Trump's second impeachment trial: Day 4
By Meg Wagner, Melissa Mahtani, Melissa Macaya and Veronica Rocha, CNN
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Key takeaways from Day 4 of Trump's impeachment trial
Analysis from CNN's Chris Cillizza
After two days of House impeachment managers making their case for the conviction of Donald Trump on a charge of incitement, the former President's legal team got its chance today.
The core of the Trump team's defense was that his words at the Jan. 6 "Stop the Steal" rally were just that: words. And that those words were far from an incitement that led to the violent insurrection at the Capitol.
In case you missed it, here are some of the key takeaways from today's proceedings:
- Words matter. Except when they don't: Trump's lawyers tried to make two diametrically opposed arguments to dispel the idea that the former President was culpable for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. On the one hand, Trump attorney Michael van der Veen suggested that the President using the phrase "peaceful and patriotic" regarding the protests during his speech at the "Stop the Steal" rally, was proof-positive that he had told them to not engage in a violent manner. On the other hand, Trump's lawyers dismissed his repeated use of the words "fight" during that same speech by playing a long smash cut of Democratic politicians saying the word "fight." The message was muddled: Do words — whether from the President or anyone else — matter, or don't they? It seemed as though Trump's lawyers were making the case that words mattered when it bolstered their argument that Trump didn't incite a riot but not so much in other circumstances.
- Jan. 6 was NOT inevitable: At the core of the defense team's case were these twin notions: a) What happened on Jan. 6 was an isolated incident with zero prologue and b) these bad actors were going to behave badly no matter what Trump said or did that day. "You can't incite what was already going to happen," said van der Veen at one point. What those arguments are aimed at doing is removing any blame for Trump in, well, any of this. The facts, however, are not on the side of Trump's lawyers on this one.
- The "fight" video: As we know from reporting after the airing of a 13-minute video detailing the events of Jan. 6 by the impeachment managers on the second day of the trial, the Trump team was scrambling to make more videos of their own to counter the impact it had on the jury of senators. And come up with videos they did! The most notable one was a mashup of Democrats – from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris to virtually every Democratic senator – saying the word "fight." The point, as I noted above, was to make the case that Trump telling his supporters to "fight like hell" shouldn't be taken as a serious incitement to violence because, well, Democratic politicians say the word "fight" as well. But to believe that and be convinced by it, you have to be willing to ignore any sort of context.
- It's all about the "hate": The main reason that Democrats in the House impeached Trump, according to his lawyers, was not because of his action (and lack of action) on Jan. 6 but rather because they simply hate him – and that hate has blinded them to due process and the rule of law. But this argument is also a bit of a red herring. After all, this isn't an either/or choice. You can hate Trump and still believe he didn't incite a riot. And vice versa. Trump's legal team was simply not willing to engage on the merits of what Trump said and did. And so they fell back on the everyone-is-so-partisan argument. It undoubtedly will resonate with many Republican senators looking for a justification to vote to acquit Trump. But that doesn't make it true.
What happens next: The impeachment trial is expected to resume at 10 a.m. ET tomorrow.
A final vote on Trump's conviction or acquittal will be around 3 p.m. ET. This is not locked in yet and can change, but that's the expectation at the moment. Conviction requires two-thirds of senators present to offer "guilty" votes. Normally, two-thirds is 67 senators, which would require 17 Republican votes.
If Trump is convicted, there would be a subsequent vote on whether to bar him from further office. This would require only a simple majority — that's 50 votes.
How key GOP senators are reacting to today's proceedings
From CNN's Manu Raju, Ryan Nobles, Daniella Diaz, Ted Barrett and Annie Grayer
Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy said “not really” when asked if he was satisfied with the defense team's response to his question during the Senate impeachment trial of former President Trump.
Cassidy, who joined five other Republican senators in voting that Trump's impeachment trial was constitutional, asked about Trump attacking Pence on Twitter and whether the President knew his vice president was in danger.
Cassidy added that he is undecided on how he will vote.
Sen. John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, said he thinks Trump’s legal team did better today.
"It was a much better performance than the first day, that the President's counsel had a chance to make arguments and I thought they put it themselves pretty well today. I don't know, at this point, how many minds get changed," he said in response to a question from CNN.
Thune did not appear to answer if his mind was made up.
Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, said she didn't feel she got a response from Trump's legal team when she and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, asked Trump's legal team to describe when he had learned of the riots and the actions he had taken.
They asked the lawyers to be as specific as possible, but Trump lawyer Michael van der Veen only said that Trump tweeted at 2:38 p.m. before launching into an attack against the House Democrats for lack of due process.
“I didn't really feel that I got a response but I'm not sure if that was the fault of the counsel. One of the problems is that that with the House not having held hearings to establish exactly what happened when, it's difficult to answer a question like that. I was hoping that one side or the other, would have, because I think it's a very important question of when did the President, know that the barricades were breached. And what did he do at what time to stop the rioting. And so, I wish I'd gotten answers today to that,” Collins told CNN.
Collins and Murkowski are still considered to be among the Republicans who are open to convicting the former President. Like Cassidy, they also voted earlier this week that Trump's impeachment trial was constitutional.
Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, said he still plans to vote to acquit because he remains concerned about the constitutional questions related to the process. Rubio said the legal arguments made by the Trump team were not important because the dangerous precedent convicting a former President could present.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, meanwhile, told CNN's Manu Raju he stands by his account that he told Trump that Mike Pence had been evacuated from the Senate.
“He said a few things I said: ‘Mr. President, they've taken the vice president out. They want me to get off the phone, I gotta go," he said.
What we know: A final vote on Trump's conviction or acquittal is expected to happen tomorrow at 3 p.m. ET. This is not locked in yet and can change, but that's the expectation at the moment.
Conviction requires two-thirds of senators present to offer "guilty" votes. Normally, two-thirds is 67 senators, which would require 17 Republican votes.
Fact check: No, Georgia did not see a "dramatic drop" in ballot rejection rates
From CNN's Tara Subramaniam
As evidence of former President Trump’s efforts to subvert the certification of the 2020 election results, the article of impeachment cites Trump’s call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger where Trump asked Raffensperger "to 'find' enough votes to overturn the Georgia Presidential election results."
Bruce Castor, one of Trump's defense lawyers, argued Trump's use of the word “find” was "solely related to his concerns with the inexplicable dramatic drop in Georgia's ballot rejection rates."
Facts First: The intent of Trump's use of the word "find" aside, Georgia did not experience a "dramatic drop" in ballot rejection rates, according to data from the Georgia Secretary of State's office.
In fact, the total number of absentee ballot rejections increased in direct proportion to the number of additional votes compared to the most recent past election. But ultimately, the percentage of ballot rejections remained the same. The Georgia Secretary of State's office noted that "the rejection rate for absentee ballots with missing or non-matching signatures in the 2020 General Election was 0.15%, the same rejection rate for signature issues as the 2018 General Election."
Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling reacted to Castor's claim on Twitter Friday, stating that "shockingly, the disinformation continues."
Fact check: Trump lawyer falsely claims Capitol rioters didn't attend Trump's DC speech
From CNN's Daniel Dale, Marshall Cohen and Holmes Lybrand
Former President Trump’s impeachment lawyer Bruce Castor claimed that the rioters who stormed the Capitol didn’t attend Trump’s incendiary speech that day, and that this proved the insurrection was a pre-planned attack that wasn’t incited by Trump.
“Given the timeline of events, the criminals at the Capitol weren’t there at the Ellipse to even hear the President’s words,” Castor said. “They were more than a mile away, engaged in their pre-planned assault on this very building.” “This was a pre-planned assault,” Castor continued, “make no mistake.”
He also claimed this assertion was “confirmed by the FBI, Department of Justice and even the House managers.”
Facts First: It’s false that none of the accused Capitol rioters attended Trump’s speech beforehand. And Castor is exaggerating the known facts about whether the assault was pre-planned.
Ellipse to the Capitol: It’s true that the timeline shows that someone who attended the entirety of the speech at the Ellipse could not have been among the very first people to breach the Capitol grounds. But that's a much narrower claim than the one Trump's lawyers are making.
Court documents and video footage show that some Trump supporters did make this walk from the Ellipse to the Capitol, undermining Castor’s claims. This includes one woman who allegedly went from the Trump speech to her hotel, and then into the Capitol. And all of this ignores the fact that insurrectionists near the Capitol could have listened to Trump's speech on their phones or could have been inspired by Trump's previous rhetoric.
Pre-planned?: The Justice Department and FBI have accused some rioters of planning the attacks before coming to Washington, and top prosecutors have said more charges along those lines are expected. But only a handful of the 200-plus criminal cases indicate that rioters had showed up that day intending to breach the Capitol.
Therefore, Castor cherry-picked a few unrepresentative cases from the pool of more than 215 cases to support his misleading assertion that federal investigators “confirmed” this was a “pre-planned assault.” In interviews with reporters and FBI investigators, some of the rioters said they came to DC for the rally and later got swept up in the crowd as it rushed the Capitol.
Jake Tapper: "I have never seen a set of lawyers so outmatched than the Trump defense attorneys"
From CNN's Jason Kurtz
As the fourth day of Donald Trump's second impeachment trial concluded, CNN host Jake Tapper quickly addressed the flaws he saw in the former President's legal counsel.
"I have never seen a set of lawyers so outmatched than the Trump defense attorneys," Tapper said.
Pointing out that Bruce Castor is a former prosecutor from Philadelphia and Michael van der Veen is a personal injury lawyer, Tapper said that Trump's legal team simply wasn't equipped to tangle with the House impeachment managers.
"They do not know the Constitution as well as [Sen.] Jamie Raskin and the others," Tapper said. "They were indignant as if they were trying to appeal to a jury in a Philly courtroom."
Additionally, Tapper suggested that Castor and van der Veen simply lost the plot in regards to the specifics of the proceedings.
"They acted as if the President was up on criminal charges, talking about the standard," he said. "That's not what this is. This is a constitutional proceeding about whether or not President Trump should be penalized according to the obligations under his office — not as if he's going to go to jail."
While Tapper did allow for the fact that legal qualifications likely won't dictate the trial's verdict, saying "ultimately people are not going to vote based on who the better lawyer was," he took one more moment to hammer home the shortcomings of Trump's lawyers.
"They really were outmatched," Tapper said once again, adding "the legal team that Trump had last year with Jay Sekulow and Alan Dershowitz and others, just leaps and bounds better than this one."
Senate impeachment trial ends for the day. Here's what comes next.
From CNN's Jeremy Herb, Manu Raju, Kaitlan Collins and Pamela Brown
The Senate has adjourned until 10 a.m. ET tomorrow. Senators just wrapped a question-and-answer session where they got their turn to pose written questions to both legal teams — the House impeachment managers and former President Trump's lawyers.
During the Senate questions, the key Republican senators who could vote to find Trump guilty focused on the actions the former President took as the riots unfolded and then Vice President Mike Pence was endangered, a topic that Trump's lawyers did little to address during their argument.
Democrats' questions to the managers and most GOP questions to the President's team were intended to help bolster their respective cases. But the most interesting questions came from some of the handful of Republican senators open to conviction: Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah.
Collins and Murkowski jointly asked Trump's legal team to describe when Trump learned of the riots and the actions he took. They asked the lawyers to be as specific as possible, but Trump lawyer Michael van der Veen only said that Trump tweeted at 2:38 p.m. before launching into an attack against the House Democrats for lack of due process.
Trump's legal team wrapped up their presentation in a little more than three hours Friday before the question-and-answer session.
What comes next: Democratic senators told CNN they've been informed that the Senate will reconvene at 10 a.m. ET tomorrow.
A final vote on Trump's conviction or acquittal will be around 3 p.m. ET. This is not locked in yet and can change, but that's the expectation at the moment. Conviction requires two-thirds of senators present to offer "guilty" votes. Normally, two-thirds is 67 senators, which would require 17 Republican votes.
If Trump is convicted, there would be a subsequent vote on whether to bar him from further office. This would require only a simple majority — that's 50 votes.
CNN's Ted Barrett and Ali Zaslav contributed reporting to this post.
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