“Instead of acting to heal the nation, or at the very least focusing on prosecuting the lawbreakers who stormed the Capitol, the Speaker of the House and her allies have tried to callously harness the chaos of the moment for their own political gain,” they added.
Lawyers for Donald Trump on Monday blasted the impeachment case against him as an act of “political theater” by Democrats, whom they accused of exploiting for their own party’s gain the chaos and trauma of last month’s riot at the U.S. Capitol.
They suggest that Trump was simply exercising his First Amendment rights when he disputed the election results and argue that he explicitly encouraged his supporters to have a peaceful protest and therefore cannot be responsible for the actions of the rioters. They suggest the Senate is not entitled to try Trump now that he has left office, an argument that is contested by even some conservative legal scholars, and they deny that the goal of the case is about pursuing justice.
As former President Donald Trump’s second Senate impeachment trial is about to begin, a new Gallup poll finds a slim majority of Americans (52%) saying they would like their senators to vote to convict him. Americans tilted against conviction in his first impeachment trial a little over a year ago.
