House managers will point to Trump’s lack of
remorse in concluding their case for disqualifying him.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/02/11/us/impeachment-trial
The House
Democrats prosecuting Donald J. Trump will rest their case against him on
Thursday, turning attention to the harm caused by the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and
the “lack of remorse” by the former president who they have charged with
inciting it as part of a desperate bid to cling to power.
A day after
delivering the Senate a harrowing account of the deadly violence, replete with
chilling new video footage, the impeachment managers will pivot on the trial’s
third day to argue why Mr. Trump must be the first impeached president ever
convicted, and the first ex-president disqualified from holding future office.
Their task
is a daunting one, aimed at persuading Republican senators who have shown no
appetite for breaking with Mr. Trump, and building a historical record of his
role in the worst attack on the Capitol since the War of 1812. Led by
Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, they will assert that Mr. Trump’s
actions badly damaged the nation’s standing around the world and warn that if
left unpunished, the former president would be free to return to power and
endanger democracy.
But already
on Wednesday, Republican senators who sat through a traumatic retelling of an
assault they lived through appeared unmoved. Many said they did not see a tight
enough connection between the deadly rampage that tried to stop Congress from
certifying President Biden’s victory that day and Mr. Trump’s monthslong
campaign to overturn his election loss to warrant punishing the leader of their
party.
Seventeen
Republicans would have to join every Democrat to achieve the two-thirds
majority needed for conviction.
Arguments
will begin at noon and the managers, as the House prosecutors are known, have
up to eight hours on Thursday to present before they rest their case Thursday
evening. They are also expected to use their final hours to try to
pre-emptively blunt legal arguments key to the president’s defense.
Mr. Trump’s
lawyers will take their turn in the well of the Senate beginning on Friday.
Though they used a rocky debut on Tuesday primarily to argue against holding a
trial at all, they intend to outright deny that Mr. Trump was responsible for
the attack or meant to interfere with the electoral process underway at the
Capitol, despite repeatedly imploring his supporters to “fight like hell” to
“stop the steal.”
The former
president himself has had little to say about the matter publicly. Ensconced in
his Florida retreat and banned from Twitter, he has marked the proceedings with
unusual silence. But he was furious over his defense team’s opening effort.
The trail
is moving at a galloping pace, and senators could reach a verdict by the end of
the holiday weekend. But first, senators will have a chance to question the
prosecution and defense, and the managers may force a debate and vote on
calling witnesses.
— Nicholas Fandos
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