Photo via Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
January 30, 2021, 8:49 am*
Whenever it looks like someone in their ranks might be held accountable, Republican Senators band together around a lie. This time, they’re avoiding evaluating Donald Trump’s conduct at his impeachment trial by saying it’s unconstitutional to impeach a former president, a claim which the Washington Post reports is unfounded. But they keep saying it, and repeating a lie seems to work with their constituents.
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That’s likely why the House Democrats are trying to present an “emotional” case involving an audiovisual representation of new cell phone footage covering everything that happened on January 6th, from Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally up into the insurrection at the Capitol.
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The mob that broke into the government building came very close to even greater violence towards Congress itself, and five people died, one of whom was a U.S. Capitol officer. Two other officers have since died by suicide.
Republicans are the party of “law and order,” so presenting them with so much evidence of disorder and violence towards the police will bring up some difficult questions.
And it will all be aired on television, for the voters to see. According to the Washington Post:
“The goal is to present the Senate with fresh evidence that reveals what Trump knew in advance of the Jan. 6 rampage at the Capitol, as well as how his words and actions influenced those who participated.”
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The plan is to make “Republican senators as uncomfortable as possible as they prepare to vote to acquit Trump,” since most of them have said they will. An anonymous strategist told the post that their overall goal is conviction, however.
“What story are we going to tell to get there?” they said. “We are going to describe what happened as summarized by Liz Cheney when she announced her support for Trump’s impeachment: ‘He summoned the mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack.'”
Will that be enough to get the worst president in history actually convicted? For some reason, these GOP Senators have too much loyalty to him, even now that he’s gone.
*First Published: January 30, 2021, 8:39 am
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