Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Joan E Greve (now), Bryan Armen Graham and Martin Belam (earlier)

Senate votes to acquit as Trump celebrates: our movement 'has only just begun' – as it happened

US Senate votes to acquit former President Donald Trump of incitement of insurrection.
US Senate votes to acquit former President Donald Trump of incitement of insurrection. Photograph: US Senate TV/Reuters

Donald Trump's second acquittal summary

That’s it from me tonight, after a historic day in Washington. Here’s how the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump came to a close today:

  • The Senate voted to acquit Donald Trump of incitement of insurrection in a vote of 57-43. The decision came a little over a month after the president incited a group of his supporters to stage a violent insurrection at the US Capitol, resulting in five deaths.
  • Seven Senate Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues in supporting Trump’s conviction. Republican Senators Richard Burr of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraka and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania voted to find Trump guilty of incitement of insurrection. Although the former president was still acquitted, this marked the most bipartisan impeachment vote in Senate history.
  • The trial came to a swift end after House impeachment managers reversed their decision to call witnesses. The Senate approved a resolution to allow the managers to request witness testimony, but the managers eventually decided to instead just admit a statement from congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler to the official trial record rather than calling any witnesses. After the statement was accepted, the trial moved on to closing arguments and the final vote.
  • Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer expressed dismay over the vote to acquit Trump. The Democratic leader urged Americans to never forget the violence and destruction of the Capitol insurrection. “My fellow Americans: remember that day, January 6th, forever — the final, terrible legacy of the 45th president of the United States and undoubtedly our worst,” Schumer said. “Let it live on in infamy, a stain on Donald John Trump that can never, never be washed away.”
  • Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell directly blamed Trump for the insurrection, even though he voted to acquit the former president. “There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically, and morally, responsible for provoking the events of the day,” McConnell said in a floor speech after the vote. But the Republican leader argued he could not support conviction because it was not appropriate to hold an impeachment trial for a president who had already left office. McConnell interestingly suggested it was still possible for Trump to be held criminally responsible for the insurrection.

Thanks for following along with our impeachment trial coverage tonight. Tune back in tomorrow, when the live blog will cover more fallout from the acquittal vote.

TJ Ducklo confirmed in his own statement that he has offered his resignation as deputy press secretary for Joe Biden.

Ducklo expressed regret over threatening a White House reporter who raised questions about his romantic relationship with another journalist.

“I know this was terrible. I know I can’t take it back,” Ducklo said in the statement. “But I also know I can learn from it and do better.”

The White House has not yet released a statement about the end of the impeachment trial, but press secretary Jen Psaki just announced that deputy press secretary TJ Ducklo has resigned.

“We accepted the resignation of TJ Ducklo after a discussion with him this evening. This conversation occurred with the support of the White House Chief of Staff,” Psaki said in a statement.

“We are committed to striving every day to meet the standard set by the President in treating others with dignity and respect, with civility and with a value for others through our words and our actions.”

The statement comes a day after Vanity Fair reported that Ducklo made insulting and threatening comments to a reporter who posed questions about his romantic relationship with another journalist. The White House announced yesterday that Ducklo would be suspended for one week.

Updated

Donald Trump has reportedly voiced concern that he may be held criminally responsible for the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

CNN reports:

Trump has privately voiced concern in the last two weeks about whether he could face charges as a result of the January 6 riot he’s accused of inciting, according to multiple people.

Trump has mainly been quiet since leaving the White House last month, and his silence has been in part related to those concerns.

‘He’s worried about it,’ one adviser close to Trump told CNN.

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell raised the possibility that Trump could face criminal consequences for inciting the insurrection, after he voted to acquit Trump in the impeachment trial.

“President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he’s in office,” McConnell said in a floor speech after the acquittal vote. “He didn’t get away with anything yet.”

Louisiana GOP censures Cassidy over conviction vote

The executive committee of the Republican party of Louisiana has unanimously decided to censure Senator Bill Cassidy over his vote to convict Donald Trump of incitement of insurrection.

The state party said in an earlier statement, “We condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the vote today by Sen. Cassidy to convict former President Trump. Fortunately, clearer heads prevailed and President Trump has been acquitted of the impeachment charge filed against him.”

The censure mirrors similar efforts in states like Arizona, where the state GOP voted last month to censure three prominent members of the party, including Governor Doug Ducey, for being insufficiently loyal to Trump.

The Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, David Smith, wrote last month about how state-level Republican groups are becoming increasingly extremist:

Senator Susan Collins, one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Donald Trump, said that the former president spent weeks inciting the violence at the Capitol by spewing lies about the November election.

“This impeachment trial is not about any single word uttered by President Trump on January 6, 2021. It is instead about President Trump’s failure to obey the oath he swore on January 20, 2017,” Collins said in a floor speech.

“His actions to interfere with the peaceful transition of power – the hallmark of our constitution and our American democracy – were an abuse of power and constitute grounds for conviction.”

Collins, who won reelection in November, also dismissed arguments from Trump’s lawyers that his January 6 speech was protected by the First Amendment.

“The First Amendment was not designed and has never been construed by any court to bar the impeachment and conviction of an official who violates his oath of office by summoning and inciting a mob to threaten other officials in the discharge of their constitutional obligations,” Collins said.

She concluded her remarks by saying, “My vote in this trial stems from my own oath and duty to defend the Constitution of the United States. The abuse of power and betrayal of his oath by President Trump meet the constitutional standard of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors,’ and for those reasons I voted to convict Donald J. Trump.”

Fox News seemed to suggest the Republicans who supported convicting Donald Trump had betrayed their voters, saying in a news alert that the seven senators “turned their backs” on the former president.

The Republican senators who supported conviction have said they made their votes based on a desire to protect the constitution and hold Trump accountable for inciting the Capitol insurrection.

Senator Lisa Murkowski was one of the seven Republicans who voted to convict Donald Trump in the impeachment trial. Of those seven Republicans, Murkowski is the only one who is up for reelection next year.

Murkowski said in an interview that she felt it was important for her to stand up for her values with this vote.

“If I can’t say what I believe that our president should stand for, then why should I ask Alaskans to stand with me?” Murkowski told Politico.

“This was consequential on many levels, but I cannot allow the significance of my vote, to be devalued by whether or not I feel that this is helpful for my political ambitions.”

Pelosi ridicules McConnell's 'pathetic' rationale for acquittal

House speaker Nancy Pelosi expanded upon her thoughts on Donald Trump’s acquittal in a statement released by her office.

“Donald Trump’s incitement of insurrection against our Democracy put Senators, Members of Congress, staff and heroic law enforcement officers in mortal danger,” the Democratic speaker said. “It is the most grievous constitutional crime ever committed by a president and is clearly deserving of conviction.”

Pelosi applauded the Republican senators who voted to convict Trump, while condemning the 43 Republicans who allowed the former president to be acquitted.

“I salute the Republican Senators who voted their conscience and for our Country,” Pelosi said. “Other Senate Republicans’ refusal to hold Trump accountable for igniting a violent insurrection to cling to power will go down as one of the darkest days and most dishonorable acts in our nation’s history.”

Pelosi specifically criticized Mitch McConnell for arguing the impeachment trial was unconstitutional because Trump had already left office, when the then-majority leader refused to call the Senate back for an emergency session to start the trial in January.

“It is so pathetic that Senator McConnell kept the Senate shut down so that the Senate could not receive the Article of Impeachment and has used that as his excuse for not voting to convict Donald Trump,” Pelosi said.

“Tragically, Senate Republicans who voted not to convict chose to abandon the Constitution, the Country and the American people with this vote. Thank God for the judges and Republican elected officials across the country who pushed back against Donald Trump’s attempted overturning of our election which fueled the insurrection.”

Updated

Impeachment manager Joaquin Castro noted that the Senate Republicans who voted to acquit did not attempt to defend Donald Trump’s actions on 6 January.

Instead, Senate Republicans focused their arguments for acquittal on the idea that it is unconstitutional to hold an impeachment trial for a president who has already left office.

“The defendant, President Donald John Trump, was let off on a technicality,” Castro said.

It’s worth noting that the Senate held two votes on the constitutionality of the impeachment trial. Both votes upheld the trial’s constitutionality, with several Republicans joining Democrats to move forward with the proceedings.

Updated

Impeachment manager Stacey Plaskett said the House team chose not to call witnesses in part because it would have likely “required subpoenas and months of litigation”.

Plaskett said that those who may have been able to testify to Donald Trump’s actions and mindset on 6 January were “not friendly” to the impeachment managers and were thus unlikely to willingly testify.

Updated

Lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin said the White House was not involved in the decision to abandon the effort to call witnesses in the impeachment trial.

The Senate voted this morning to allow the impeachment managers to request witness testimony, but the managers instead chose to simply admit congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler’s statement to the official record and move on to closing arguments.

“I made the call,” Raskin said, adding that he “never spoke to anyone from the White House”.

Pelosi condemns 'cowardly' Republicans who voted to acquit Trump

House speaker Nancy Pelosi joined the impeachment managers’ press conference and applauded the work they did in the trial over the past week.

The Democratic speaker denounced the “cowardly group of Republicans” who refused to hold Donald Trump accountable for inciting the January 6 insurrection.

Pelosi specifically criticized Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell for refusing to call an emergency session to begin the impeachment trial and then using the trial’s delay as a reason to acquit Trump.

The speaker also dismissed the possibility of issuing a censure against Trump over the January 6 insurrection, saying it would be an insufficient response.

“We censure people for using stationery for the wrong purpose. We don’t censure people for inciting insurrection,” Pelosi said.

Updated

Lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin defended his team’s decision to not call any witnesses after the Senate approved a resolution allowing them to request witness testimony.

Raskin noted that Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged Trump was directly responsible for the 6 January insurrection. McConnell said he voted to acquit Trump because he did not believe the Senate had jurisdiction to try a former president.

“All of them are hinging it on a legal argument,” Raskin said of the Republicans who voted to acquit. “That could never be overcome by any number of witnesses.”

Updated

House impeachment managers hold press conference after acquittal

The House impeachment managers are now holding a press conference, after the Senate voted to acquit Donald Trump.

Lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin expressed pride in the work done by his team, even though they did not get the verdict they wanted.

Raskin noted that the final vote was the most bipartisan impeachment vote in the history of the US Senate. Raskin also referenced Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell’s speech moments ago, which echoed arguments made by the impeachment managers, even though McConnell voted to acquit.

“The bottom line is that, we convinced a big majority in the Senate of our case,” Raskin said.

Senator Bill Cassidy, one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Donald Trump, released a short video explaining his decision.

“Our constitution and our country is more important than any one person,” the Louisiana senator said in the video. “I voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty.”

Cassidy surprised viewers of the impeachment trial earlier this week, when he voted with Democrats to uphold the constitutionality of the trial.

Cassidy was the only senator who changed his mind from an earlier vote on whether it was constitutional to hold an impeachment trial for a president who had already left office.

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said he voted to acquit Donald Trump because he thought it was unconstitutional to hold an impeachment trial for a president who had already left office.

But it’s worth noting that the Senate held two votes on that matter, and the chamber determined both times that the impeachment trial was constitutional. In the second vote, six Republicans joined Democrats in supporting the constitutionality of the trial.

In his statement explaining his vote to convict, Republican Richard Burr noted he did not agree with the outcome of that vote, but he accepted it.

“When this process started, I believed that it was unconstitutional to impeach a president who was no longer in office. I still believe that to be the case,” Burr said.

“However, the Senate is an institution based on precedent, and given that the majority in the Senate voted to proceed with this trial, the question of constitutionality is now established precedent. As an impartial juror, my role is now to determine whether House managers have sufficiently made the case for the article of impeachment against President Trump.”

Burr went on to say, “The evidence is compelling that President Trump is guilty of inciting an insurrection against a coequal branch of government and that the charge rises to the level of high Crimes and Misdemeanors. Therefore, I have voted to convict.”

McConnell suggests Trump could still be open to criminal prosecution

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell suggested Donald Trump may still be open to criminal prosecution over his role in the January 6 insurrection.

“President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he’s in office,” McConnell said. “He didn’t get away with anything yet.”

The Republican leader noted that the US has both a criminal justice system and a civil litigation system, and he said former presidents are “not immune from being accountable by either one”.

Of course, a potential criminal investigation would not have prevented the Senate from voting to convict Trump and block him from seeking federal office again.

Updated

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell also argued that the chamber did not have the ability to convict Donald Trump because he has already left office.

It’s worth noting that the House impeached Trump while he was still in office, and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called on McConnell, who was then the majority leader, to bring the chamber back for an emergency session to start the trial.

McConnell refused to do so, delaying the trial until after Joe Biden was sworn in.

After voting to acquit, McConnell accuses Trump of 'disgraceful dereliction of duty'

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, who voted to acquit Donald Trump of incitement of insurrection, is now delivering a blistering speech about the former president.

The Republican leader said Trump committed a “disgraceful dereliction of duty” by refusing to intervene as his supporters carried out a violent insurrection at the Capitol.

“There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically, and morally, responsible for provoking the events of the day,” McConnell said.

McConnell emphasized that the insurrectionists turned violent because Trump had told them a series of lies about the presidential election.

“They did this because they’d been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth because he was angry he lost an election,” McConnell said. “This was an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories.”

The Republican leader then pivoted to making a jurisdictional argument against conviction, saying the Senate is not meant to act as a “moral tribunal”.

Schumer says January 6 should 'live on in infamy'

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer expressed dismay over the vote to acquit Donald Trump of incitement of insurrection.

“He deserves to be convicted, and I believe he will be convicted in the court of public opinion,” Schumer said. “He deserves to be permanently discredited, and I believe he has been discredited in the eyes of the American people and in the judgment of history.”

The Democratic leader commended the seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump, resulting in the most bipartisan impeachment vote in Senate history.

“I salute those Republican patriots who did the right thing. It wasn’t easy,” Schumer said.

The majority leader then implored Americans to never forget the violence and destruction of the Capitol insurrection, which resulted in five deaths.

“My fellow Americans, remember that day, January 6, forever,” Schumer said. “Let it live on in infamy.”

Updated

Trump revels in acquittal: our movement 'has only just begun'

Donald Trump has released a statement celebrating the Senate vote to acquit him of incitement of insurrection.

“I want to first thank my team of dedicated lawyers and others for their tireless work upholding justice and defending truth,” the former president said.

“My deepest thanks as well to all of the United States Senators and members of Congress who stood proudly for the constitution we all revere and for the sacred legal principles at the heart of our country.”

Trump condemned the impeachment trial as “another phase of the greatest witch-hunt in the history of our country”, even though seven Republican senators voted to convict him.

The former president also nodded at his political future now that he is free to run for the White House in 2024.

“Our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun. In the months ahead, I have much to share with you, and I look forward to continuing our incredible journey together to achieve American greatness for all of our people. There has never been anything like it,” Trump said.

The statement comes after impeachment managers spent days warning that Trump would threaten the safety of American democracy if he was allowed to run for public office again.

Updated

Although the Senate fell 10 votes short of convicting Donald Trump, it’s worth noting that this is the most bipartisan impeachment vote in Senate history.

The House vote last month was also the most bipartisan presidential impeachment in US history.

The seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict Donald Trump were Richard Burr, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse and Pat Toomey.

Two of those seven Republicans – Burr and Toomey – are retiring. Two other retiring Republicans – Rob Portman and Richard Shelby – voted to acquit Trump.

Updated

Senate acquits Donald Trump in second impeachment trial

The Senate has officially voted to acquit Donald Trump of incitement of insurrection in his second impeachment trial.

The final vote was 57-43, meaning the Senate fell 10 votes short of convicting the former president.

Seven Republicans joined every Democrat in voting to convict Trump, but it was not enough to find him guilty.

Updated

Four more Republican senators – Lisa Murkowski, Ben Sasse, Mitt Romney and Pat Toomey – have voted that Donald Trump is guilty of incitement of insurrection.

However, the Senate does not appear to have the 67 votes needed to convict Trump.

Updated

Senate has votes to acquit Donald Trump

The Senate now has enough votes to acquit Donald Trump of incitement of insurrection in the impeachment trial.

As of now, 34 senators have voted to acquit Trump.

Assuming no senator changes his or her vote, the Senate will not have enough votes to convict Trump. It would take 67 votes to convict the former president.

Richard Burr was the first Republican senator to vote that Donald Trump was guilty of incitement of insurrection.

Republican Senators Bill Cassidy and Susan Collins soon joined Burr and every other Democratic senator so far in voting guilty.

Senate vote is underway

The Senate vote on whether Donald Trump should be convicted for incitement of insurrection is now underway.

As of now, nine senators have voted to convict Trump, and six senators have voted to acquit.

Updated

The Senate clerk is now reading the article of impeachment against Donald Trump, which the House passed last month.

Here is a section of the article:

President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of Government. He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government. He thereby betrayed his trust as President, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

Wherefore, Donald John Trump, by such conduct, has 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. Donald John Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.

Senate is ready to hold final vote in Donald Trump's impeachment trial

The closing arguments have concluded, and the Senate will now hold a final vote on whether Donald Trump should be convicted for incitement of insurrection.

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer called for the chamber to move on to a final vote in the trial. “The Senate is now ready to vote on the article of impeachment,” Schumer said.

Senator Patrick Leahy, who is presiding over the trial, then asked the clerk to read the article of impeachment passed by the House last month.

The vote will soon begin.

Lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin has taken the floor again to push back against some of the comments from Michael Van der Veen.

Raskin noted that the arguments from Donald Trump’s team have been very inconsistent.

For example, Trump lawyer Bruce Castor said yesterday that there was no violent insurrection at the Capitol on 6 January.

But moments ago, Van der Veen said “everyone agrees” that a violent insurrection occurred.

Updated

Trump lawyer dismisses impeachment trial as a 'complete charade'

Michael Van der Veen, one of Donald Trump’s lawyers, leveled a series of serious accusations (without evidence) against the House impeachment managers.

Van der Veen accused the managers of having “fabricated evidence” and committed “fraud” in its presentations during the impeachment trial.

“In short, this impeachment has been a complete charade from beginning to end,” Van der Veen said. “The entire spectacle has been nothing but the unhinge pursuit of a long-standing political vendetta against Mr Trump by the opposition party.”

The lawyer concluded his comments by saying, “I urge the Senate to acquit and vindicate the constitution of this great republic.”

Updated

Michael Van der Veen, one of Donald Trump’s lawyers, repeated the argument that the impeachment trial is unconstitutional because his client has already left office.

Van der Veen added that Senate Democrats could have held the trial before Trump left office, but they chose not to do so.

However, Republican Mitch McConnell was still majority leader when Trump left office, so the schedule was not up to Senate Democrats.

Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called on McConnell to bring the Senate back for an emergency session to immediately begin the trial after the House approved the article of impeachment, but McConnell refused to do so.

Trump lawyer Michael Van der Veen equated the Capitol insurrection with Black Lives Matter protests last summer.

Van der Veen also accused Joe Biden of not condemning violence that arose at some BLM protests.

That is entirely false. Biden repeatedly condemned violence at the protests and called on demonstrators to remain peaceful as they marched against the police killing of George Floyd.

Michael Van der Veen, one of Donald Trump’s lawyers, falsely claimed that the Capitol insurrection was carried out by groups “on the left and right”.

That is not true. The riot was carried out by a group of Trump’s supporters, who were in Washington to attend a march that culminated in the attack on the Capitol. Trump spoke at that rally and encouraged his supporters to march to the Capitol as lawmakers certified Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential race.

Some Democrats in the Senate chamber reacted to Van der Veen’s assertion by audibly groaning or shaking their heads, according to those present in the chamber.

Michael Van der Veen, one of Donald Trump’s lawyers, accused the House impeachment managers of having “violently breached” trial procedure by trying to introduce new evidence during closing arguments.

Senator Patrick Leahy, who is presiding over the impeachment trial, ruled that new evidence introduced during closing arguments would be stricken from the record.

But Van der Veen’s choice of words was quickly criticized by Democrats, given this trial is about whether Trump incited a violent insurrection that resulted in five deaths.

Raskin tells senators: 'This is almost certainly how you will be remembered by history'

Jamie Raskin closed the impeachment managers’ arguments by underscoring the historic significance of today’s vote.

“This is almost certainly how you will be remembered by history,” Raskin told senators, who will determine whether to convict Donald Trump for incitement of insurrection.

The lead impeachment manager warned that an acquittal, which is expected to occur, could set America on a dangerous path.

“Is this America? What kind of America will we be?” Raskin said. “It’s now literally in your hands. Godspeed to the Senate of the United States.”

With that, the impeachment mangers rested their case. Trump’s defense lawyers are now presenting their closing arguments.

In his closing comments, lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin quoted his late son Tommy, who used to say, “It’s hard to be human.”

The Raskin family buried Tommy, who died by suicide in December, the day before the Capitol insurrection.

Lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin reflected on the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on January 6.

Raskin noted that one insurrectionist told his children that he may not return from the January 6 rally in Washington, which culminated in the Capitol riot, because he was prepared for the possibility of violence.

“The children of the insurrectionists, even the violent and dangerous ones, they are our children, too,” Raskin said.

The impeachment manager condemned Donald Trump for putting his own supporters in such danger and then just walking away from the wreckage.

Neguse: 'This cannot be the beginning. It has to be the end'

Impeachment manager Joe Neguse implored senators to vote to convict Donald Trump, warning this could be the beginning of darker days ahead for the US if he is acquitted.

The 36-year-old impeachment manager said this trial is “born from love of country” because the acquittal of Trump represents a threat to the US.

“I fear the violence we saw on that terrible day could just be the beginning,” Neguse said. “This cannot be the beginning. It has to be the end. And senators, that decision is in your hands.”

Impeachment manager Madeleine Dean asked senators to consider the historical precedent that will be set if they vote to acquit Donald Trump.

“If we don’t set this right and call it what it was – the highest of constitutional crimes by the president of the United States – the past will not be past. The past will become our future,” Dean said.

She described today’s vote as a “dialogue with history”. “Two hundred and thirty-four years from now, it may be that no one person here among us is remembered,” the Democratic congresswoman added.

“And yet what we do here, what is being asked of each of us here in this moment, will be remembered. History has found us. I ask that you not look the other way.”

Updated

The impeachment trial was briefly delayed as the managers and Donald Trump’s defense lawyers quibbled over a clip introduced by congresswoman Madeleine Dean.

Dean had played a clip of a Trump adviser speaking at the 6 January rally that preceded the insurrection. Trump’s lawyers said it had not been previously introduced and thus could not be shown now because no new evidence is allowed during closing arguments.

After the trial resumed, Dean joked, “I have to say that, of all the trials I have ever been a part of, this is certainly one of them.”

Updated

There seems to be a split in opinion developing among liberal commentators over Democrats’ decision to move forward without calling witnesses in the impeachment trial.

Some commentators, such as professor and MSNBC contributor Jason Johnson, argued that the Democrats’ decision was a moral failure, saying they failed to stand up to the white supremacy that caused the 6 January insurrection:

Other liberal commentators, such as former Obama adviser David Axelrod, defended congressional Democrats, saying they had prioritized Americans who are financially suffering because of the coronavirus pandemic:

It’s true that the quick conclusion of the impeachment trial will allow the Senate to focus on other legislative matters, namely Joe Biden’s coronavirus relief package.

However, it should also be noted that the Senate was going to be in recess next week anyway, so another week of proceedings would not have disrupted the chamber’s plans. But if the trial had instead stretched on for several weeks as witnesses were deposed, it’s possible the Senate would have grinded to a halt.

Updated

After the quorum call, Mike Lee withdrew his objection to impeachment manager David Cicilline’s closing comments, which referenced the Republican senator’s 6 January call with Donald Trump.

Senator Patrick Leahy, who is presiding over the trial, reminded all parties that new evidence is not allowed at this point in the trial, and all new evidence will be stricken from the record.

Impeachment manager Madeleine Dean is now continuing with her side’s closing arguments.

Updated

Mike Lee has raised a point of order, after impeachment manager David Cicilline mentioned the Republican senator’s call with Donald Trump on 6 January.

Cicilline presented an altered timeline of 6 January, after Lee provided the impeachment managers with a phone record showing Trump called him after the then-president sent a tweet disparaging Mike Pence. (The managers previously suggested the call happened before Trump sent the tweet.)

“He said something that is not true!” Lee said of Cicilline.

Patrick Leahy initially said debate was not allowed during the closing arguments, and the Senate is now holding a quorum call.

Updated

The decision to move forward without calling witnesses in the impeachment trial will allow congressional Democrats to focus on advancing Joe Biden’s agenda, namely his coronavirus relief package.

But the decision also means that the Democrats passed on an opportunity to present new, potentially damning evidence about Donald Trump’s response to the 6 January insurrection.

The former president would almost certainly have been acquitted whether or not witnesses are called, but the new evidence could have impacted the opinions of millions of Americans who witnessed the violence of that day.

Updated

Democrats’ decision to abandon their demand that witnesses be called in the impeachment trial has raised complaints that the Senate prioritized its planned recess over the need to hear testimony about the 6 January insurrection.

From a Washington Post columnist:

From an editor for the conservative outlet the Dispatch:

From a CBS News reporter:

Updated

The House impeachment managers and Democratic senators are receiving widespread criticism for caving on calling witnesses in the impeachment trial, after they won a procedural vote to do so.

From MSNBC’s chief legal correspondent:

From a former justice department official under Barack Obama:

From the New Yorker’s Susan Glasser:

From the Atlantic’s Adam Serwer:

Lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin is now presenting his side’s closing arguments, summarizing the presentation they delivered over two days.

The Democratic congressman said the managers had presented “overwhelming and irrefutable” evidence that Donald Trump incited the 6 January insurrection at the Capitol.

Raskin noted the managers asked Trump to testify in the trial, but the former president refused to do so. Raskin asked senators if they would want to testify if they believed they had been falsely accused of inciting a violent insurrection.

“I am sure I would,” Raskin said.

Updated

After congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler’s statement was added to the official record, both the House impeachment managers and Donald Trump’s defense lawyers declined to make any requests for more evidence.

That means the impeachment trial will have no witnesses, after a few hours of intense drama over who would be called to testify.

The trial has moved on to closing arguments from the managers and Trump’s lawyers, which will last up to four hours.

The Senate will then proceed to a final vote, meaning Trump will likely be acquitted later today.

Updated

Senate agrees on calling no witnesses, pushing trial toward final vote

With Jaime Herrera Beutler’s statement added to the official record, the Senate has now agreed that no witnesses will be called in the impeachment trial.

The trial has now moved on to closing arguments from the impeachment managers and Donald Trump’s defense lawyers.

The trial is expected to conclude with a final vote on acquittal later today.

Senate returns, with deal expected on witnesses

The Senate has resumed the impeachment trial, and the chamber is expected to announce a deal on calling witnesses.

Senator Patrick Leahy, who is presiding over the trial, resumed the proceedings by recognizing Bruce Castor, one of Donald Trump’s lawyers.

Castor said he believed that congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler’s testimony, if she were called as a witness, would be consistent with her statement from last month.

Lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin then read Beutler’s statement aloud, and it was added to the official trial record.

Senator Marco Rubio indicated that no witnesses will be called in the impeachment trial after all.

“All this drama for nothing. House managers made fools of themselves. They have agreed to have a news article for the record something they could have gotten without resistance from anyone,” the Florida Republican said in a tweet.

If Democrats backtrack on calling witnesses, it would clear the way for a swift vote on acquittal in the impeachment trial.

Democrats will likely be criticized for reversing their decision so quickly, although it would allow them to quickly move forward with Joe Biden’s coronavirus relief package.

If the impeachment trial dragged on for weeks as witnesses were deposed, it could grind the whole Senate to a halt.

Senate minority whip John Thune, a Republican of South Dakota, told the Washington Post that he believes the chamber has reached an agreement to admit Jaime Herrera Beutler’s statement into the official record and then move on without calling witnesses, allowing for a swift end to the trial.

Senator Joe Manchin said that the chamber has reached a deal on next steps in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.

But the West Virginia Democrat did not provide further details about the deal while speaking to a Bloomberg News reporter.

Multiple reports indicate that senators have discussed the possibility of allowing Jaime Herrera Beutler’s statement from last night into the official record.

In her statement, Beutler said House minority leader Kevin McCarthy told her that Trump sided with the insurrectionists in a 6 January phone call with him.

If Beutler’s statement is added to the official record, the Senate may choose not to allow any witnesses in the trial after all, which would clear the way for a swift vote on acquittal.

Updated

Republican Senator Mike Lee has provided impeachment managers with a record of his 6 January phone call with Donald Trump, according to the Washington Post.

Lee has previously said that Trump mistakenly contacted him when he was trying to reach Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama. When Lee realized the president’s mistake, he gave his phone to Tuberville.

The Post reports:

According to Lee’s office, the log shows that Lee received the call from 202-395-0000, a main White House switchboard number, just 13 minutes after Vice President Mike Pence was hustled from the Senate floor at 2:13 p.m. and Senate action was halted, as insurrectionists stormed through the Capitol building. Lee has said that when he realized Trump’s confusion, he handed his phone to Tuberville.

Tuberville has said that during the brief call, he personally informed Trump that Pence had just been evacuated from the Senate floor. ‘I said: ‘Mr. President, they’ve taken the vice president out. They want me to get off the phone, I gotta go,’ ’ Tuberville said Friday.

That account — and the new phone record — strongly undercuts a claim from Trump’s lawyers on the Senate floor on Friday that ‘at no time’ had Trump been informed that Pence was in danger during the hours-long riot, as well as their complaints that accounts of the phone call presented at trial were mere ‘hearsay.’ It also demonstrates that as rioters forced a halt in the counting of the electoral college votes, Trump was focused on finding additional ways to delay the process; Tuberville was at the time taking a lead in objecting to votes confirming Biden’s election win.

The record appears to confirm that Trump did not know Pence had been evacuated from the Senate chamber when he sent a tweet disparaging the vice-president for not trying to overturn the results of the presidential election.

However, the record also confirms Trump learned that the vice-president was in danger shortly after the Capitol was breached, but he still did not call for an end to the violence for hours after the insurrection began.

Updated

Reports indicate that senators are discussing the possibility of entering the CNN report about House minority leader Kevin McCarthy’s 6 January call with Donald Trump into the official record.

If the report is added to the official record, then the Senate may decide not to approve any witnesses in the trial, which means the acquittal vote could happen soon.

One reason why Democrats may not want any witnesses to be called is because it could give Republicans the opportunity to grind the whole Senate to a halt, holding up Joe Biden’s coronavirus relief package and his remaining cabinet nominations.

Republican Senator Joni Ernst told the New York Times moments ago, “If they want to drag this out, we’ll drag it out. They won’t get their noms, they won’t get anything.”

Updated

This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Bryan Armen Graham.

The Senate is expected to return in 20 minutes, after the chamber voted to allow the House impeachment managers and Donald Trump’s defense lawyers to request to call witnesses in the trial.

Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley told NBC News that it is possible the impeachment trial could be suspended for “weeks” while the approved witnesses are deposed.

If that occurs, the Senate would theoretically be allowed to advance Joe Biden’s coronavirus relief package while the trial is suspended.

The expanded unemployment benefits that were approved by the last relief package are scheduled to end on March 14, and Democrats are eager to get a new package approved before then to extend those benefits.

Trump adviser Jason Miller appears to be at the US capitol with a list of witnesses they want to call.

“We’re currently at 301 and counting,” Miller tweeted shortly after the Senate went into recess.

The names on the list include: House speaker Nancy Pelosi, Vice-president Kamala Harris, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, New York Times photographer Erin Schaff, DC mayor Muriel Bowser, former Senate sergeant-at-arms Michael C Stenger, Washington DC police chief Robert Contee, former House sergeant-at-arms Paul Irving, former deputy secretary of state John J Sullivan, senators Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren and representatives Maxine Waters, Ayanna Pressley, Joaquin Castro and Ted Lieu.

Updated

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer calls for and is granted a 45min recess amid the disarray over what happens next.

The Senate impeachment trial will resume at 12.30pm.

Meanwhile, Cecilia Vega of ABC News reports that sources close to Trump are “floored” by this morning’s vote.

The second impeachment trial of Donald Trump remains at a standstill after a majority of senators voted to consider calling witnesses about the deadly storming of the US capitol.

CNN is reporting that members of Trump’s impeachment team are surprised by this morning’s turn of events. The confusion appears to have extended to the chamber floor: Alaska’s Republican senator Dan Sullivan at one point asked what exactly the vote was on.

The Senate remains in a quorum more than one hour after the vote. When they resume, there will be another vote on a simple majority basis to subpoena specific witnesses. We can expect a delay in the final vote that was expected to happen today if any specific witnesses are approved.

The Senate remains in a quorum call as leaders speak to the clerks at the dais.

It’s important to note that Lindsey Graham’s change in vote in the motion to call witnesses does not imply that he’s changed his mind regarding the verdict.

The South Carolina senator, who has met with Trump’s defense team to discuss strategy and plan out the closing argument, has appeared on Fox News in recent days threatening to call the likes of Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris and Muriel Bowser in retaliation.

Conviction remains unlikely as at least 17 Republicans in the 100-seat chamber would have to join all 50 Democrats, but the potential extension of the impeachment trial introduces an element of the unknown to a procedure that appeared headed to a swift conclusion and up-or-down vote in the next few hours.

Updated

The expectations that Trump’s second impeachment trial would speed to its conclusion on Saturday have been dramatically halted with this morning’s last-minute vote to hear from witnesses.

The Senate has now gone into quorum call to figure out the next steps.

It remains unclear whether the motion was to allow only Beutler, whose testimony Democratic prosecutors will use to establish Trump’s indifference to the violence, will open the door for more witnesses beyond the Republican congresswoman.

Florida senator Marco Rubio, who voted no, has made his thoughts on the motion clear, dismissing it as kangaroo court.

Senate votes to consider witnesses in Trump's impeachment case

Four Senate Republicans have voted along with the Democrats, giving them more than enough votes to call witnesses: Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney and Ben Sasse.

Lindsey Graham changed his vote from no to yes after it was clear the motion would pass.

Prior to the 55-45 vote, Trump impeachment lawyer Michael van der Veen warned senators that if Democrats wished to call a witness, he will ask for at least 100 witnesses and insist they give depositions in person in his office in Philadelphia, prompting laughter from the chamber.

“There’s nothing laughable here,” the visibly angered attorney said.

Updated

The Senate is now voting on lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin’s motion to subpoena Washington congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler, one of 10 Republicans in the House of Representatives to vote for impeachment, for ‘corroborating evidence’ about Trump’s actions.

The subpoena would focus on Beutler’s conversation with House minority leader Kevin McCarthy on 6 January and would include Beutler’s contemporaneous notes of the event.

Herrera Beutler had said in a statement that McCarthy told her he spoke with Trump as rioters were storming the Capitol. She said McCarthy asked Trump to publicly “call off the riot” and told Trump the violent mob were Trump supporters, not far-left antifa members.

She said: “That’s when, according to McCarthy, the president said: ‘Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.”’

It’s unclear if she or any other witnesses will be called.

Updated

Steve Schmidt resigned from the Lincoln Project on Friday, amid scandal over the anti-Trump conservative group’s handling of alleged sexual harassment of young men by another co-founder and questions about its finances.

He went on to appear on Real Time with Bill Maher, where the HBO host said “I’m not here to prosecute you” – and did not ask about John Weaver.

Weaver is widely reported to have harassed young gay men, some seeking work with the Lincoln Project. One said he was 14 years old at the time. Earlier this year, Weaver said “the truth is that I’m gay” and apologised “to the men I made uncomfortable through my messages that I viewed as consensual mutual conversations at the time”.

Schmidt and other Lincoln Project co-founders have said they were not aware of Weaver’s behaviour until it was reported in the media, claims now subject to scrutiny. Having announced an external review, the group has said it will not comment further.

As Republican consultants, Schmidt and Weaver worked with John McCain. On Friday night Meghan McCain, the daughter of the late Arizona senator and Republican presidential nominee, issued a stinging rebuke. The two men, she said, “were so despised by my dad he made it a point to ban them from his funeral. Since 2008, no McCain would have spit on them if they were on fire.”

Schmidt’s resignation statement, which he titled My Truth, began by describing what he said was sexual misconduct by a “medic” at a Boy Scouts camp when he was 13. His resignation would make room for a female board member, he said, “as the first step to reform and professionalise the Lincoln Project”.

The only female co-founder, New Hampshire Republican Jennifer Horn, left the group this month. On Thursday night, the Project published to Twitter then took down private messages between Horn and a reporter.

The reporter, Amanda Becker of The 19th, subsequently published a story about “a culture of infighting, sexist language and disparate treatment” at the Lincoln Project. It was also reported that Ron Steslow, another co-founder who has left, had been denied release from a non-disclosure agreement.

Read more here:

Updated

McConnell confirms in email to colleagues he will vote to acquit Trump – reports

It looks like you can scrub out all that speculation about which way Mitch McConnell might vote from earlier in the blog. In an extremely not-surprising development, it turns out that despite a lot of wishful thinking in some quarters, the man who has voted for Donald Trump all along so far in the impeachment process, will apparently continue to vote for Donald Trump.

Politico’s co-congressional bureau chief Burgess Everett has the text of the email:

In it, while describing it as a “close call”, McConnell says he will vote to acquit because the trial is unconstitutional, as the Senate cannot remove from office somebody who has already left office. He argues that because a former president is potentially open for legal action over what they did in the closing days of their presidency, there is no “January exception” created.

There is no doubt that people will very swiftly point out that if McConnell had recalled the Senate to hold the impeachment trial when the House first voted to impeach Donald Trump, he would still have been in office and Congress would still have been in a position to remove him.

Updated

Arwa Mahdawi writes for us this morning on the subject of Andrew Cuomo:

Andrew Cuomo was practically deified by liberals in the early days of the pandemic because, let’s face it, anyone looked amazing compared to the train-wreck that was “try-injecting-bleach” Donald Trump. While Trump was in a state of dithering and denial, Cuomo took charge and was reassuringly direct: people across the US tuned into his daily press briefings. There was speculation Cuomo could be the next president.

Of course, being good on camera doesn’t mean you’re doing a good job on the ground. In recent weeks there have been calls for Cuomo to resign over allegations his administration tried to hide the scope of coronavirus-related nursing home deaths in New York. Two weeks ago, New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, released a report stating nursing home deaths were 50% higher than originally claimed. On Friday damning new allegations of a cover-up emerged. The New York Post reported it had obtained a recording of one of Cuomo’s top aides admitting the administration withheld data on nursing home deaths because it was worried the Department of Justice would investigate state misconduct.

It has always been obvious to anyone paying attention that Cuomo is a mini-Trump. He has the same appetite for authoritarianism as the former president: during the pandemic he has drawn scrutiny for cancelling special elections, issuing executive orders and consolidating power. Like Trump he has nothing but disdain for his detractors, particularly if they happen to be more qualified than he is. The New York Times recently reported that nine top New York health officials have resigned during the pandemic, with many of them telling the Times that Cuomo had asked them to match their health guidance to his decisions. But who needs experts, eh? Not the all-knowing Cuomo. “When I say ‘experts’ in air quotes, it sounds like I’m saying I don’t really trust the experts,” Cuomo said of pandemic policies in a recent news conference. “Because I don’t.”

Read more here:

Updated

You are usually pretty reliably able to predict the position that Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell is going to take on any given issue with Senate procedure. That has not necessarily been the case with Trump’s second impeachment trial, where a lot of commentators have suggested the Kentucky senator has been playing his cards extremely close to his chest. Although, it should be noted, every public vote he has made so far has been in favor of Donald Trump.

Alan Fram at the Associated Press writes about the calculations that may be playing on McConnell’s mind, saying the suspense over how he’ll vote underscores how much is at stake for McConnell and his party.

“The overwhelming number of Republican voters don’t want Trump convicted, so that means any political leader has to tread carefully,” said John Feehery, a former top congressional Republican aide. While Feehery noted that McConnell was clearly outraged over the attack, he said the senator is “trying to keep his party together.”

McConnell is the chamber’s most influential Republican and the longest-serving Republican leader ever, and a vote to acquit would leave the party locked in its struggle to define itself in the post-Trump presidency. A guilty vote could do more to roil Republican waters by signaling an attempt to yank the party away from a figure still revered by most of its voters.

Either way, McConnell’s decision could influence the party’s short- and long-term election prospects and affect the political clout and legacy of both Trump and the Senate minority leader.

By all accounts, McConnell has not lobbied senators on impeachment, instead telling them to vote their consciences. A McConnell vote to convict could give cover to wavering Republicans to join him. Even if Trump is acquitted, a substantial number of Republicans voting guilty would cement for history that there was bipartisan support for repudiating Trump over the riot.

Yet a McConnell vote against the former president would also enrage many of Trump’s hardcore base. That could expose Republican senators seeking reelection in 2022 to primaries from conservatives seeking revenge, potentially leaving the party with less appealing general election candidates as they try winning back Senate control.

Democrats in call for witnesses to be heard at Trump impeachment trial

The one spanner that could be thrown into the expected timetable works today would be if there’s a move to bring witnesses. That would almost certainly mean a fraught debate, and that the trial would not come to a conclusion as has been anticipated.

What might that hinge on? Well, it has begun to appear that the only thing that seems likely to move the dial for some Republican senators is if it becomes clear that Donald Trump tweeted to disparage Mike Pence after he knew that Pence had been evacuated for his own safety. Kyle Cheney and Andrew Desiderio write this up for Politico thus:

Trump’s defense team has argued that he was immediately “horrified” by what unfolded and took swift action to send aid to Congress. But that account conflicts with those of Trump’s closest allies and news reports citing his top aides. And the House prosecutors have underscored that Trump did virtually nothing to quell the riots as the violence mounted.

On Wednesday night, Sen Tommy Tuberville revealed he had informed Trump a little after 2pm on 6 January that insurrectionists had forced the evacuation of vice president Mike Pence from the Capitol. It was the first indication of precisely when Trump was told about the danger facing Pence — and it came just minutes before Trump, who had yet to issue any public comment on the widely televised violence, tweeted an attack on Pence for his refusal to unilaterally try to overturn the 2020 election results.

Pence has not spoken publicly about that day since the incident.

“One way to clear it up? Suspend trial to depose McCarthy and Tuberville under oath and get facts,” said Sen Sheldon Whitehouse. “Ask Secret Service to produce for review comms back to White House re VP Pence safety during siege. What did Trump know, and when did he know it?”

This morning, Sen Jeff Merkley endorsed Whitehouse’s call, saying his colleague “nailed it” in making the case for a trial pause.

Producing witnesses may not be a one-way street for the Democrats though, as Cheney has just added with a tweet.

Read more here: Politico – Dems weigh witness question as new details about Trump’s conduct revealed

Updated

What do Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, Michael Cohen, Mike Pence and Anthony Scaramucci all have in common?

They worked for Donald Trump, obviously, and several have been implicated in alleged crimes connected to the former president, but as of this month, each of these one-time high-profile Trump acolytes also has his own podcast.

Pence became the most recent to announce his own show this week, with the announcement that the oft-derided former vice-president will launch a podcast to “continue to attract new hearts and minds to the conservative cause”.

Like his one-time associates, Pence will enjoy the benefits of a regulation-free platform to share his thoughts on any topic of his choosing, and similarly to Bannon et al, Pence will also be able to keep himself in the public sphere – although the dry, mild-mannered Pence is likely to differ in tone from the Bannons and Giulianis of the podcast world.

On his War Room podcast, Bannon has called for the beheading of Anthony Fauci – something Pence is unlikely to do – while Giuliani’s Common Sense podcast has been used to further often unhinged claims of political fraud, which Pence might leave alone.

Cohen and Scaramucci’s podcasts, which are critical of Trump, may not fit in with the Trump worshippers’ efforts, but the fact that five of Trump’s most prominent acolytes chose this format for propagating their views – over television, radio or the written word - is pretty remarkable.

So, why podcasts? One major factor is one of the oldest in politics: money.

“I think in part it’s because it’s an easier medium to get into than something like radio or television. The overhead costs are much much lower. If you have an avid base, and the Trump base tends to be an avid base, you can make a ton of money doing this,” Nicole Hemmer, author of Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics, said.

“If you have audience of just 35,000 people, you can make a profitable podcast,” Hemmer said. “If you have an audience of 100,000 people, now you’re starting to talk real money.”

Read more of Adam Gabbatt’s report here: Sounds about right: why podcasting works for Pence, Bannon and Giuliani

Barely a month since the deadly riot on 6 January, we are set for the closing arguments of an impeachment trial in a rare Saturday Senate session, held under the watch of armed National Guard troops still guarding the iconic building.

The outcome of the quick, raw and emotional proceedings is expected to reflect a country divided over the former president and the future of his brand of politics, report the Associated Press.

“What’s important about this trial is that it’s really aimed to some extent at Donald Trump, but it’s more aimed at some president we don’t even know 20 years from now,” said Sen Angus King, the independent from Maine.

The nearly weeklong trial has delivered a grim and graphic narrative of the riot and its consequences in ways that senators, most of whom fled for their own safety that day, acknowledge they are still coming to grips with.

Acquittal is expected in the evenly-divided Senate. Many Republicans representing states where the former president remains popular doubt whether Trump was fully responsible or if impeachment is the appropriate response. Democrats appear all but united toward conviction.

That verdict could heavily influence not only Trump’s political future but that of the senators sworn to deliver impartial justice as jurors.

Only by watching the graphic videos — rioters calling out menacingly for House speaker Nancy Pelosi and vice president Mike Pence, who was presiding over the vote tally — did senators say they began to understand just how perilously close the country came to chaos. Hundreds of rioters stormed into the building, taking over the Senate. Some engaged in hand-to-hand, bloody combat with police.

Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski asked key questions yesterday, leaning into a point prosecutors had made, asking exactly when Trump learned of the breach of the Capitol, and what specific actions he took to end the rioting.

Another Republican, Bill Cassidy, asked about Trump’s tweet criticizing Pence, moments after the then-president was told by another senator that Pence had just been evacuated. Trump’s lawyer Van der Veen responded that at “no point” was the president informed of any danger. Cassidy told reporters later it was not a very good answer.

Proud progressive Jamie Raskin finds himself lead prosecutor in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump. Senators, pundits and millions of TV viewers have heard his deceptively soothing tones eviscerate the former president.

They were doubly awed when he wove together the political and the personal to share unfathomable grief: his 25-year-old son, Tommy, killed himself on New Year’s Eve after years of struggle with depression. Tommy was buried on 5 January – the day before a violent mob mounted a deadly insurrection at the US Capitol.

Raskin, 58, also told how his daughter Tabitha and son-in-law Hank accompanied him to the Capitol that day – and had to hide under a desk.

“They thought they were going to die,” he said, his voice cracking as he recalled apologising to Tabitha, 23, for putting her in danger. In a trial focused on the excesses of a would-be strongman, Raskin’s very human displays of vulnerability have the quality of redemption.

Jamie Raskin, answers a question from Sen. John Cornyn during the second impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump.
Jamie Raskin, answers a question from Sen. John Cornyn during the second impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump. Photograph: AP

Jared Huffman, a co-founder with Raskin of the Congressional Freethought Caucus, said: “Who knew that almost immediately after that tragic day he would get this assignment and pretty quickly begin working full time on something of such historic importance? Maybe that has helped him to cope with the loss but I think the concern for those of us that are friends with Jamie is that, when this is all over, there could be a pretty hard fall back to grief and he’s going to need a lot of support.”

Raskin has politics in his blood. His father, Marcus Raskin, was a young aide in John F Kennedy’s White House, a fierce activist against the Vietnam war and co-founder of the progressive thinktank the Institute for Policy Studies. His mother, Barbara Bellman, was a journalist and novelist.

Raskin graduated from Georgetown day school in 1979 then studied at Harvard and its law school, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and his teachers included Professor Laurence Tribe. Tribe recalls that Raskin and his wife, Sarah, met in his class on the constitution.

“He is one of the most impressive students that I have ever come to know and is also an extremely impressive human being,” he said.

Read more here:

Updated

During the the Trump era, the far-right Proud Boys rode high, enjoying presidential support, recruiting thousands of men, and, as the self-nominated nemesis of leftist Antifa activists, participating in a string of violent street altercations around the country.

But now since Trump’s election loss and the aftermath of the 6 January attack on the Capitol in Washington DC, a series of blows dealt by law enforcement, elected officials and their own leaders have shaken the extremist fraternity that the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as a hate group.

The cumulative impact has experts wondering about the Proud Boys’ long-term future.

Since their foundation in 2016 by the far-right Canadian media personality and entrepreneur Gavin McInnes, the all-male group – who wear uniform clothing, enforce bizarre initiation rituals, eschew masturbation, and reward violence with higher degrees of membership – have been an outsized presence on the landscape of pro-Trump extremism, and successful in promoting themselves as the most militant part of his coalition.

But their role in the Capitol insurrection especially has brought far less welcome attention.

Law enforcement agencies have connected at least 10 Capitol arrestees with the Proud Boys in criminal complaints and affadavits. Those charged include leaders like the Florida combat veteran and conspiracy theorist Joe Biggs and Washington state’s Ethan Nordean, whose prominence rose in the group after he was caught on film attacking an antifascist during a 2018 riot in downtown Portland, Oregon.

Biggs – a former employee of Alex Jones’s conspiracy-minded Infowars network – was central in organizing incursions into the city of Portland in 2019 and 2020, each of which drew Fred Perry-clad militants from around the country to confront antifascists and city authorities.

He is now charged with impeding Congress, unauthorized entry to the Capitol, and disorderly conduct.

However, the affidavit supporting the charges also alleges Biggs was involved in extensive radio communications with other Proud Boys on the day. The allegations of coordination between members of the group may hint at more charges to come.

Read more of Jason Wilson’s report here: The decline of Proud Boys: what does the future hold for far-right group?

Here is how Andy Sullivan has previewed today’s trial session for Reuters. He notes that conviction is seen as unlikely, but says that the trial has highlighted the extraordinary danger lawmakers faced on 6 January, when Trump urged his followers to march to the Capitol and “get wild” in an effort to prevent lawmakers from certifying his defeat to Joe Biden.

Among those targeted was vice president Mike Pence, who had refused Trump’s entreaties to interfere with the proceedings earlier that day. Trump criticized Pence on Twitter as lacking “courage” shortly after Republican senator Tommy Tuberville told Trump that the vice president was being evacuated for his own safety.

Trump’s lawyers gave conflicting answers on Friday when asked if Trump knew Pence was in danger when he issued his tweet. Several Republican senators said they still had questions about Trump’s role.

“The issue is what was the president’s intent, right? Only the president could answer. And the president chose not to,” Republican Bill Cassidy told reporters. He said yesterday that he had not yet made up his mind on how to vote.

Trump’s defense lawyers have argued that Trump’s activity was allowable under free-speech protections in the US Constitution. “I don’t know, at this point, how many minds get changed,” Senator John Thune, the chamber’s No. 2 Republican, told reporters on Friday.

As many as ten Republicans could find Trump guilty, according to a Senate aide, which would still be short of the 67 votes needed for conviction. Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, who reprimanded Trump after the 6 January attack, remains a question mark.

Both legal teams will have two hours each for closing arguments today, and unless there is a move by either side to attempt to call witnesses or subpoena documents, the Senate is then expected to move to a vote on the impeachment outcome. The trial will restart at 10am EST / 1500 GMT / 0200 AEDT.

One of the things that has emerged in the course of the second Donald Trump impeachment trial – and outside of the Senate chamber in media reports – is more detail of the phone conversations that the then-president had with Republicans on the 6 January during the Capitol riot.

Overnight Republican Rep Jaime Herrera Beutler has called on those with any more knowledge of those conversations to come forward with the details. She was one of the ten Republicans in the House of Representatives to vote for impeachment.

Herrera Beutler said in her Twitter statement the House minority leader Kevin McCarthy told her he spoke with Trump as rioters were storming the Capitol. She said McCarthy asked Trump to publicly “call off the riot” and told Trump the violent mob were Trump supporters, not far-left antifa members.

She said: “That’s when, according to McCarthy, the president said: ‘Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.”’

Herrera Buetler, who represents Washington’s 3rd Congressional District in the southwestern part of the state, said she has relayed parts of her conversation with McCarthy before to constituents and local media. She then called on people with knowledge of Trump’s conversation with McCarthy to speak out.

“And to the patriots who were standing next to the former president as these conversations were happening, or even to the former vice president: if you have something to add here, now would be the time,” she said.

In eight years, what became the Fight for $15 movement has grown into an international organization that has successfully fought for a rise in minimum wage in states across the US, redefined the political agenda in the US, and acted as a springboard for other movements, including Black Lives Matter. It now stands perilously close to winning one of the biggest worker-led rights victories in decades.

This Tuesday, fast-food workers will walk out again, hoping to push through a change that will affect tens of millions of American workers.

For Alvin Major it all began in a hall in Brooklyn, where union and community activists had convened a meeting of fast-food workers to see what pressure they could bring on an industry notorious for its low wages and poor conditions, and a state that had shown those workers little interest.

With a platform to speak, the workers talked about “how you had to be on food stamps, get rent assistance, all these kinds of things, and we’re working for these companies that are making billions”, said Major.

At one point, a worker showed the burns on his arm he had suffered at work. In a show of solidarity, workers across the room others rolled up their sleeves to show their scars too. Even when injured on the job, workers said, they were too scared to take time off.

This was not how Major imagined America to be when he moved to the US from Guyana in 2000. “In our family, with 14 kids, my dad’s wife never worked a day. My dad used to work, he took care of us, we had a roof over our head, we went to school, we had meals every day, he had his own transportation.”

In America, “the greatest, most powerful and richest country in the history of the world”, he found “[that] you have to work, your wife has to work, when your kids reach an age they have to work – and still you could barely make it”.

Industry lobbying allied to Republican and – until relatively recently – Democratic opposition has locked the US’s minimum wage at $7.25 since the last raise in 2009. Now a raise to $15 looks set to be included in Joe Biden’s $1.9tn Covid relief package – although it will still face fierce opposition.

Read more of Dominic Rushe’s report here: ‘Hopefully it makes history’: Fight for $15 closes in on mighty win for US workers

Six Republican senators who may vote to convict Donald Trump today

Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial will reconvene at 10am in Washington this morning, and by the end of the day we expect we will have seen a vote to acquit the former president of “incitement of insurrection”. It is highly unlikely that the required 17 Republicans will break party ranks and vote against Trump.

However, Reuters has run down a list of the six Republican Senators who may vote to convict – almost certainly triggering political trouble for them in the long-term with Trump’s ardent base within the Republican party.

Ben Sasse – The Nebraska senator handily won re-election in 2020 and is considered a potential contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. He publicly denounced Trump’s false claims of widespread electoral fraud and said there was no basis to object to Joe Biden’s November victory.

Bill Cassidy – The Louisiana senator changed his vote from his earlier one, backing arguments on Tuesday that the trial was constitutional. Cassidy told reporters after the House impeachment managers presented their side that they had “a very good opening.”

Sen Bill Cassidy talks with staff in the Senate Reception room on the fourth day of the Senate Impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump.
Sen Bill Cassidy talks with staff in the Senate Reception room on the fourth day of the Senate Impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump. Photograph: Reuters

Lisa Murkowski – Murkowski of Alaska became the first US senator in 50 years to win an election with a write-in campaign in 2010 after losing in the Republican primary. She called for Trump to resign after his followers rioted at the US Capitol on 6 January to disrupt the formal certification of the election by Congress.

Mitt Romney – Romney, a Utah senator and the 2012 Republican presidential candidate, has been a vocal critic of Trump. In 2020, Romney was the only Republican senator to vote for conviction during Trump’s first impeachment trial.

Sen Susan Collins departs after the fourth day of the second impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump.
Sen Susan Collins departs after the fourth day of the second impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump. Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Susan Collins – The Maine senator was the only Republican senator re-elected in 2020 in a state also won by Biden. She has said that Trump incited the 6 January riot.

Pat Toomey – The Pennsylvania senator announced in October 2020 he would not be seeking re-election. He said in television interviews Trump committed “impeachable offenses” and called on him to resign after the 6 January attack.

Jeanine Santucci at USA Today had this as one of her key takeaways from yesterday’s Senate trial – that Trump’s lawyer repeated the former president’s false election claims:

Bruce Castor defended Trump’s recorded call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, which is now part of a criminal investigation and was used by House prosecutors in their presentation. The defense lawyer defended baseless and widely debunked claims of election fraud by suggesting that Trump was taken out of context in the call.

Trump urged Raffensperger in the call to “find” the number of votes required to overtake Biden in the state. Castor repeated a false claim about Georgia’s mail-in ballot rejection rate, and said Trump was within his authority in the call.

“There was nothing untoward with President Trump, or any candidate for that matter, speaking with a lead elections officer of a state. That’s why the Georgia secretary of state took a call along with members of his team.”

Trump referenced his phone call with Raffensperger during the 6 January rally that preceded the Capitol attack.

“In Georgia, your secretary of state ... I can’t believe this guy’s a Republican,” Trump told the crowd. “He loves recording telephone conversations. You know ... I thought it was a great conversation personally. So did a lot of other. People love that conversation because it says what’s going on.”

Read more here: USA Today – Takeaways from impeachment trial as defense rests

You may recall that one person under pressure in the run-up to last November’s election was US postmaster general Louis DeJoy. A Trump appointee, he was accused of deliberately slowing down mail processing at the United States Postal Service (USPS) in an effort to make voting by mail less reliable. He’s still in the job, despite some people suggesting the Biden administration might have an early shake-up at the USPS. Late last night the Washington post reported on DeJoy’s plans for the still-struggling service:

DeJoy is preparing to put all first-class mail onto a single delivery track, a move that would mean slower and more costly delivery for both consumers and commercial mailers.

The postmaster general, with the backing of the agency’s bipartisan but Trump-appointed governing board, has discussed plans to eliminate a tier of first-class mail — letters, bills and other envelope-sized correspondence sent to a local address — designated for delivery in two days. Instead, all first-class mail would be lumped into the same three- to five-day window, the current benchmark for nonlocal mail.

That class of mail is already struggling; only 38 percent was delivered on time at the end of 2020, the Postal Service reported in federal court. Customers have reported bills being held up, and holiday cards and packages still in transit. Pharmacies and prescription benefits managers have told patients to request medication refills early to leave additional time for mail delays. The agency has not disclosed on-time scores yet in 2021.

Read more here: Washington Post – Postmaster general’s new plan for USPS is said to include slower mail and higher prices

David Frum at the Atlantic has also had his say on Trump’s legal team, and it doesn’t make for a great review:

A few hours [after the trial session ended], van der Veen erupted in the well of the Senate about the day he was having. “We aren’t having fun here,” he said. “This is about the most miserable experience I’ve had down here in Washington, DC”

I watched this self-pity party from my own house, and I thought: How on earth could a former president of the United States possibly have hired a team of boobs this bad at law?

Trump advertises himself as a billionaire. Certainly he has raised tens of millions of dollars for his legal-defense fund. Why did he not have good lawyers at his second impeachment trial? Yes, he is an unattractive defendant in many ways. But good lawyers regularly accept unattractive defendants. The problem seems to be that Trump affirmatively prefers bad lawyering. Or rather, that he values good lawyering less than he values aggressive and truculent lawyering.

Over more than 20 hours, the trial offered a sharp contrast between people who excelled at their jobs and people who floundered in their jobs. In that, the trial aptly symbolized so much that has occurred over four Trump years.

Along with the corruption and the authoritarianism, the brutality and the bigotry, the Trump presidency was characterized by a persistent drip, drip, drip of slovenliness and carelessness: matters as minor as the frequent spelling errors in White House press releases and as deadly as the horrifying mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic. The Trump administration was staffed from top to bottom by people who were bad at stuff.

Read more here: The Atlantic – The incompetence lasted to the very end

Richard Wolffe has written for us this morning, saying that for Trump, V is for victory – while his lawyers flick a V-sign our way:

You may have thought the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump was somehow connected to the fascist mob that staged an insurrection on Capitol Hill last month. According to Trump’s lawyers, you are clearly an idiot.

Trump’s lawyer, Michael van der Veen, claimed that Trump was encouraging his supporters to respect the electoral college count, not to “stop the steal” as the entire mob was screaming in front of him. Then he claimed that the first of the mob to be arrested was a lefty antifa stooge, not a Trumpy fascist thug.

But mostly he claimed that he – and his client – were defending the constitution at the precise moment when they were burning it to crispy charcoal husk.

OK, so the Trump mob unleashed violence to stop the constitutional counting of the electoral college votes. But the idea that Congress might stop Trump’s free-speech rights to whip up that mob is an outrageous, unconstitutional human rights abuse that threatens to silence all politicians everywhere.

OK, so the Trump mob might have silenced Mike Pence permanently by hanging him on the gallows they built on the steps of Congress. But if Congress tries to stop a president from using a mob to intimidate Congress, where will it end?

Pretty soon, Mr V argued, we won’t even have access to lawyers. The hallowed right to counsel might be threatened. “Who would be next,” he asked, indignantly. “It could be anyone. One of you! Or one of you! It’s anti-American and sets a dangerous precedent forever.”

To his great, sighing chagrin, Mr V lamented the state of political discourse. “Inflammatory rhetoric from our elected officials – from both sides of the aisle – has been alarming frankly,” he said, in sorrow, as if his client were just a hapless symptom of a bigger sickness: a pandemic of mean words from Democrats.

“This is not whataboutism,” he declared, after rolling his whataboutist video for the second or third or fourth time. “I’m showing you this to show that all political speech must be protected.”

Read more of Richard Wolffe’s column here: For Trump, V is for victory – while his lawyers flick a V-sign our way

By the way, if you do want to see that video from Trump’s lawyers using out-of-context clips of Democratic lawmakers – and for some reason, Madonna – saying the word “fight” 238 times, here you go…

As my colleague David Smith pointed out in his sketch yesterday, ironically one of Trump’s lawyers, David Schoen, had accused the impeachment managers of “manipulating video” during his presentation earlier in the week.

Donald Trump impeachment trial day 5: what to expect

Yesterday Trump’s legal team used only three of their 16 permitted hours, before wrapping up. Then there was a session where Senators were able to ask questions. The Senate will reconvene at 10am EST today, which is 1500 GMT/0200 AEDT. It may very well prove to be the final session of the fastest impeachment trial in US history. Here’s what we expect…

Closing arguments: Each side today will have two hours to present their closing arguments. We already know what they are.

Democrats will argue that with his words and actions leading up to 6 January, stoking conspiracy theories about a stolen election, Donald Trump incited a crowd to insurrection, and then failed to intervene once they had stormed the US Capitol. They’ll say that Congress must act, as otherwise it sets a precedent and a “January exception” for a president to be able to plot to overthrow an election defeat with no consequences.

Trump’s lawyers will argue that the trial is unconstitutional, and that a former president cannot and should not be impeached. They’ll further add that everything Trump said was protected by his First Amendment rights, and that on 6 January he only used the dramatic rhetoric often employed by politicians, and that he wasn’t responsible for the actions of the mob anyway.

The vote: An impeachment conviction requires a two-thirds supermajority in the Senate to pass. On the assumption that all 100 Senators will cast a vote, that means that 17 Republicans would need to cross the aisle and join the 50 Democrats and independents who are certain to give a combined vote for a conviction. Given that only six Republicans have even voted that the trial is constitutional, that seems unlikely.

The question of witnesses: The one thing that might radically alter this expected timetable today is if we discover that either the House impeachment managers or Donald Trump’s defense team want to call witnesses or subpoena documents prior to their closing arguments. That would trigger a two hour debate and a vote on whether to permit it.

Updated

Hello and welcome to Saturday’s live coverage of US politics. Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial will resume in the Senate at 10am EST (1500 GMT), and we’ll almost certainly see a vote to acquit him by the end of the day. Here’s a catch-up on where we are…

  • Trump’s lawyers didn’t even use a quarter of their allotted time for defense yesterday – arguing the trial was “shameful” and “a deliberate attempt by the Democrat Party to smear, censor and cancel” an opponent. They seem certain they will prevail in a vote.
  • His legal team were ridiculed for a video cut to show many politicians using the word “fight” in speeches, while neglecting to mention that in none of those speeches were the politicians in question addressing a rally outside the Capitol on the day Congress was meeting to certify an election result they were trying to overturn.
  • For their part, the prosecution continued to assert that the former president never made a strongly worded explicit call on the rioters to halt the attack – his messages continued to say he loved his supporters and falsely complain the election was “stolen” – nor did he send help.
  • The point was also made that if Donald Trump had nothing to do with inciting the riots, then why did fellow Republican politicians weigh in on 6 January asking him to call the rioters off?
  • It emerged that a ‘nuclear football’ carrying launch codes was with the then-vice president Mike Pence while he was being evacuated to safety, as the mob rampaged through the Capitol with some Trump supporters calling for him to be hanged.
  • US Capitol police officer Eugene Goodman has been awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for his bravery during the attack which many believe saved the lives of lawmakers.
Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Lady Gaga, Michael Polansky Wedding: Songstress Shares Surprising Update Two Years After Engagement
Lady Gaga revealed during a TikTok Live call with Bruno Mars that she and Michael Polansky plan to marry soon, offering her most direct update since their engagement. The couple continue to guard wedding details despite growing interest from fans.
International Business Times UK
International Business Times UK
Ryan Seacrest Sparks Illness Rumours Due to Extreme Weight Loss Possibly Caused by Ozempic
Ryan Seacrest's recent weight loss has led to speculation about his use of Ozempic, a medication known for aiding weight loss. Fans express concern over his health.
International Business Times UK
International Business Times UK
Private Chef Spills On Timothée Chalamet’s Bizarre Breakfast Demands
Timothée Chalamet faced online mockery after a co-star revealed his chef prepared three different breakfasts daily.
Bored Panda
Bored Panda
Is It AI? Tom Holland And Zendaya Viral 'Wedding' Picture Explodes Online, Surging Past 10 Million Likes On Instagram
An AI-generated image of Tom Holland and Zendaya's 'wedding' has gone viral, highlighting the challenges of distinguishing reality from fiction in celebrity culture.
International Business Times UK
International Business Times UK
Did Kai Cenat officially come out as gay on Instagram as viral X post claims? Debunking the viral rumor
A viral post on X claimed that Kai Cenat officially came out as gay through an Instagram post. The claim spread widely and gained millions of views. However, the screenshot appears to be fake, and Kai Cenat has not posted anything like that on his official Instagram account. Recent rumors…
The Times of India
The Times of India
How Serious Are Kim Kardashian And Lewis Hamilton, Anyway?
Rumors about this budding romance started swirling earlier this year.
Cinemablend
Cinemablend
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.
Download on the AppStore Get it on Google Play