The House impeachment summary on Tuesday sets the legal task for a case in which managers expect to expose the horrors of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol in detail and to tie the meat back to Trump’s words and actions, sources say saying.
House managers are expected to provide a detailed legal analysis in their pre-trial legal summary, due at 10 a.m. ET Tuesday, on the basis of Trump’s accusation with inciting terrorism, why it should be disqualified from holding office in the future and why it is constitutional. to condemn Trump as vice president, in an attempt to reaffirm what has emerged as the main reason Senate Republicans have called for Trump to succeed.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the GOP Senate leadership, said it would be an “abuse” for the former President’s defense to focus on unfounded claims that the election was “stolen.”
“It’s not really relevant,” Cornyn said. “The impeachment articles are like a riot in a criminal case, so that would be a matter before the Senate. As well as there would be a temptation to bring in other cases, I think that it would be to the detriment of the President ‘s own defense to move down in things that are not really before the Senate. “
Witnesses’ question could eventually be debated by whether a person is willing to step forward voluntarily – avoiding any delay about the benefit of action – who can speak to Trump’s mind in the hours leading up to the riot and how they were opening, when there was an emergency of requests coming from Capitol Hill to summon the National Guard into the Capitol.
The minutes due Tuesday are the first of several pre-trial responses that House managers and Trump lawyers will file with the Senate ahead of the arguments of the impeachment test, which is scheduled to begin on February 9th.
The case of the house draws on video evidence
House impeachment managers are planning to pull in material from the hours of videos posted to social media sites to show how the Capitol was attacked, how the protesters targeted the West. president Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – and how they were inspired by Trump’s words and actions on Jan. 6.
The case they make is shaping up to be completely different than what the House put forward in its 2020 impeachment test of Trump, which drew on hours of complex House evidence about how Trump urged Ukraine to investigate the claims and withhold security support from Kiev.
This time, the case against Trump played out before the eyes of lawmakers, when they were forced to flee the House and Senate chambers while protesters surrounded them.
There is enough material for the house managers to use to show the devastation caused by the deadly riot. That includes video from social media websites like the other security platform parler showing both how the riots were instigated by Trump and how they attacked Police officers U.S. Capitol and threatening officers including Pelosi and Pence.
The House argument is expected to focus on Trump’s speech at the Ellipse on Jan. 6 before the crowd marched to the Capitol and immediately got over a far-flung police force, arguing that Trump sparked the riot. . But House managers are expected to go beyond just the events of that day, showing how Trump’s lies were about a poll while trying to restore the will of the voters lies inspired by the insurrectionists.
In the impeachment article, the House specifically called for Trump’s January call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger before Congress confirmed Biden’s victory, in which Trump pushed him to find “enough” votes to make Trump a winner.
Constitutional argument
When the House joined Trump on January 13, he was still president. But now that he has resigned, the Senate Republican majority has argued that trying to vice-president is illegal. But the House will have the first opportunity to push back on the constitutional claims in its minutes Tuesday, and that is expected to be a focus in the written minutes, sources say.
House staff is expected to draw on the precedent of Senate impeachment testing for a former official – the Senate tried to wage Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876 after retiring ahead of House impeachment – a as well as arguing that presidents can’t get away with crimes in their last days in office to avoid punishment and then run again.
The legal argument is also expected to explain the House’s legal case for accusing Trump of plotting terrorism, as well as discussing why he should be disqualified from being holding office again, which the Senate could do if it condemns Trump.
During the last impeachment trial, Trump’s team added a seven-page reaffirmation to both impeachment articles, arguing that Trump’s impeachment was “a brutal and illegal attempt to reverse the results of the 2016 election and block the 2020 election.”
Trump’s new legal team appears to be arguing in his file Tuesday that trying to vice president is illegal. A vice president’s lawsuit has never been made before – this will only be the fourth Senate impeachment test of a president in U.S. history – and several GOP senators have argued that absenteeism is Chief Justice John Roberts from the trial raises doubts about his constitution. , when the Constitution states that the supreme justice will prevail when the president is tried.
A source close to the case said the document from Trump’s lawyers will address four or five key issues, but that their argument is that the lawsuit is mostly non-legislative.
But Trump’s response to the call for a test could also test whether his team will get into conspiracy theories about election fraud during the trial. Someone familiar with Trump’s original impeachment lawyers told CNN on Saturday that Trump wanted the lawyers to argue that there was a major election fraud and that the election was stolen from him, instead of focusing on legally convicting a president after he leaves office.
While the source said Trump’s claims of a tight election are not expected to be a “focal point” of his lawyers’ legal guidance, that doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t be mentioned – and it won’t turn out. to a lightning rod. Trump still believes the election was stolen from him and clearly sees that as part of his defense.
CNN’s Gloria Borger and Jim Acosta contributed to this report.