for it in the Judiciary Committee. … Not one Republican, I don’t think, is going to vote for it here today.”
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What You Need To Know
- The Senate acquitted former President Trump in his historic second impeachment trial, voting that Trump is not guilty of inciting the deadly Capitol riot.
- Seven Republicans joined the 50 Democrats to find him guilty, but they fell short of a two-thirds majority needed to convict.
- Trump is the only President in US history to ever be impeached twice and the first to have his impeachment tried in the Senate while out of office.
He Gave Us No Choice: Pelosi Opens Impeachment Debate
Speaker Nancy Pelosi opened debate on articles of impeachment against President Trump in the House of Representatives on Wednesday.
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As speaker of the House, I solemnly and sadly open the debate on the impeachment of the president of the United States. If we do not act now, we would be derelict in our duty. It is tragic that the presidents reckless actions make impeachment necessary. He gave us no choice.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi opened debate in the House on Wednesday on the articles of impeachment, declaring that lawmakers are custodians of the Constitution and urging her colleagues to honor their oaths by charging the president with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Today, as speaker of the House, I solemnly and sadly open the debate on the impeachment of the president of the United States, she said as the chamber began debate.
Ms. Pelosi took the floor dressed in a dark suit, a nod to what she has long said would be a solemn day, and a carefully chosen accessory: a gold brooch fashioned as the mace of the republic, also known as the speakers mace.
Our founders vision of a republic is under threat from actions from the White House, she said somberly, adding, If we do not act now, we would be derelict in our duty. It is tragic that the presidents reckless actions make impeachment necessary. He gave us no choice.
When she concluded her remarks, Democrats gave the speaker a standing ovation while Republicans chanted regular order to quiet the chamber.
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What Is Donald Trump Claiming In His Defense
Trump has had trouble assembling a legal team. His usual personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, had to recuse himself because he also gave a speech at the event where the former president is accused of fomenting insurrection. Trump then appears to have fallen out with his first legal team, which was led by Butch Bowers.
Now led by lawyers David Schoen and Bruce L Castor, Trumps team have claimed that his speech did not amount to a call to storm the Capitol, he was simply exercising his first amendment rights, and his trial is unconstitutional anyway, because he has left office. Trump will not testify personally.
The Presidential Impeachment Process
An impeachment proceeding is the formal process by which a sitting president of the United States is accused of wrongdoing. It is a political process and not a criminal process.
The articles of impeachment are the list of charges drafted against the president. The vice president and all civil officers of the U.S. can also face impeachment.
The process begins in the House of Representatives, where any member may make a suggestion to launch an impeachment proceeding. It is really up to the speaker of the House in practice, to determine whether or not to proceed with an inquiry into the alleged wrongdoing, though any member can force a vote to impeach.
Over 210 House Democrats introduced the most recent article of impeachment on Jan. 11, 2021, contending Trump “demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security, democracy and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law.”
The impeachment article, which seeks to bar Trump from holding office again, also cited Trump’s controversial call with the Georgia Republican secretary of state where he urged him to “find” enough votes for Trump to win the state and his efforts to “subvert and obstruct” certification of the vote.
And it cited the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, noting that it “prohibits any person who has ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion against’ the United States” from holding office.
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House Manager Uses The Words Of Republicans Against Trump
After two days of House impeachment managers making their case for the conviction of Donald Trump on a charge of incitement, the former President’s legal team got its chance on Friday.
1. Words matter. Except when they don’t2. January 6 was NOT inevitable3. Rampant nitpicking5. It’s all about the ‘hate’:
Verify: Everything You Need To Know About Former President Donald Trump’s Second Impeachment Trial
WASHINGTON Former President Donald Trump was formally impeached by the House of Representatives on January 13th for high crimes and misdemeanors, making him the first president to have been impeached twice.
This week, an impeachment trial began in the Senate to decide if Trump will be convicted for “incitement of insurrection. House impeachment managers need 2/3rds of a vote in the Senate to formally convict President Trump.
It’s a semi-confusing process that’s never really been done before, which is why the Verify team is here to give you the answers.
So, let’s take a look.
THREE FAST FACTS:
- The Senate impeachment trial started at 1 p.m. EST on February 9 and will last several days
- Former President Donald Trump is the first U.S. president to be impeached twice. The second impeachment is focused on if Trump incited the insurrection that took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6
- House impeachment managers will try to establish that Trump is “personally responsible” for the deadly U.S. Capitol attacks, where Trump’s legal team will try and establish that the trial itself is unconstitutional.
WATCH THE TRIAL LIVE HERE:
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