"Lord, infuse them with the spirit of nonpartisan patriotism" — Senate Chaplain Barry Black's prayer begins the Trump defense portion of the #ImpeachmentTrial
Michael van der Veen begins Trump's defense: "The article of impeachment now before the Senate is an unjust and blatantly unconstitutional act of political vengeance"
The Trump defense argument is that Trump was actually urging senators to follow the law, not inciting insurrection, because all he was trying to do is make sure the election was fair. (This argument doesn't accord with reality but will probably be sufficient for GOP senators.)
"gavel them down"
Michael van der Veen is using clips of Dems objecting to Trump's Electoral College win to discredit the House managers' case, but what this overlooks is that Dems didn't encourage a mob to descend upon the Capitol
"incitement to resurrection"
Trump's lawyers are basically turning this into a Trump stump speech with a video montage of how many times he said "law and order"
Trump's lawyers are now using the impeachment trial to spread misinformation about Russia's 2016 interference campaign
Trump's lawyer does some whataboutism by suggesting Bernie Sanders is just as responsible for Steve Scalise's shooting as Trump is for the insurrection
The "75 million people voted for Trump" lie is such a weird and pervasive one. It's a little thing but 74 million people voted for Trump.
again, it's a lie that 75 million people voted for Trump
Oh no. @AndrewFeinberg just got bodied
David Schoen is making a great case for witness testimony!
Schoen accuses House managers of presenting "manipulated evidence" — but his evidence for this is a photo from a New York Times piece that is in no way central to the case and wasn't even presented during the trial
Schoen is now attacking Dems for depicting Twitter accounts retweeted by Trump as verified when they weren't. Doesn't seem like a big deal.
We are now getting some "very fine people" trutherism
Trump's argument seems to be that Democrats have said "fight" a lot of times, therefore checkmate libs
I can't believe Chuck Schumer incited violence against Covid like this
what is this never-ending video of Democrats saying "fight" meant to prove? is it supposed to be a form of torture?
the Trump defense team is now playing a video including footage of dead bodies
It's not on point or really a defense of Trump at all, but Trump's lawyers are putting together a masterclass in owning the libs
watch this clip while reminding yourself that Trump's entire defense so far has been about whataboutism
van der Veen's argument now seems to be that not accepting his arguments about Trump's innocence is an attack on his reputation
This, dear reader, was not in fact what Trump was doing on January 6
Bruce Castor: "Clearly, there was no insurrection."
(His argument was that there was no actual coup, therefore there was no insurrection.)
"Ben Raffensberger"
Castor defends Trump's recorded phone call in which he tried to bully the Georgia Secretary of State into "finding" votes for him
Castor reading part of Trump's call to Raffensperger accidentally illustrates how unhinged Trump sounded
Trump impeachment lawyers’ “defense” of Trump was a buffet of whataboutism
Castor concludes Trump's remarkably short defense with a screed about "constitutional cancel culture"
Originally tweeted by Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) on February 12, 2021.