Trump’s impeachment trial: defense claims case is “excessively wrong in facts” – live | American news

Castor suggested that Trump’s January 6 speech did not spark riots.

The lawyer did not address the broader question of whether Trump’s months-long tirade against the election result had anything to do with it.

“The January 6 speech did not cause riots,” Castor said.

Castor then moved on to a January phone call from Trump and Georgian Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. During that call Trump put pressure on Raffensperger, a Republican, to “find” votes so Trump could be declared the winner in Georgia.

Georgian prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation into Trump’s summons.

Castor read the transcript of the call and said Trump was expressing legitimate concern about the election results.

For some context, here are a few of what Trump said in that phone call in Georgia:

“Well, look. All I want is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than us. Because we conquered the country. “

Bruce Castor continues. He says recall managers “manipulated” Trump’s words when they presented their case.

Castor then speaks a little Latin and suggests that the managers of the House recall are “trying to deceive you”.

“President Trump has been immediate in his calls for calm,” Castor says. (Trump didn’t.)

“President Trump’s words could not have triggered events in the capital,” Castor said, because people were already gathering at the chapel before Trump gave a speech on the ellipse, a 15-minute walk away.

DOJ has specifically referred to the events of Jan. 6 as an insurrection. https://t.co/msWzru3fXd

— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) February 12, 2021

Castor began his defense by showing a video, most of which was set from a video that Trump’s legal team had previously released.

The opposite is that Democrats are defending Black Lives Matter protesters, joined by selected clips of violence at some BLM demonstrations, and Trump is talking about “law and order”. Law and order is often used as racist dog whistles.

“January 6 was a terrible day for our country,” Castor admitted, but continued, “President Trump did not incite or provoke horrific violence.”

This defense tactic – that Trump’s supporters storming the Capitol were bad, but it’s not Trump’s fault – we expected something.

Castor added: “Political hatred has no place in the American justice system, and it certainly has no place in the United States Congress either.”

Donald Trump’s legal team continued its defense. Bruce Castor, who he reportedly left Trump furious after a vague performance earlier this week, it will process the next section.

During the break, Democratic senators lined up to hold the defense.

“Donald Trump has been told that if he doesn’t stop lying about the election, people will be killed,” Senator Tim Kaine told reporters, according to the Washington Post. “He wouldn’t stop, and the Capitol was attacked, and seven people are dead who would be alive today.”

Senator Richard J. Blumenthal said Trump’s defense team was “trying to draw a false, dangerous, and distorted equivalence,” the Post reported.

“And I think that obviously distracts attention from calling Donald Trump to the mob in Washington, knowing she’s armed; changing routes and times to encourage them to march through the Capitol; and then he enjoyed himself, without remorse, doing nothing to protect his own vice president and all of us, ”Blumenthal said.

“I think the case is even stronger after this very distorted and false argument.”

It’s not up to me to say that Trump’s lawyers have run out of ideas, but we’ve seen a video of the fight or a version of it at least four times now.

The video removes the crucial context from Democrat’s remarks. Trump discussed the fight on January 6 after he lured a multitude of false claims about election fraud, and then called on them to go to the American Capitol, where he implied that more fraud would happen.

None of the Democrats ever did that.

Van der Veen quotes former Assistant Judge James Wilson, who died in 1798, and then loops some other ‘founding fathers’. He is still free to speak.

“If the house managers were in their own way they would have ignored the whole constitution,” Van der Veen said. He then added something about the impeachment that is “anti-American” and moved on to quoting case law from the 1960s.

Here’s a little more about Van der Veen, who is usually a personal injury lawyer:

Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, is among those who use the word “fight” in this video that Trump’s legal team constantly cites. Here are some contexts:

More videos! Trump’s defense team is releasing Democrat clips – and, oddly enough, Madonna – using tongues tongues. Included is Joe Biden’s always curious claim that he would like to take Trump “behind the gym”.

“That’s not what eye-ism is,” Van der Veen said. “I’m showing you this video because all robust speech needs to be protected.”

That video was almost identical to the two videos Trump’s lawyers have already shown.

Van der Veen then displayed the text of the first amendment on the big screen. Part of the freedom of speech in Trump’s defense continues.

It happened at Mar-a-Lago, the private club where Trump lives, apparently indefinitely:

Michael Van der Veen, Trump’s attorney who initiated the defense case, returned to the podium.

Van der Veen presented the defense of “freedom of speech”, which we heard that Trump’s legal team would be used.

“Mr. Trump’s speech deserves full protection under the First Amendment,” Van der Veen said.

Meanwhile, the Republican senator obviously did told CNN there is “real concern” about the quality of Trump’s team’s defense today:

The senator, who is among those who paid much more attention to the proceedings in the panel than many colleagues, said that there is no doubt that the presentation of the impeachment manager of the House will almost certainly be stronger than the presentation of the defense. But the senator said Republicans hope the defense will be presented “in a professional and serious way – as opposed to a rampant show” from the first day of the trial.

More videos of Trump’s legal team, while the defense goes through an hour.

This video shows clips from the Black Lives Matter protest over the summer. It is another attempt to compare anti-racism protests to a crowd of Trump supporters breaking into the U.S. Capitol and threatening to kill politicians.

Here are some procedures on Twitter:

Trump’s legal team released another video. The video, like the one before, shows numerous Democrats using the word “fight” during political interviews and at rallies.

The key difference is that none of the Democrats used the word struggle as they reinforced their supporters and then persuaded them to march to the US Capitol, where the results of the presidential election will soon be formalized. In some cases, Democrats spoke of fighting for policy changes or health care. (Trump’s legal team cut out those parts, leaving only the word ‘fight’.)

Trump’s legal case so far seems to be: a) Democrats rushed to discuss impeachment, which seems irrelevant, b) impeachment is unconstitutional, which is wrong, and c) some Democrats used a word that sometimes used the word “fight”, but – as far as I can see – none of them ever used the word in the same volatile circumstances that Trump faced on Jan. 6.

Schoen, who did no favors because of the camera angle from top to bottom in the Senate chamber, went on to talk about Trump’s second emergency recall. He claims that the impeachment managers “produced evidence”.

He claimed that two tweets, collected by House impeachment managers as evidence that Trump incited the rioters, were not released on Jan. 6. This is somewhat irrelevant because these tweets – as Schoen pointed out – were not part of the impeachment manager. case.

Schoen then released longer versions of Trump’s videos released by impeachment managers. Schoen argued that impeachment managers cut videos to remove context.

One video showed Trump’s infamous “very fine people on both sides” regarding the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville. I’m not sure a longer video helps Trump’s case.