#Lindsey graham not guilty vote trial#
8īut how can even the most cynical of those senators make excuses for Trump’s failure to use the power of his office, and his bully pulpit, to address the violence once it began? That failure is spelled out in the trial brief: 9Īs armed insurrectionists breached the Capitol-and as Vice President Pence, the Congress, and the Capitol Police feared for their lives-President Trump was described by those around him as “borderline enthusiastic because it meant the certification was being derailed.” Senior administration officials described President Trump as “delighted” and reported that he was “walking around the White House confused about why other people on his team weren’t as excited as he was as you had rioters pushing against Capitol Police trying to get into the building.” These feelings were reflected in President Trump’s actions (and inactions) over the following hours, which reveal an extraordinary, unprecedented repudiation of the President’s duties to protect the government.
Raskin and his team understand that cynical Republican senators are preparing to claim that they must acquit Trump because the former president was simply expressing his opinion when he told supporters to “ fight like hell” to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The managers were anticipating arguments by Trump’s lawyers-who will begin their defense on Friday-that the president should not be held to account for his seditious plotting and incendiary language. “Unprecedented Repudiation of the President’s Duties” Texas Representative Joaquin Castro said, “How simple would it have been to give a simple command, stop, leave? This was a dereliction of duty, plain and simple.” Raskin closed the prosecution’s case on Thursday by asking, “Why did President Trump not tell his supporters to stop the attack on the Capitol as soon as he learned of it? Why did President Trump do nothing to stop the attack until two hours after it began?” 7 “In the first crucial hours of this violent attack, he did nothing to stop it, nothing to help us,” Rhode Island Representative David Cicilline said of Trump. The impeachment managers amplified that line of attack on Wednesday and Thursday.
But Raskin and his fellow managers have wisely paid attention to what their brief describes as “ President Trump’s Dereliction of Duty During the Attack.” 6
Prior to the opening of this week’s trial, discussion of the case against Trump focused on the fighting words the former president employed before January 6 and in his speech that day to the angry mob that stormed the Capitol. Testimony by Graham would highlight Trump’s starkest betrayal: a refusal to act to quell the violence on January 6 because, as multiple accounts attest, he was enthusiastic about the disruption of an electoral vote count that would end his presidency. Calling the senator to testify would be more than a “long bomb” strategy aimed at jarring Republican senators out of their partisan stupor-although that would be helpful. If a decision is made to seek testimony from others, however, inviting Graham would be a compelling gambit. Lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) tried to get Trump to testify. There is, of course, only a slim chance that any witnesses will testify in this expeditious trial.
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