In the 80-page pre-trial brief presented today, nine House impeachment managers charged that Donald Trump’s responsibility for the violent events of Jan. 6 “is unmistakable,” and that he deserves to be impeached—even though he is no longer President—and banned from all future political office positions. This latter point gets to the heart of what the orchestrators of this charade seek.
The claim is that Trump’s efforts to “extend his grip on power by fomenting violence against Congress was a profound violation of the oath he swore. If provoking an insurrectionary riot against a Joint Session of Congress after losing an election is not an impeachable offense, it is hard to imagine what would be,” the brief asserts. It also argues that Trump’s actions in the months leading up to Jan. 6, in which he claimed that the Nov. 3, 2020 election was stolen from him, created the conditions for a violent mob to be aimed “like a loaded cannon down Pennsylvania Avenue” to attack the Capitol. “President Trump created a powder keg on January 6,” and, the brief absurdly notes, “hundreds were prepared for violence at his direction. They were prepared to do whatever it took to keep him in power. All they needed to hear was that their President needed them to `fight like hell.’ All they needed was for President Trump to strike a match.” (emphasis added)
