Lawyers for Donald Trump take the Senate floor Friday to rebut the Democratic-led impeachment of the former president for inciting insurrection, with Republican lawmakers then widely expected to vote to acquit.
Democratic impeachment managers rested their case Thursday after two days of often emotional presentations.
Now the Republican property tycoon’s lawyers will get a chance to respond.
They are expected to make arguments brief, hastening the Senate verdict.
“There’s no reason for us to be out there a long time. As I said from the start of this thing, this trial never should have happened,” one of the lawyers, David Schoen, told Fox News.
The impeachment team charged Trump with stoking an insurrection after losing re-election to Joe Biden on November 3.
According to the case against him, the former president began to lay the groundwork for the riot within weeks of refusing to concede with claims that he’d only lost because of mass voter fraud.
On January 6 he staged a fiery rally near the White House, calling on the crowd to march on Congress, which was in the process of certifying Biden’s victory.
The mob then invaded the Capitol building. Five people, including a police officer and a woman shot during the unrest, died as a result of the mayhem.
Impeachment managers insist that Trump, who has never expressed remorse for his encouragement of the violent crowd, is so dangerous he should be barred from holding office again.
But the former president’s lawyers are set to argue that his speech was rhetorical and that he cannot be held responsible for the actions of the mob.
They also argue that the trial itself is unconstitutional because Trump is now out of office, although the Senate rejected this claim earlier this week.
Biden said Thursday that evidence against his predecessor — including grim, never before seen footage of the January 6 riot — was so strong it could change “some minds” in the Senate.
But despite what even some Republicans have praised as a strong prosecution, Trump retains an unshakeable grip on his party, making conviction highly unlikely.
It would take a two-thirds majority to convict, meaning 17 Republicans would need to join the Senate’s 50 Democrats.
Video footage played by impeachment managers showed the crowd in the Capitol hunting down opponents of Trump as senior figures, including then vice president Mike Pence, fled to safety.
The defense will stress that Trump did not expressly tell his fans to commit violence.
Schoen has mocked the video as a slick product presented as “an entertainment package.”
But lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin pointed out that the Republican leader had been encouraging extremism even in the lead-up to Election Day.
“This pro-Trump insurrection did not spring out of thin air,” Raskin said. “This was not the first time Donald Trump had inflamed and incited a mob.”
He said it was imperative the Senate convict Trump and bar him from running for the White House again in 2024.
“Is there any political leader in this room who believes that if he’s ever allowed by the Senate to get back into the Oval Office Donald Trump would stop inciting violence to get his way?” Raskin asked.
“Would you bet the future of your democracy on that?”
He also dismissed claims by Trump’s lawyers that the president was exercising his constitutional free speech rights.
“Nobody can incite a riot,” Raskin said.
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said video evidence shown by House managers was “powerful”, but “how that influences final decisions remains to be seen.”
