Senators see Capitol riot videos in Trump impeachment trial

WASHINGTON — House impeachment managers laid out their case to the Senate in graphic detail Wednesday, using violent images from security video to charge that former President Donald Trump incited an insurrection at the Capitol.

The presentations — including audio recordings of police radio traffic from the Jan. 6 insurrection — recalled the fear that many senators vividly remember, when they were evacuated from their chambers.

“It’s difficult to see,” said Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., during a break.

The impeachment trial began its second day with House Democrats using Trump’s tweets and comments to illustrate the contention that the president spurred the crowd to breach the Capitol.

Trump claimed the 2021 presidential election was rigged, a baseless accusation dismissed by federal judges in more than 60 cases filed by his campaign or other entities in several states, including Nevada.

On Jan. 6, Trump addressed supporters near the Capitol with a speech that called on them to “fight like hell” as House and Senate lawmakers gathered to certify Electoral College results that gave Joe Biden the presidency.

“This was not just a speech,” said Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., one of the House managers. “When they heard his speech, they understood his words.”

Immediately after the speech the crowd descended upon the Capitol and overwhelmed police, breaking into the House and Senate chambers and hunting down lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence, who officiated the certification of results in the Senate.

The insurrection left five people dead, including a Capitol Police officer.

Trial resumes Thursday

Democrats have another day to make their case to the Senate, after which Trump’s lawyers will have two days to mount a defense. To convict Trump, the equally divided Senate would have to muster two-thirds, or 67 votes.

In their opening statements Tuesday, Trump’s lawyers argued that the trial is unconstitutional because the former president has left office. But Trump lawyer Bruce Castor’s opening argument left even some Senate Republicans unconvinced and befuddled.

Six GOP senators voted Tuesday with a solid Democratic bloc, 56-44, to reject the constitutional objections and proceed with the trial against the former president, the first in American history to be impeached twice.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., joined five other Republicans in the vote to proceed. He faced criticism and blowback from Republicans in his home state for voting against Trump’s position.

Cassidy said he tried to convey to those constituents that the president’s legal team never made its case.

“To those who are negative, I replied that this is a constitutional question,” Cassidy said. “And clearly, it had been established that it is constitutional … it is Constitution and country over party.”

But Cassidy cautioned his Tuesday vote was not indicative of how he would eventually rule on the question of conviction.

Republicans skeptical

Several Republicans said House impeachment managers have failed to make their case. Trump has called on supporters to fight at many rallies, and none of those turned into violent insurrection. Republicans said they needed more proof to convict the president.

Democrats, meanwhile, have been receptive to the arguments.

“We are all witnesses and victims to Jan. 6,” said Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto before the trial began.

Cortez Masto was preparing to speak on the Senate floor when rioters entered the Capitol and she and others were hastily evacuated. U.S. Secret Service agents ushered Vice President Mike Pence and his family to a secure location as rioters began searching the Capitol.

Although Rosen and Cortez Masto, like other senators, said they would hear the case as impartial jurors, both voted to convict Trump in 2020 on two impeachment counts of abusing his office and obstruction of Congress.

Those impeachment charges were related to an alleged attempt by Trump to induce the president of Ukraine to investigate Biden.

Compelling video

Almost all senators wore masks in the chamber during the trial, with the exception of Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo.

As they day wore on, some senators took notes. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., appeared to struggle to keep from dozing off and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., snacked on peanut M&Ms.

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who led the Senate GOP effort to reject the election results on Jan. 6, sat in the third-floor gallery,instead of at his seat on the chamber floor.

Hawley said it was less claustrophobic and afforded him a better view.

Senators paid close attention in the afternoon with never-before-seen video and audio, depicting the Capitol breach by a predominantly white crowd, some wearing tactical gear, who shouted “Bring Out Pence.”

As they broke through windows, Capitol Police tried to steer the crowd away from where lawmakers were trying to evacuate.

Stacey Plaskett, a Democratic delegate representing the Virgin Islands, said violent intentions had been brewing for months on websites that espoused Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud.

People posting on some of the sites called for bringing handcuffs and “zip ties” to the Jan. 6 rally to “Stop the Steal.”

“They treated it like a war — and they meant it,” Plaskett said.

Echoing the president’s instructions at the rally, the insurrectionists saw the siege as “their patriotic duty to fight to take it back.”

Audio of broadcasts from Washington Metropolitan Police captured the fear of officers calling for backup, reporting “multiple Capitol injuries” and explosions. One officer is heard saying: “This now is effectively a riot.”

Security video shows members of the Proud Boys, a white nationalist group, breaking windows and entering the Capitol, confronting officers who tried to hold them at bay.

An FBI affidavit submitted to the trial revealed that one of those later arrested said their object was to “murder anyone we could get our hands on.” That included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Pence.

During a scene in the video, a rioter in the House Speaker’s office called Pelosi a “bitch.”

Rosen, watching the images and hearing the remark, said, “Wow.”

Other senators shook their heads.

Plaskett told the senators she compares the experience to Sept. 11, 2001, when foreign terrorists used commercial airplanes to attack the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon.

She said she will always remember and be grateful to the 44 people who rebelled against the hijackers of a third plane that was headed for the Capitol, It crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Twenty years later, Plaskett said, she would never have dreamed that a U.S. president would incite an insurrection at the Capitol that those 44 people fought to protect, and all to overturn a presidential election that was lost.

Contact Gary Martin at gmartin@reviewjournal.com. Follow @garymartindc on Twitter.