Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo. spoke Feb. 11 as House impeachment managers continued to present evidence for why the Senate should convict former President Donald Trump 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.
Neguse said Trump willfully incited the insurrection and encouraged the violence. Trump knew his supporters were violent, he said, noting that his supporters sent death threats to election officials who refused the former president’s calls to overturn the election. He also noted Trump’s celebrations of his supporters who promoted violence, including those tried to run a Biden/Harris bus off the road.
“He implied that it was OK to break the law because the election was being stolen,” Neguse said, referring to Trump’s speech prior to the attack when he told supporters, “When you catch somebody in a fraud you’re allowed to go by very different rules.”
He said Trump’s words and tweets leading up to the Jan. 6 attack inflamed his base. He noted that Trump did not condemn the violence on the day of the attack, sympathized with the insurrectionists and further inflamed them by continuing to spread lies of a stolen election.
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