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 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2021/2/1613085041579.png" alt="In his final remarks, House impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said&nbsp;“The First Amendment does not create some superpower immunity from impeachment." -photo courtesy CSPAN" />
 <figcaption>In his final remarks, House impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said&nbsp;“The First Amendment does not create some superpower immunity from impeachment." -photo courtesy CSPAN</figcaption>
 </figure><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?508743-1/impeachment-trial">CLICK here&nbsp;</a>to watch replay of Day 3 of the trialWASHINGTON (AP) — Dire harm from Donald Trump’s false and violent incitements will vex American democracy long into the future unless the Senate convicts him of impeachment and bars him from future office, House prosecutors insisted Thursday as they concluded two days of emotional arguments in his historic trial.Making their case, they presented piles of new videos of last month’s deadly Capitol attack, with invaders proudly declaring they were merely obeying “the president’s orders” to fight to overturn the election results as Congress was certifying his defeat to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump is accused of inciting the invasion, which prosecutors said was a predictable culmination of the many public and explicit instructions he gave supporters long before his White House rally that unleashed the Jan. 6&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege">attack.</a>“If we pretend this didn’t happen, or worse, if we let it go unanswered, who’s to say it won’t happen again?” argued prosecutor Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo. Even out of office, Democrats warned, Trump could whip up a mob of followers for similar damage.Trump’s defense will take the Senate floor on Friday, arguing that as terrible as the attack was, it clearly was not the president’s doing. The proceedings could finish with a vote this weekend by the senators who are sitting as impeachment jurors.The Democrats, with little hope of conviction by two-thirds of the evenly divided Senate, are also making their most graphic case to the American public, while Trump’s lawyers and the Republicans are focused on legal rather than emotional or historic questions, hoping to get it all behind as quickly as possible. Five people died in the Capitol chaos and its aftermath, a domestic attack unparalleled in U.S. history.Trump’s&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-capitol-siege-biden-cabinet-trials-acquittals-d82d5aa64d4988ec92860d4729dfc9f8">second impeachment trial,</a>&nbsp;on a charge of incitement of insurrection, has echoes of last year’s impeachment and acquittal over the Ukraine matter, as prosecutors warn senators that Trump has shown no bounds and will pose a continuing danger to the civic order unless he is convicted. Even out of the White House, the former president holds influence over large swaths of voters.The Democratic House members acting as prosecutors drew a direct line Thursday from Trump’s repeated comments condoning and even celebrating violence — praising “both sides” after the 2017 outbreak at the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia — and urging his rally crowd last month to go to the Capitol and fight for his presidency. He spread false claims about election fraud and urged his supporters to “stop the steal” of the presidency.Prosecutors used the rioters’ own videos from that day to pin responsibility on Trump. “We were invited here,” said one. “Trump sent us,” said another. “He’ll be happy. We’re fighting for Trump.”“They truly believed that the whole intrusion was at the president’s orders,” said Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado. “The president told them to be there.”At the White House, President Biden said he believed “some minds may be changed” after senators saw chilling security video Wednesday of the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/78104aea082995bbd7412a6e6cd13818">deadly insurrection at the Capitol</a>, including of rioters searching menacingly for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence.Biden said he didn’t watch any of the previous day’s proceedings live but later saw news coverage.Though most of the Senate jurors seem to have made up their minds, making Trump’s acquittal likely, the never-before-seen audio and video released Wednesday became a key exhibit.Senators sat riveted as the jarring video played in the chamber. The footage showed the mob smashing into the building and rioters engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police, with audio of officers pleading for backup. Rioters roamed the halls chanting, “Hang Mike Pence,” and eerily singing out, “Where are you, Nancy?” in search of Pelosi.Videos of the siege have been circulating since the day of the riot, but the graphic compilation offered a moment-by-moment retelling of one of the nation’s most alarming days. And it underscored how dangerously close the rioters came to the nation’s leaders, shifting the focus of the trial from an academic debate about the Constitution to a raw retelling of the assault.Trump attorney David Schoen took issue, saying that the presentation was “offensive” and that the Democrats “haven’t tied it in any way to Trump.”He told reporters Thursday at the Capitol that he believed Democrats were making the public relive the tragedy in a way that “tears at the American people” and impedes efforts at unity in the country.And by Thursday, senators sitting through a second full day of arguments appeared somewhat fatigued, slouching in their chairs, crossing their arms and walking around to stretch.One Republican, Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, said during a break: “To me, they’re losing credibility the longer they talk.”The goal of the two-day presentation by prosecutors from the House, which impeached the outgoing president last month a week after the siege, was to cast Trump not as an innocent bystander but rather as the “inciter in chief” who spent months spreading falsehoods and revving up supporters to challenge the election.“This attack never would have happened but for Donald Trump,” Rep. Madeleine Dean, one of the impeachment managers, said as she choked back emotion. “And so they came, draped in Trump’s flag, and used our flag, the American flag, to batter and to bludgeon.”Trump’s lawyers are likely to blame the rioters themselves for the violence.The first president to face an impeachment trial after leaving office, Trump is also the first to be twice impeached.His lawyers say he cannot be convicted because he is already gone from the White House. Even though the Senate rejected that argument in Tuesday’s vote to proceed to trial, the issue could resonate with Senate Republicans eager to acquit Trump without being seen as condoning his behavior.While six Republicans joined with Democrats to vote to proceed with the trial on Tuesday, the 56-44 vote was far from the two-thirds threshold of 67 votes needed for conviction.-----WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump incited a deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol, put his own vice president in danger and later expressed solidarity with rioters who attempted to overturn the 2020 election in his name, Democrats argued Thursday as they wrapped up opening arguments in Trump’s impeachment trial.Over two days of testimony, the Democrats asserted that Trump deliberately ordered his supporters to “fight like hell” and “go by very different rules” or they “wouldn’t have a country anymore.” They bolstered their case with accounts from the rioters themselves, some of whom said they were acting on Trump’s orders.The former president’s defense team insists Trump’s speech near the White House was protected under the First Amendment. And they argue he shouldn’t be on trial in the Senate because he is no longer in office — an argument Democrats reject.“The First Amendment does not create some superpower immunity from impeachment,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat who is leading the prosecution. “If you don’t find this a high crime and misdemeanor today, you have set a new terrible standard for presidential misconduct.”Highlights from the trial on Thursday:‘WE WERE INVITED HERE’“Fight for Trump.” “Trump sent us.” “We are listening to Trump.” “We wait and take orders from our president”Democrats focused intently on words offered by rioters to rationalize their storming of the Capitol. It was part of a broader effort to directly link the president’s call for his loyalists to “fight like hell” with the death, destruction and mayhem that followed his speech on Jan. 6.In many cases, rioters, who sought to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory, explained that they were acting at Trump’s behest.To underscore their point, Democrats showed videos using rioters own words. Among them was Jennifer Ryan, a Texas real estate agent who was criminally charged but insists she was just “following my president.”One video showed a man in the Capitol during the siege, who suggested to his friends that they pick up an office phone and call Trump to say, “We love you, bro!”Another captured a man shouting at police: “We were invited here.”Democratic impeachment managers also noted that many left after Trump released an online video hours after the attack, urging them to go home.“Today is ours. We won the day,” a man with a bullhorn can be heard saying in one clip. He then added that Trump wanted “everybody to go home.”___A HISTORY OF VIOLENCEThe violence at the Capitol shocked the nation. But Democratic impeachment managers said that, in hindsight, it should have been no surprise.Ever since Trump descended a golden escalator in his New York tower to launch his presidential bid in 2016, he has openly stoked and incited his supporters to violence, they said. Then they showed an exhibit cataloging his past incendiary remarks.When Trump supporters attacked a protester at a 2016 campaign rally, the then-candidate called it “very, very appropriate.”Another time, he urged supporters to “knock the crap out of” a protester and promised to pay their legal fees.In 2017, after a woman in Charlottesville, Virginia, was stuck and killed by a car driven by a white supremacist during violent clashes, Trump said there were “fine people on both sides.”And last year, after armed protesters surged into the Michigan statehouse to protest pandemic lockdown measures, he criticized Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and tweeted “LIBERATE MICHIGAN.”“These are very good people but they are angry. They want their lives back again,” Trump said.The FBI later broke up a plot to kidnap Whitmer by anti-government extremists upset over coronavirus restrictions she had imposed in the state.“The siege of the Michigan statehouse was effectively a state-level dress rehearsal,” Raskin said. “It was a preview of the coming insurrection.”___A QUICK DEFENSETrump attorney David Schoen said Thursday that the defense’s case should go quickly on Friday, making clear they have no intention of using the 16 hours available to them.“There’s no reason for us to be out there a long time,” Schoen said during an appearance on Fox News before blasting Democrats for the “harm this is causing to the American people.”Schoen told reporters that the Democrats’ video presentations during the trial were “offensive” and that they “haven’t tied it in any way to Trump.” He said he believed Democrats were effectively making the public relive the tragedy in a way that “tears at the American people” and impedes efforts at unity in the country.Trump senior adviser Jason Miller said he expects the defense will wrap up in less than a day.___POST RIOT RESIGNATIONSMany Senate Republicans have indicated they will not vote to impeach Trump, a sign of cooling of emotions that had run hot just over a month ago.As Democrats look to secure the 67 votes needed for a conviction, they used a slideshow presentation on Thursday to remind Senate jurors of the widespread outrage voiced in the wake of the attack, when many in the party directly blamed Trump — including Republicans who had worked for him.“Today’s violent assault on our Capitol, an effort to subjugate American democracy by mob rule, was fomented by Mr. Trump,” read a statement issued by James Mattis, Trump’s former secretary of defense, hours after the attack.Another slide showed a statement from John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, who said the violence was “a direct result of (Trump) poisoning the minds of people with the lies and the fraud.”“The invasion of our Capitol by a mob, incited by lies from some entrusted with power, is a disgrace to all who sacrificed to build our Republic,” read another, which showed a tweet from former Republican House Speaker John Boehner.Democrats also showed a chart of the 16 administration officials and Cabinet members who resigned in the aftermath of the attack on the Capitol, including Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.“There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me,” DeVos said at the time.WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats prosecuting President Donald Trump’s impeachment have wrapped up their opening arguments.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2021/2/1613077374687.png" alt="House impeachment manager Rep. Joe Neguse of Colorado during his presentation Thursday afternoon." />
 <figcaption>House impeachment manager Rep. Joe Neguse of Colorado during his presentation Thursday afternoon.</figcaption>
 </figure>Rep. Jamie Raskin implored senators in his closing speech to exercise “common sense about what just took place in our country” and find Trump guilty of inciting an insurrection. Raskin is the lead prosecutor for the House.He said senators have the power under the Constitution to find Trump guilty of having betrayed the oath of office the nation's founders wrote into the Constitution.Another impeachment manager warned senators that acquitting Trump could have lasting consequences for the country. Rep. Joe Neguse said that “if we pretend this didn’t happen, or worse, if we let it go unanswered, who’s to say it won’t happen again.”Trump’s lawyers will begin their arguments when the trial resumes at noon Friday.WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic prosecutors in Donald Trump's impeachment trial say rioters believed they were are acting on the “president’s orders” to storm the Capitol to undo Joe Biden's election victory. The House is ready to wrap up opening arguments. Biden says he believes “some minds may be changed” after the previous day's gripping video of the deadly siege The Democrats are laying out the physical and mental harm caused by the Capitol attack and discussing Trump’s lack of action as it unfolded. Thursday's session follows the previous day's raw and visceral video of last month’s deadly insurrection. The Trump legal team gets its chance to make its case Friday and Saturday.---------<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2021/2/1613061767146.png" alt="<a href="https://www.c-span.org/series/?theSenate">The Senate</a>&nbsp;impeachment trial of former&nbsp;<a href="https://www.c-span.org/person/?donaldtrump">President Donald Trump&nbsp;</a>continues Thursday with House managers presenting more of their case.-image courtesy CSPAN" />
 <figcaption><a href="https://www.c-span.org/series/?theSenate">The Senate</a>&nbsp;impeachment trial of former&nbsp;<a href="https://www.c-span.org/person/?donaldtrump">President Donald Trump&nbsp;</a>continues Thursday with House managers presenting more of their case.-image courtesy CSPAN</figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic prosecutors in Donald Trump's impeachment trial say rioters believed they were are acting on the “president’s orders” to storm the Capitol to undo Joe Biden's election victory. The House is ready to wrap up opening arguments. Biden says he believes “some minds may be changed” after the previous day's gripping video of the deadly siege The Democrats are laying out the physical and mental harm caused by the Capitol attack and discussing Trump’s lack of action as it unfolded. Thursday's session follows the previous day's raw and visceral video of last month’s deadly insurrection. The Trump legal team gets its chance to make its case Friday and Saturday.---------WASHINGTON (AP) — The House managers are continuing their case Thursday in the historic impeachment trial. Trump’s lawyers are expected to launch their defense by week’s end.<a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?508743-1/impeachment-trial">CLICK here </a>to watch Day 3 of the trialPresident Joe Biden said&nbsp; he believes “some minds may be changed” in former President Trump’s&nbsp; trial after the display of <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?508741-101/senate-impeachment-trial-day-2-part-2">searing, graphic videos</a> of the assault on the U.S. Capitol.Biden told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday that he didn’t watch any of the previous day’s proceedings live but later saw news coverage. The Democratic House impeachment managers used security video as part of their case, and the violent images of the riot shook senators and TV viewers alike.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">The &#39;Not Guilty&#39; vote is growing after today. I think most Republicans found the presentation by the House Managers offensive and absurd.&mdash; Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) <a href="https://twitter.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/1359695883906998277?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 11, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Biden has steadfastly refused to weigh in on the trial and again on Thursday said his focus was on fulfilling his campaign promise to battle the coronavirus pandemic. Biden says the nation has “to move on.” Aides have said Biden will address the proceedings after a verdict is reached.Trump’s lawyers are expected to launch their defense by week’s end.

🎥 Impeachment Day 3 Highlights: Convict or face dire democracy damage