WASHINGTON | After a day marked by shocking images, Democratic prosecutors will continue their presentation Thursday against Donald Trump, tried in the Senate for “incitement to insurgency” in the murderous assault on the Capitol.
The historic trial will resume at noon in the same hemicycle where pro-Trump protesters were violently engulfed on January 6.
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Police officers screaming in pain, terrified elected officials, threatening assailants: mixing snippets from a surveillance camera, sometimes unpublished, with videos posted by the rioters, the prosecution reminded the hundred senators on Wednesday, both judges and jurors and witnesses, that they themselves had narrowly escaped “the worst”.
The elected Democrats of the House of Representatives, responsible for bringing the charge against the former president, also placed the assault in the context of the post-election crusade of the Republican billionaire, who has always refused to concede his defeat to Joe Biden.
“President Trump was not an innocent witness to an accident,” as his lawyers suggest, but he “gave up his role as commander-in-chief to become the chief instigator of a dangerous insurgency, ”said Jamie Raskin, who oversees the team of prosecutors.
The coup de force of his supporters, when Congress certified the victory of his rival, did not occur “in a vacuum”: “The hostility of the crowd was stoked for months by Donald Trump”, added the elected Joaquin Castro.
Based in Florida, the former real estate mogul declined to testify. But his voice has continued to resound in the hemicycle of the upper house of Congress, where his accusers have projected many extracts from his speeches, reproduced his inflammatory tweets, cited his most controversial words.
“The big lie”
Even if they are unlikely to convince two-thirds of the senators needed to convict him, Democrats intend to make a difference in these hearings broadcast live across the United States.
“The big lie”: this is how they described the long campaign of disinformation on the presidential election maintained by the 45th American president who repeated for weeks, without proof, that he had been the victim of electoral fraud massive.
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After the failure of his legal complaints and his multiple pressures on electoral agents in key states, “President Trump found himself short of non-violent options to stay in power,” said the elected official. Ted Lieu.
He then turned to “groups that he cultivated for months”, such as the extreme right-wing group Proud Boys, several of which were among the attackers on the Capitol, added his colleague Stacey Plaskett, recalling that the president had called on them in October to “be ready”.
And on January 6, he launched to his supporters gathered in Washington, just before the intrusion into the temple of American democracy: “Fight like devils”.
“Target in the back”
To say that the former president could be responsible for the violence of a “small group of criminals” who “absolutely misunderstood” is “simply absurd”, had insisted his lawyers in writing Monday. By stressing that he had “urged them to remain peaceful”.
“We checked the 11,000 words of his speech, the president only used the term” peaceful “once, against more than 20” to fight “”, retorted Wednesday the elected Madeleine Dean.
Worse, according to Plaskett, he vindicated his own Vice President Mike Pence, who had refused to stop the certification of the election result, or the leader of the Democrats in the House, Nancy Pelosi. He “put a target on their back,” she said.
Highlighting the tribune’s influence on his supporters, Joaquin Castro showed images of a man reading through a megaphone a tweet from Donald Trump posted in the midst of the assault: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what it was necessary to protect our country ”, repeats the demonstrator on the steps of the Capitol.
Always popular
Their narrative was praised by Republican Senator John Thune. “They did a good job of highlighting the links … to go back in time,” he told reporters.
“Trump is no longer in office and it is useless, except for political revenge, to conduct another trial,” however tweeted his colleague Ted Cruz.
Donald Trump remains very popular in part of the electorate and still exerts a strong influence on the Republican Party.
If some senators from the “Grand Old Party” have blamed him for the attack, it seems unlikely that 17 will join the Democrats in declaring him guilty, and ultimately rendering him ineligible.
He could be acquitted in the next few days.