Senate Trial of Donald Trump

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Oh okay, but if the witnesses believed that Trump would pardon them, does that make the witnesses more credible that they committed the storming of the capital building because of what he said? I thought they would have stormed the capital building anyway regardless, because the election was so big, that they would have stormed it anyway.

But why would they say that Trump told them to do it, what's in it for them? Are they being cut a deal for testifying at the hearings?

Trump’s Mob Would Have Killed Them If It Had the Chance by John Podhoretz for Commentary

they are letting it silde for craven reasons- fear of the magas and cold-blooded transactional reward for getting their crooked priorities [tax cuts for the rich and assaulting the social safety net as much as they did, along with putting the lower classes in their place].

It's actually really sad.
After 6 Jan there was this moment when I thought, with Trump out of the picture and his most loyal supporters being ridiculed (if not rounded up and charged), that the Republicans would seize the opportunity to admit they might have backed the wrong guy and make a clean break. Begin a new beginning. But no, it seems they have some inane idea that Trump's cult following is their base (as if they could hope to continue the cult without its leader).
It's sad, to see the great USA brought to this.
And I'm not even American.

Not the “Great USA”—merely a faction of the Republican Party.

Sadly, I think the spineless followers in the Trumpublican party who had already made up their minds before seeing any evidence will ensure Trump is acquitted, giving him free reign to carry on attacking the democratic process and standing for election - which, unless several minds have become better focussed, he will win again.
Then the whole sorry episode will be re-run - but more so. America will have a king, with a supplicant and adoring party riding on his coat-tails.

I read that several republicans are talking of starting a third party, one more aligned with the traditional Republican ideas than with Trump's insanity - but will they vote to convict?

If the glove fits, you must Convict!

Takeaways -- Day 1

1) That video: If you watch only one thing that comes out of the first day of the trial, you need to make it the 13-minute video presented by the Democratic House managers at the start of their argument.  It juxtaposed the proceedings in the House and Senate on January 6 with the gathering riot happening outside.

2) 2024: Before either side began to make its case, the Senate held a vote on a rule package designed to govern the proceedings.  That organizing resolution was the result of weeks of negotiations between leaders of both parties.  It was a bipartisan effort. And yet, 11 Republican senators still voted against it.

3) Rep. Joe Neguse: The Colorado congressman was a litigator in private practice prior to being elected to Congress in 2018.  And it sure showed during his breakdown of the key question of the first day of the trial: Is it, in fact, unconstitutional to hold an impeachment trial for a former president?  Neguse repeatedly went right to the text of our founding document to make his case that it was, in fact, entirely within the bounds of the Constitution to do so.

4) A rough start to the Trump defense: Trump attorney Bruce Castor kicked off the former President's defense with what can only be described as a rambling performance that seemed to lack any sort of point.  Bruce Castor's opening statement is what you get when all of the top lawyers bow out.  And it's not pretty to look at or listen to.

5) Disqualify without removal?: There is nothing in the Constitution that suggests that the Senate couldn't vote to ban Trump from ever running again whether or not he is convicted and, at least technically speaking, removed from office.

Takeaways -- Day 2

1) Trump is his own worst enemy: The House impeachment managers did a good job of making their case.  But in truth, Trump himself did a lot of the work for them. His tweets. His speeches. His media interviews.  There was just so much of it.  And time after time, Trump left nothing to the imagination.  He said the election was rigged.  He told his supporters that they were going to have to fight like hell to keep hold of democracy.  He refused to agree to the peaceful handover of power if he lost. Over and over again.

2) Liz Cheney: A week after the Wyoming Republican survived a challenge to her leadership slot in the House GOP, her words in explaining why she was voting to impeach Trump were used, again, by Democrats to make the case for why he needed to be convicted.  "The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack," said Neguse in summarizing what Trump had done -- a direct quotation from Cheney's statement of January 12.

3) Trump supporters took him literally: On Wednesday, the House impeachment managers made an airtight case that Trump's most ardent backers always took what he said literally.  They believed him when he said the election was going to be rigged.  They believed him when he attacked the vote in Michigan.  And they took him at his word when he told them on January 6 they needed to fight.

4) Connecting the dots: The planning for the insurrection had begun long before January 6.  All the way back to a mid-June 2020 Trump interview with Fox News' Chris Wallace in which the President refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he lost -- and then all the myriad times between then and January 6 in which Trump lied about everything from mail-in balloting to the vote count in swing states to his chances of winning.  This was the result of months of Trump lying to his supporters about the election and its outcome.  January 6 was the culmination of all of those lies, not the starting point.

5) Josh Hawley plays the villain: Ever since announcing in late 2020 that he would formally object to the Electoral College count in several states, the Missouri Republican senator has stood at the forefront of the effort to court the Trump vote in anticipation of a run for president in his own right in 2024.  And he has repeatedly demonstrated that he believes the best way to emerge as the Trump heir is to troll Democrats -- and the media -- as hard as possible.

Takeaways -- Day 3

1) The rioters' statements are damning: The clear focus of the impeachment managers on Thursday was to provide a clear link between Trump's words and the actions of the violent mob that stormed the Capitol.  And time and time again, the best proof of that link was the rioters themselves. In interviews, in videos, in arrest records the same theme just kept emerging: They believed they were acting on the wishes (and orders) of the President of the United States.  The lingering image (and sound) was a protester outside the Capitol shouting, "We were invited by the President of the United States" over and over unto a bullhorn.

2) Trump as a future threat: If Trump is not convicted and banned from seeking future federal office (a vote that would take only a simple majority of senators), there's absolutely no reason to think that what happened in January couldn't be repeated.

3) Michigan was a test run: On April 30, 2020, a crowd of Trump supporters crowded into the Michigan state Capitol to protests Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's state-of-emergency order to deal with the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. (That came less than two weeks after Trump had tweeted "LIBERATE MICHIGAN.")  "This was a huge win," the organizer of the Michigan protest told CNN at the time. Then, in early October, 13 men were arrested for an act of domestic terrorism -- a plot to kidnap Whitmer.  Michigan was "a preview of the coming insurrection," said Raskin.

4) Disrespecting the police: Videos showed by the House impeachment managers on Thursday in which Trump supporters -- proudly chanting his name and insisting they were occupying the Capitol because Trump told them to -- not only violently attacked many of the Capitol Police officers trying to protect the building and its occupants, but also verbally berated those same law enforcement officials.  The video that stood out was a guy in a red MAGA hat repeatedly calling a police office a "traitor" -- just inches from the officer's face.

5) GOP senators are losing interest: The lack of attention being paid on the Republican side is an outward reflection of their own lack of internal debate about whether Trump deserves to be convicted.  With the exception of a half-dozen or so Republicans, the rest made their minds up to acquit Trump long before the trial even started.

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^ Good summary.