Former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial was poised to conclude Saturday following his defense team’s presentation meant to highlight the hypocrisy and holes in the case against him.
Trump’s lawyers arrived Friday for the fourth day of the trial with their own loop of footage to counter days of dramatic and carefully edited video from Democratic impeachment managers that attempted to show the former president incited the violent Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol that followed his speech to supporters at a nearby rally protesting the certification of the presidential election results.
“This impeachment is completely divorced from the facts, the evidence, and the interests of the American people,” Trump lawyer Michael van der Veen told senators Friday. “The Senate should promptly and decisively vote to reject it. No thinking person could seriously believe that the president’s Jan. 6 speech on the Ellipse was in any way an incitement to violence or insurrection. The suggestion is patently absurd on its face.”
Defense lawyers wrapped their case in about four hours, using far less time than the nine House impeachment managers, whose presentation stretched over two days. It was followed by about two hours of questions to both sides from senators.
The Senate will convene Saturday for four hours of deliberation, followed by a vote that will likely fall short of the 67 votes needed to convict Trump.
Friday’s daylong trial began with the defense team playing a video montage of Democrats using “fight” and other language that could be considered incendiary. The presentation was aimed at demonstrating that the former president’s own language prior to the Capitol attack was no different than other common political speech and that his accusers used the same words themselves.
One long defense team montage showed Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat and former presidential candidate, promising and pledging to fight in a series of different public appearances. Warren did not react to the video as she sat in the chamber, but other Democrats laughed or smirked when they appeared in the “fight” footage and later called it a false comparison to Trump’s words.
“They’re trying to draw a false, dangerous, and distorted equivalence,” Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Hawaii Democrat, said. “I think it is plainly a distraction from Donald Trump inviting the mob to Washington knowing it was armed, changing the route and the timing so as to incite them to march on the Capitol and then reveling, without remorse, without doing anything to protect his own vice president and all of us. I think that the case is even more powerful after this.”
Senators followed the defense team’s arguments with a series of questions for impeachment managers and defense lawyers.
Senators from both parties asked Trump’s defense team whether the former president was aware of when then-Vice President Mike Pence was evacuated from the Senate chamber on Jan. 6.
Trump, Democrats have argued, attacked Pence on his Twitter feed after finding out Pence had been evacuated, putting him in danger as the protesters stormed through the Capitol and made threats against the vice president. Pence had refused to block the certification of President Biden’s victory in the election, which Trump had asked him to do.
Trump’s defense team told senators he did not know when Pence was rushed from the chamber, although Sen. Tommy Tuberville, an Alabama Republican, reported telling Trump about Pence’s evacuation in a 2:15 cellphone call, according to a news report. Tuberville later said he did not know the exact timing of the call with Trump.
Van der Veer said House Democrats’ rushed impeachment did not produce legitimate evidence.
The reports about the contents of Tuberville’s call with Trump regarding Pence, for example, were based on anonymous sourcing printed by media outlets.
“That’s really the kind of evidence that the House has brought before us,” van der Veen said. “Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence have had a very good relationship for a long time, and I’m sure Mr. Trump very much is concerned and was concerned for the safety and well-being of Mr. Pence and everybody else that was over here.”
Trump’s defense team accused Democrats of putting Trump on trial for political reasons.
Van der Veen appeared frustrated with Democrats who asked whether the defense team believed Trump won the election, as Trump has repeatedly claimed, citing election irregularities.
Van der Veen looked into the chamber and asked which senators posed the question, appearing angry and spurring a brief exchange.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent and staunch Trump foe, said, “I did.”
“It’s irrelevant to the question before this body,” van der Veen said when he finally responded to the question.
“What’s relevant in this impeachment article is, were Mr. Trump’s words inciteful to the point of violence and riot,” van der Veen said. “That’s the charge. That’s the question. And the answer is no. He did not have speech that was inciteful to violence or riot.”
Senators are poised to vote Saturday on whether to convict Trump on one article of impeachment charging him with inciting an insurrection. The trial would extend if Democrats try to call witnesses, but they suggested this week there’s little support for adding more days to the proceedings.
By Friday afternoon, it appeared only a handful of Republicans might vote to convict Trump, although many GOP senators praised the defense team’s argument that Trump’s words are protected under the First Amendment and that Democrats are on record using similar fiery rhetoric.
It would take 17 Republicans voting with all Democrats to convict Trump, and that is unlikely to happen.
“President’s lawyers blew the House Manager’s case out of the water,” Sen. Ron. Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, said Friday on Twitter. “Legally eviscerated them.”
