The architect of Donald Trump’s second impeachment lawsuit has blamed “explosive and deranged” tactics by the former president’s lawyers for maintaining the strength of the case filed by Democrats the House expresses.
But impeachment chief executive Jamie Raskin said the Democrats’ case nevertheless emerged to convince even Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Trump’s guilt in inciting the Capitol unrest.
Two days after Trump escaped conviction, and as his supporters expressed the expectation that he would return to front-line politics, Raskin also told the Washington Post that it was both “good and appalling”. McConnell’s birthday speech in which he fired Trump – but said he voted free because the lawsuit was illegal.
He noted, Raskin said, that many of the 43 Republicans who voted for liberation “felt the need to hang their hats” on that argument, which was rejected by constitutional scholars and twice by the Senate itself.
Even Trump’s lawyers did not try to defend what the Democrats described as Trump’s “big lie”: he won an election he lost by more than 7m popular votes and 74 election votes.
Trump’s legal team, led by a personal injury lawyer and a former county prosecutor who refused to bring charges against Bill Cosby, failed to acquit Trump for the attack on the Capitol, judging by speeches Republican elders.
Instead, Trump’s lawyers have denied a copious and definitive record of what the former president said and did, drawing false parallels between ordinary political language and Trump’s coup attempt.
In the last vote of the impeachment lawsuit, seven Republicans voted with Democrats to condemn Trump – a 53-vote short 10 count on the total required.
In a sign of how the Republican party has split from the popular will, nearly six in 10 Americans – 58% – believe Trump should be condemned, according to a new ABC News poll -Ipsos.
Raskin and his fellow house managers have been widely praised for their work. His case revealed widespread use of video of events at the Capitol on Jan. 6, when Trump supporters called for a “fight like hell” to turn his election case in. of lawyers who hunted or killed. Five people died as a direct result of the riot.
Raskin took the lead despite his son killing himself in December. He told the Post he had “told managers we were going to sue but not censor the sentiment”.
There has been criticism among Democrats, after managers persuaded the Senate to vote to call witnesses but then agreed to avoid that step, which could be extend litigation. On Sunday, Raskin said witnesses would not have changed their minds.
“Those Republicans voted to get against this mountain of undeniable evidence,” he told NBC. “There is no reasoning with people who basically work as members of a religious cult.”
Virgin Islands representative Stacey Plaskett, who was widely praised for her part in the trial, told CNN: “We didn’t need more witnesses, we needed more spiky seniors.”
More evidence of Trump’s wrongdoing may be found. Members of Congress from both parties have called for a 9/11-style bipartisan commission to investigate why government and law enforcement officials failed to stop the attack on the Capitol.
Trump lawmakers Michael van der Veen, Bruce Castor and David Schoen marked their client’s acquittal but opposed widespread ridicule for an issue raised on floating arguments about freedom of speech and the scattering of whataboutism over Democratic views on protests against racism and police brutality.
“They couldn’t get a summer internship with my cousin Vinny,” Raskin told the post, perhaps deliberately referring to a bizarre and famous press conference given in November by someone another Trump lawmaker, Rudy Giuliani, amid attempts by the former president to fail to prove a major fraud in his election loss by Joe Biden.
My Cousin Vinny is a 1992 Oscar-winning comedy about an inexperienced lawyer played by Joe Pesci. Giuliani said that this is “one of my favorite law films, as it comes from Brooklyn”.
Trump, who hails from Queens, refused to testify in his own defense. Raskin described it as an “image of true cowardice” and said: “He betrayed the constitution, the country and its people.
“Trump supporters need to understand that he has no loyalty to them… Donald Trump is the past. We have to deal with the future. “