{"id":11659,"date":"2021-02-11T06:57:54","date_gmt":"2021-02-11T14:57:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=11659"},"modified":"2021-02-14T04:06:18","modified_gmt":"2021-02-14T12:06:18","slug":"house-lays-out-case-against-trump-branding-him-the-inciter-in-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=11659","title":{"rendered":"“House Lays Out Case Against Trump, Branding Him the \u2018Inciter in Chief\u2019”, The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Nicholas Fandos, Feb.11, 2021<\/p>\n

The Democratic House impeachment managers opened their case against the former president with a narrative of his monthslong effort to overturn the election and raw footage of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"Delegate<\/picture><\/div>
Delegate Stacey Plaskett of the U.S. Virgin Islands, left, with House impeachment managers and staff on Wednesday during a break in former President Donald J. Trump\u2019s Senate impeachment trial.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Erin Schaff\/The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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WASHINGTON \u2014 The House impeachment managers opened their prosecution of Donald J. Trump on Wednesday with a meticulous account of his campaign to overturn the election and goad supporters to join him, bringing its most violent spasms to life with never-before-seen security footage from the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.<\/p>\n

Filling the Senate chamber with the profane screams of the attackers, images of police officers being brutalized, and near-miss moments in which Vice President Mike Pence and lawmakers came steps away from confronting a mob hunting them down, the prosecutors made an emotional case that Mr. Trump\u2019s election lies had directly endangered the heart of American democracy.<\/p>\n

They played frantic police radio calls warning that \u201cwe\u2019ve lost the line,\u201d body camera footage showing an officer pummeled with poles and fists on the West Front of the Capitol, and silent security tape from inside showing Mr. Pence, his family and members of the House and Senate racing to evacuate as the mob closed in, chanting: \u201cHang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence!\u201d<\/p>\n

All of it, the nine Democratic managers said, was the foreseeable and intended outcome of Mr. Trump\u2019s desperate attempts to cling to the presidency. Reaching back as far as last summer, they traced how he spent months cultivating not only the \u201cbig lie\u201d that the election was \u201crigged\u201d against him, but stoking the rage of a throng of supporters who made it clear that they would do anything \u2014 including resorting to violence \u2014 to help him<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The managers argued that it warranted that the Senate break with two centuries of history to make Mr. Trump the first former president to be convicted in an impeachment trial and disqualified from future office on a single count of \u201cincitement of insurrection.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cDonald Trump surrendered his role as commander in chief and became the inciter in chief of a dangerous insurrection,\u201d Representative Jamie Raskin<\/a>, Democrat of Maryland and the lead manager, told the senators. They watched the footage in silence in the same spots where they had been when the mob breached the building last month.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe told them to \u2018fight like hell,\u2019\u201d Mr. Raskin added, quoting the speech that Mr. Trump gave supporters as the onslaught was unfolding, \u201cand they brought us hell on that day.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n