Closing arguments begin in Trump impeachment trial as Senate speeds toward final vote
WASHINGTON (AP) — A lawyer for Donald Trump says everyone acknowledges the horror of the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol last month but that the former president wasn’t responsible for it.
Michael van der Veen gave his closing arguments on the Senate floor on Saturday in the impeachment trial of Trump.
He says there is no evidence that Trump incited an “armed insurrection” to “overthrow the U.S. government” and to think that Trump would have wanted that is “absurd.” He says the event on Jan. 6 was supposed to be peaceful but that a small group “hijacked” it for their own purposes.
He also repeated the arguments from Friday that other politicians have engaged in incendiary rhetoric, though impeachment managers noted that none of those speeches precipitated an attack on the U.S. government.
As a vote in Trump’s impeachment trial nears a close, lead Democratic impeachment manager Jamie Raskin told the Senate that “this is almost certainly how you will be remembered by history.”
Raskin said that “none of us can escape the demands of history and destiny right now” as the House managers argue that Trump incited the violent Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and the Senate decides whether to convict him.
He said the trial is not about Trump, but “about who we are.”
Trump’s lawyers, and many Senate Republicans, have argued that the trial is unconstitutional. They also say Trump did not intentionally incite the riot when he told a mob of his supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn his election defeat and march to the Capitol as Congress was counting the electoral votes.
The House managers laid out video evidence of the violent assault, in which five people died. Raskin said they proved that Trump betrayed his country and “betrayed his oath of office.”
