Trump team rests after combative impeachment defense, likely setting up Saturday vote on conviction
Donald Trump’s lawyers channeled his combative style on Friday as they blasted the impeachment case against him as just another “witch hunt” in a brief but deeply inflammatory defense, likely paving the way for a Senate vote this weekend to acquit the ex-president of inciting last month’s deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The Trump legal team, spearheaded by Philadelphia attorney Michael van der Veen, rushed through its divisive and at times fact-challenged defense arguments in less than four hours, insisting the former president holds zero responsibility for the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, which left five people dead, including a police officer.
With the defense concluded, the Senate moved quickly through a question-and-answer session before the chamber recessed for the evening with plans to return Saturday morning. Unless the House impeachment managers who prosecuted the case opt to call witnesses — which seems unlikely — closing arguments and a final vote on conviction is expected Saturday.
Only six Republicans voted earlier this week to let the trial proceed, and none have since voiced support for the Democratic impeachment case, making it implausible that the chamber can muster the two-thirds majority — 67 votes — required to convict Trump and bar him from ever holding public office again. There are 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans in the Senate.
Most Republicans seemed receptive Friday as Trump’s attorneys offered a sweeping First Amendment defense of the president’s actions on Jan. 6.
Trump’s speech before the attack — in which he told the rioters to “fight like hell” to stop Congress from certifying President Biden’s “bull---t” election — amounted to “ordinary political rhetoric” that “deserves full protection under the First Amendment,” said van der Veen.
“This unprecedented effort is not about Democrats opposing political violence. It is about Democrats trying to disqualify their political opposition,” van der Veen said of Trump, who’s the first ex-president to ever face an impeachment trial. “It is constitutional cancel culture. History will record this shameful effort as a deliberate attempt by the Democratic Party to smear, censor and cancel not just President Trump, but the 75 million Americans who voted for him.”
Branding the impeachment case a part of the “politically motivated witch hunt the left has engaged in over the past four years,” van der Veen added: “Democrats hate Donald Trump. This type of political hatred has no place in our political institutions.”
Once the trial session turned to questions, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney asked van der Veen when exactly Trump found out that his supporters had stormed the Capitol.
But van der Veen refused to answer and sought to point fingers at the impeachment managers.
“The House managers have given us absolutely no evidence to answer that question,” van der Veen told Romney, the only Republican who voted to impeach Trump at his first impeachment trial in 2020.
Trump’s initial refusal to call on his supporters to stop the bloody attack — even though Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress were in serious danger — is a key part of the Democratic case for conviction, and the managers said van der Veen’s failure to answer Romney’s question spoke volumes.
“This attack was on live TV,” said Virgin Islands Rep. Stacey Plaskett. “He knew the violence was underway.”
While accusing the impeachment managers of seeking to disenfranchise Trump supporters, van der Veen did not mention that in the months leading up to the Jan. 6 insurrection, the former president and his allies waged an aggressive effort to get millions of legal votes for Biden thrown out over false claims of election fraud.
Van der Veen also did not mention that Trump pressured federal and state officials to help him flip his election loss — actions that are now under criminal investigation in at least one state.
Ignoring that backdrop, Trump attorney Bruce Castor claimed that when the ex-president told his supporters to “fight like hell” on Jan. 6 he was urging them to “support primary challenges” against Republicans who weren’t loyal to him.
“Clearly, there was no insurrection,” Castor said, speaking in the very chamber that was ransacked by armed Trump supporters attempting to overthrow American democracy a few weeks ago.
Earlier in the proceeding, David Schoen, another Trump attorney, played selectively-edited video montages of various Democrats, including New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, President Biden, Hillary Clinton and Madonna, saying “fight” in a hodgepodge of contexts in an attempt to drive home the point that the word can be used without deadly violence ensuing.
“You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s a word people use, but please stop the hypocrisy,” said Schoen, aware that several of the politicians who appeared in his montage were in the chamber.
It was, however, not amiss on Democrats that when members of their party said “fight,” a belligerent mob of their supporters did not storm government buildings and kill police officers.
“There were a couple of propaganda reels about Democratic politicians that would be excluded in any court in the land. Whatever you think about it, it’s irrelevant,” Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the lead House impeachment manager, said of Schoen’s videos during the questioning session.
Schoen didn’t just play videos, though.
He also circled back to old tweets referenced by the managers when they delivered arguments for Trump’s conviction earlier this week.
In an especially bizarre portion, Schoen claimed that a Trump retweet promising “the calvary is coming” to the Capitol on Jan. 6 was not a typo.
“(They) told you repeatedly this was a promise to call in the cavalry for Jan. 6,” Schoen said of the managers. “The problem is the actual text is exactly the opposite. The tweeter promised to bring the Calvary, a public display of Christ’s crucifixion, a symbol of her Christian faith.”
Schoen did not elaborate on how the tweeter would’ve summoned the Calvary, a hill outside Jerusalem where Jesus is believed to have been crucified, to Washington, D.C.
With acquittal all but certain, the impeachment managers — Jan. 6 still fresh on their minds — appeared furious with the Trump attorneys’ boisterous rhetoric.
“Counsel said before, ‘This has been my worst experience in Washington,’” Raskin said, quoting van der Veen. “Man, you should’ve been here on Jan. 6.”
