(AP) — Donald Trump endangered the lives of all members of Congress when he aimed a mob of supporters “like a loaded cannon” at the U.S. Capitol, House Democrats said Tuesday in making their most detailed case yet for why the former president should be convicted and permanently barred from office. Trump denied the allegations through his lawyers and called the trial unconstitutional.
The dueling filings offer the first public glimpse of the arguments that will be presented to the Senate beginning next week. The impeachment trial represents a remarkable reckoning with the violence in the Capitol last month, which the senators witnessed firsthand, and with Trump’s presidency overall. Held in the very chamber where the insurrectionists stood on Jan. 6, it will pit Democratic demands for a final measure of accountability against the desire of many Republicans to turn the page and move on.
The impeachment trial, Trump’s second, begins in earnest on Feb. 9.
The Democratic legal brief forcefully linked Trump’s baseless efforts to overturn the results of the presidential election to the deadly riot at the Capitol, saying he bears “unmistakable” blame for actions that threatened the underpinnings of American democracy. It argued that he must be found guilty on a charge of inciting the siege. And it used evocative language to conjure the day’s chaos, when “terrified members were trapped in the chamber” and called loved ones “for fear they would not survive.”
“His conduct endangered the life of every single member of Congress, jeopardized the peaceful transition of power and line of succession, and compromised our national security,” the Democratic managers of the impeachment case wrote. “This is precisely the sort of constitutional offense that warrants disqualification from federal office.”The Democrats’ filing made clear their plan to associate Trump’s words with the resulting violence, tracing his efforts to subvert democracy to when he first said last summer that he would not accept the election results and then through the November contest and his many failed attempts to challenge the results in court. When those efforts failed, the Democrats wrote, “he turned to improper and abusive means of staying in power,” specifically by launching a pressure campaign aimed at state election officials, the Justice Department and Congress.
