Impeachment v2.0 Day 3: The Devil Made Me Do It

“Trump told us to do it.”

Trump’s MAGA supporters rioter-insurrectionists who were assembled at the White House Ellipse Park January 6, 2021 quickly became violent exclusively because they believed that Trump was asking them to do so – that they were doing his bidding.

“He said, ‘Be there.’ So I went and I answered the call of my president.”

House Impeachment Managers cited social media posts, recorded video, and court documents which reflected as much.

“I Answered the Call of My President.”

Impeachment Managers also extensively documented that several months BEFORE the election, Trump was laying the groundwork for convincing his cult of followers that the November presidential election was fixed, and that his victory was stolen because of vote fraud.

“We were invited by the President of the United States.”

A Virginia man told the F.B.I. that he and his cousin marched on the Capitol because Mr. Trump said “something about taking Pennsylvania Avenue.”

“I’m here to see what my President called me to D.C. for.”

Before the Capitol invasion, Trump spoke over an hour at a “Save America” rioter rally on the White House Ellipse Park and told his supporters that “you’ll never take back our country with weakness.”

After Trump’s hour-long talk, his zombie-like cult rioter insurrectionists then began to march toward the Capitol.

Lead Impeachment Manager Representative Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, is a Constitutional law expert, and has been commended by many within and without the Democratic party for his meticulous exhibition of the case which showed a direct connection between Trump’s insistently bellicose refusal to concede defeat and the violence that occurred January 6th.

“Trump didn’t get in the car and drive him to D.C., but it’s important to understand the context.

“You have to understand the cult mentality. They prey on vulnerable victims and give them a sense of purpose. In this case, Trump convinced his cult followers that they were working to preserve democracy.”

–– Clint Broden, Attorney at Law, who represents Garret Miller of Texas. The Department of Justice used Miller’s own social media posts to charge him with entering the Capitol and threatening U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat of New York’s 14th Congressional District, whom he said should be assassinated.

Trump’s attorneys said that his followers were “a small group of criminals who deserve punishment to the fullest extent of the law.”

“Many members of the mob that attacked Congress and the Capitol understood themselves to be doing exactly what Trump wanted and directed them to do – ‘fight like hell’ and do whatever was needed to ‘Stop the Steal.’ Trump’s words and actions stand on their own, of course. But the fact that they were understood by many as intended to produce precisely the actions that occurred, tends to confirm Trump’s responsibility.”

–– Michael Stokes Paulsen, Professor of Law at the University of St. Thomas, in St. Paul, MN (the largest private university in the state) and a conservative constitutional law scholar

Robert Sanford, a retired firefighter from Pennsylvania traveled to be a part of the event. Federal charging documents state that he “had followed the President’s instructions.” A now-viral video shows Sanford hurling a fire extinguisher into a group of Capitol Police officers, injuring several.

Enrique Latoison, an attorney who is representing Sanford, said, “The president and his groups rallied the people that did not plan on doing anything. The president was the adhesion. He’s the glue that got all of these people together.”

Christopher Grider, age 39, of Eddy, Texas, appeared on KWTX-TV in Waco, and said, “The president asked people to come and show their support. I feel like it’s the least that we can do; it’s kind of why I came from central Texas all the way to D.C.”

Grider is charged with destruction of government property, aiding and abetting, entering and remaining in a restricted building, disorderly and disruptive conduct, obstruction of an official proceeding and an act of physical violence on the Capitol grounds, among other Federal crimes.

The FBI collected many posts to the right-wing social media platform Parler in their charging documents. Among them, a post from Bruno Cua, who shared one of Trump’s tweets and wrote, “President Trump is calling us to FIGHT!” He is charged with assaulting a federal officer and other crimes stemming from the riot.

Frank Bowman, a Professor of Law at the University of Missouri and author of “High Crimes and Misdemeanors: A History of Impeachment for the Age of Trump,” said “If the president’s lawyers are going to argue that he wasn’t convincing anyone to engage in insurrection, that he wasn’t trying to induce any irregular behavior, it rather runs against that claim to show that there are people who took exactly that message.”

Keith Whittington, a Professor of Political Science at Princeton University said, “It’s important that those were people who did storm the Capitol, so they engaged in this behavior that leads us to the place we’re at now. They’re allies of his, and they are people who take his words very seriously, so it’s useful to know what they understood him to be saying.”

Trump’s face is displayed on video screens at the “Save America March” on the White House Ellipse park, January 6, 2021 before the rioter/insurrectionists seized the U.S. Capitol building.