Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., spoke Feb. 13 as House impeachment managers and former President Donald Trump’s defense team offered their final cases in Trump’s second impeachment trial. The Senate will vote on whether to convict Trump on a charge of inciting an insurrection for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump was impeached by the House in January, while he was still in office.
A key part of Trump’s defense has been that Trump’s single speech at the “Save America” rally on Jan. 6, prior to the Capitol attack, could not have incited it, and Dean agreed. She said that the insurrection was the culmination of months of rhetoric claiming the election would be rigged and stolen, and that Trump’s final speech telling his supporters they wouldn’t have a country anymore unless they fight to “stop the steal” was the tipping point. She said the defense is correct when they say the attack was pre-planned, and “that supports our point.” She said it was a “deliberate effort” by Trump over many months.
Dean said Trump knew his supporters would be violent, and pointed out that he has repeatedly supported violence from his supporters. She said the insurrection was “demonstrably foreseeable” and added that Trump’s tweet justifying the violence the day of the attack — saying, “these are the things and events that happen” when a “landslide election” is stolen — showed that he supported it.
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