February 10, 2021
“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.”
This was how lead House impeachment manager Jamie Raskin (D-MD) explained Trump’s role in the January 6 insurrection to the senators trying the former president Trump for inciting that insurrection.
Over the course of today, the House impeachment managers laid out a devastating timeline of the former president’s effort, beginning even before the 2020 election, to prime his supporters to believe the only way he could lose was if the Democrats cheated. Manager Joseph Neguse (D-CO) used the rioters’ own words to show that they were responding to Trump’s calls to fight for his reelection. Manager Eric Swalwell (D-CA) pointed out that the Trump camp spent $50 million on national “STOP THE STEAL!” ads that ran until the planned “big protest” on January 6. That presentation alone was powerful, as the managers put videos of rally speeches and tweets together to let the story tell itself.
But the tale grew riveting when impeachment manager Stacey Plaskett, a Democratic delegate from the U.S. Virgin Islands, took the story into the Capitol building itself. She followed the rioters using footage from their own cellphones and the cameras of journalists who recorded their actions. But she had more than those videos. Plaskett used previously unseen video from security cameras to illustrate just how close the rioters came to capturing Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, both of whom they were searching for specifically, as well as lawmakers in general. In some cases, the congress members and their staffs were within seconds of being caught.
The mocking, singsong, drawn out calls for “Nancy” from a rioter searching for the House Speaker as if he were a monster stalking a victim in a horror movie, and the angry chants to “Hang Mike Pence!” from rioters who had hung a noose from a gallows they constructed outside the Capitol, left little doubt the rioters were deadly. Richard Barnett, the man photographed with his feet on Pelosi’s desk, carried a 950,000-volt stun gun.
Impeachment manager David Cicilline (D-RI) took the baton from Plaskett, hammering home that Trump had continued to stoke the crowd’s anger against Pence even as the vice president was in lockdown at the Capitol, and that he refused to stop the riot despite pleading from his aides and allies. Manager Joaquin Castro (D-TX) brought the argument home: “On January 6, President Trump left everyone in this Capitol for dead.”
It was a riveting, damning presentation, showing just how close we came to an event even worse than the day turned out to be. In one particularly dramatic new scene from the security cameras, we saw Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman, who later lured the rioters away from the Senate chamber to give the lawmakers enough time—barely—to get to safety, prevent Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) from walking into the mob, likely saving his life.
The story the managers told set out quite clearly that the insurrection was not only planned, it was timed to disrupt the counting of the electoral votes that would make Joe Biden president. As impeachment manager Ted Lieu (D-CA) put it, Trump “ran out of nonviolent options to maintain power…. What you saw was a man so desperate to try to cling to power that he tried everything he could to keep it, and when he ran out of nonviolent measures, he turned to the violent mob that attacked your Senate chamber on January 6.”
The House managers tried to make it possible for Republican senators to convict Trump. They focused on him alone, leaving untouched the fact that some of the senators in the chamber had themselves spread the lie that the election had been marred by massive fraud. (The one apparently in deepest, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, refused to watch the presentation.)
They held up Vice President Pence as a principled leader attacked while trying to do his constitutional duty, offering Republican senators a choice not between their party and the Democrats, but rather between Trump and Pence, Republicans both. They also detailed the attack on Capitol police officers, offering the chance for Republicans to side against Trump and with the officers.
In their defense of Pence, the impeachment managers made clear a curious thing: the popular anger at Pence was entirely manufactured. Pence’s role on January 6 was largely ceremonial; he could not challenge the counting of the electoral votes, and he said so, both in person and in writing, as Trump continued to pressure him to. Trump’s deliberate stoking of fury at the vice president meant the crowd was actively hunting for Vice President Pence and House Speaker Pelosi, the next two people in line for the presidency should Trump be removed from office.
And yet, there are signs that none of this matters to the Republican senators who have already decided to acquit the president. On Twitter, Senator Lindsey Graham tonight called the day’s presentation “offensive and absurd.”
Still others say that, even if what happened is horrific, the trial is unconstitutional because Trump is no longer president, although the fact the Senate voted that it is constitutional should mean that point is settled. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) told CNN correspondent Ryan Nobles, “I’m learning things. But, again, my basic point is we shouldn’t have having this trial.”
It seems likely that they are contemplating the experience of Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), whose state Republican Party pounced on his vote yesterday in favor of the constitutionality of the trial, saying it was “profoundly disappointed.”
But those doubling down on Trump’s leadership of the party have their own troubles. In the 25 states that have accessible data, nearly 140,000 Republicans have left the party since January 6, and tonight, Reuters broke the story that “former elected Republicans, former officials in the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Trump, ex-Republican ambassadors and Republican strategists,” are in talks to form a new center-right political party. While Trump spokesman Jason Miller called the people involved “losers,” they are savvy enough at political strategy to plan to make their influence felt not necessarily by running third-party candidates, but by endorsing the non-Trump candidate in a race, regardless of party.
While almost all eyes are on the Senate impeachment trial, Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill is working its way through the relevant House committees. Today, by a party-line vote, the House Education and Labor Committee moved its portion along with a provision to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025.
At the White House, Biden spoke on the telephone for the first time with Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he knows from his days as vice president. The two discussed areas of shared interest, such as the pandemic, global health, and climate change. Biden also called the Chinese leader out for “coercive and unfair economic practices,” as well as the anti-democratic crackdown in Hong Kong and, in Xinjiang, human rights abuses.
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Notes:
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/10/conservative-cassidy-anti-trump-468427
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/10/us/politics/republicans-leaving-party.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-party-exclusive-idUSKBN2AB07P
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/10/15-minimum-wage-house-advances-part-of-covid-relief-bill.html
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/10/politics/biden-xi-call/index.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/10/15-minimum-wage-house-advances-part-of-covid-relief-bill.html
I was surprised at how personally I took the Jan. 6th attack. I realized I’d grown smug about the strength and longevity of our democratic system but on that day I felt in my gut how fragile it is. I felt it like a personal assault and it was some brave action and shear luck that resulted in it resolving as it did. There could have been kidnappings and executions. We could be under martial law right now.
Terrorism is defined in the Code of Federal Regulations as “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives” (28 C.F.R. It’s clear that after Trump ran out of nonviolent options he decided all the domestic terrorists he’d befriended could work a last minute miracle for him.
Reliving January 6th via the impeachment presentations made me realize how deeply we’ve all been impacted by that terror and I wonder how long we’ll be dealing with it?
Trump’s tendency all along has been an amoral, empathy less weaponization of fear.
To my mind, democracy is such a big deal because it is our attempt to craft a substitute for all those systems of “might makes right” – whether kings or dictators, strong men or autocrats, all ruled by fear of who had the best weapons or warriors or most ruthless henchmen.
Democracy is not a contest of who has the better weapons but who has the best ideas about how to live well together and flourish. Where ideas can be presented, championed, criticized, debated, modified and ultimately chosen based on votes. It was designed to replace the game of threats of violence.
So when people brandish semi automatic weapons in political adds claiming to be their political adversaries “worst nightmare” – when halls of legislation are invaded by “patriots” in tactical gear, wearing weapons and ammo belts to look over the shoulders of elected officials trying to do the people’s business, or giving a thumbs up to a bullet to the head of The Speaker of the House (or anyone!) aren’t they all weaponizing fear? Aren’t they showing loudly and proudly that they aren’t playing by the rules of democracy? If their game is still “might makes right” shouldn’t that disqualify them from participating in a system of civilized democracy?
Acknowledging also that Trump’s “Big Lie” relentlessly portrayed a stolen election which signaled the end of democracy as we know it and returned his loyal followers to 1776 status and therefore under “different rules.” Such are the hazards of words wielded by an amoral authoritarian.
As disturbing and moving as the impeachment presentations are, I feel little hope that 17 GOP senators will choose the right side of history.
The only thing that gives me any glimmer of hope was the latest vote regarding Congress woman Cheney – who was being attacked and chastised for being among the ten republican representatives to voted in favor of impeaching a leader who turned his followers against democracy itself, ended up 145 to 61 in favor of her keeping her status in their party. But that vote didn’t require risk or bravery because it was a secret ballot which allowed people to vote their conscience and not be driven by fear. Fear not just of losing their jobs, or of being “primaried”, but real fear for their own and their family’s safety. Aren’t they being assaulted?
Assault refers to an act which causes a victim to apprehend imminent physical harm. Even for citizens not paying attention, since the insurrection and the attack on Congress on January 6th we have all heard many stories of the fear felt by the victims of that attack and the fear many of our representatives and staff of congress still feel. As for physical manifestations of that fear we need only look to the national guard troops and fences and razor wire in Washington DC, at the cost of over $500 million tax payer dollars.
Many of the followers of our former president seem quite pleased that so many citizens and legislators are experiencing fear for their safety and lives. Some laughingly brag about bringing their Glocks to Congress and then try to skirt metal detectors. To what degree is that fear effecting the way our leaders are voting? Might certain critical votes being private remedy that? Might private votes on certain issues allow our legislators to vote their conscience and facilitate more ethical government? Shouldn’t this impeachment trial be one of those occasions?
It makes sense that votes cast by our representatives are mostly public, as we want to know our representative’s records to see if they are earning our votes.
But what about this vote that will soon be made concerning the impeachment of former president Trump? To what degree will fear guide those votes, and how might the outcome differ if it was a secret vote? Might a secret vote result in clearer justice and shape the future of our Republic?
I’ve read it takes a simple majority vote of 51 in the Senate to make such a vote secret, but merely 20 votes can keep it public. This is a very simplistic and probably naive suggestion but what if we cast votes twice, one public and one secret? The discrepancy between them would reveal the amount of fear driving the outcome. If they’re close we honor the public vote and if they show a wide difference we honor the private vote? Pretty sure that'll never happen, but what if?
This rant is not that well thought out so I’d love to hear other’s ideas or insights into this. Heather?
I'm surprised the House impeachment team has not mentioned the quasi-criminal strategy the Trump reelection strategists put into practice to get Republicans to vote in person, thus exposing themselves to Coronavirus infection, so that the early vote count would be high in the first period and decline precipitously as mail-in ballots started to be counted, allowing the Trump people to shout "Fraud." This was a massive operation launched well before the election as states were considering unusual voting measures to reduce making polling stations super-spreader events. Trump wittingly and deliberately pushed Republican voters to put themselves in harms way to suit Trump's mad scheme. The influence campaign and planning this required shows a staggering and morally damnable willingness to expose people to mortal danger. This was an important part of the creation of the "stolen election" campaign. I would like to see more investigation into the role Stephen Miller played in some of Trump's more artful manipulations aimed at giving Trump mobster-like power and the least oversight possible.