The trial brief filed Tuesday by House impeachment managers argues the obvious: That Donald Trump’s actions on and leading up to his Jan. 6 incitement of a mob that stormed the Capitol were “a betrayal of historic proportions.”
The brief accuses Trump of whipping his supporters into a “frenzy” and describes him as “singularly responsible” for the mayhem that followed.
The former president is not protected by the First Amendment’s freedom of speech provision, the managers wrote. That provision was never intended to allow a president to “provoke lawless action if he loses at the polls.”
“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 states.
Later Tuesday, Trump’s legal team denied that he incited the deadly assault on the Capitol, and they argued in a responding brief that the Senate has no right to try him.