Name: Why are the Democrats racing to impeach Trump if he’s out of office in 8 days time? - BBC Newsnight
Uploaded: 2021-01-12T18:36:15.000Z
Duration: 14 min 43 s
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never has Washington faced two ways quite like this, preparing for a presidential inauguration and a presidential impeachment at the same time.

Today, the Democrats introduced one article of impeachment charging President Donald Trump with incitement to insurrection.

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Sadly, the person who's running executive Branch is a deranged, unhinged, dangerous president of the United States and only a number of days until we can be protected from him.

But he has done something so serious that there should be prosecution against him.

The Democrats are trying to put pressure on Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet to remove President Trump using the 25th Amendment, but that's so far looks unlikely.

Assuming that fails, the Democrats in the House will start debating impeachment on Wednesday.

But given America will have a new president a week later, there is an obvious question.

What's the point of impeaching Donald Trump when he's out of office in what nine days time?

One is we need to set a precedent that if you lose an election, you can't just continue contesting it and trying to overturn the will of the people because there could be future wannabe strong men who follow President Trump's playbook.

We want them to know that if they dio, they will be sanctioned in a serious way.

The second reason is that impeachment not only remove the president from serving, but it prevents them from ever running or serving again.

So if you don't want President Trump to win in 2024 it makes sense to impeach.

Now away from the politics, more and more videos of the riots have been posted on social media, bringing home two Americans.

Chaos and violence is now clear toe Okay, the fighting to get past police that this door was intense.

Officer is dragged down the steps and savagely beaten.

Why were the police caught so unprepared?

Here's the front of the Senate building is the crowds started to gather just one officer on the steps.

Compare that to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the BLM protests in the summer.

The authorities have started arresting some suspects trying to identify others.

I filmed the group of proud boys as they marched on the capital last Wednesday.

Taking our fucking country back, many came dressed for trouble.

Have a look at this man in the stars and stripes Hoody on orange balaclava In his tactical vest, he has not only a radio and scissors, but at the end a can of bear spray, a chemical irritant designed to stop a charging grizzly.

He has goggles around his neck and is carrying what appears to be a baseball bat.

There is some insignia on his chest below, which are two pouches.

The black one has a patch on the front that says, Believe it or not, my mom thinks I'm special.

Metropolitan Police have issued several photographs of what they turned persons of interest, including the same man inside the Congress, still, with his baseball bat and now a can of something in his hand, perhaps pepper spray.

There is no danger of being under prepared.

A 7 ft high fence has been built right around Congress, aunt thousands of police and military.

And now on the streets, at least another 10,000 will be here in time for the inauguration.

Meanwhile, the D C mayor has urged the public to stay away from Washington next week.

David Grossman with that report from Washington and joining us Now.

Robert Ray, President Trump's attorney for the first impeachment trial this time last year.

It was also independent council during the Clinton administration on Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Lee.

You have a president accused of inciting violence on incitement to insurrection against the United States.

It's hard to think of, um, or clear cut case for removing a president.

Well, The first thing to analyze, though, is that if you read the draft article of impeachment the basis for the argument that the president himself obviously this has to be personal.

This isn't just some sort of impeachment article about all the things that the Democrats don't like about the Trump administration.

It has to be tethered to something that he actually did that constitutes high crime or misdemeanor.

And their allegation is that the president made the statement that, uh, if you don't fight like health, you're not going to have a country anymore.

Well, words like that are ambiguous enough that it seems hard for me to understand how you'd be able to prove that a trial that that constitutes what they've charged, which is inciting violence against the government of the United States.

Now that's not to condone what happened here, and living on the edge of impeachment is no way to conduct a presidency.

But that's, you know, a horse of a different story when it comes to making an allegation that constitutes removal from office.

Do you believe then that he didn't incite violence?

And do you believe that there was no incitement to insurrection against the United States?

Do you believe he didn't do those things?

Well, he's not responsible for all the crazy things that everybody does.

And he has a First Amendment defense and also a factual defense that, you know, his words should not have been taken literally.

I understand how people can come to the conclusion in context that when he said those words, he sent some kind of a signal two crazy people to do things that would constitute actual violence against the United States.

But it's another thing to say that that was what the president's intent was.

Look, I'm not defending the comments, but you're talking about whether or not that that impeachment article is sufficient to remove a president from off.

Sorry, I'm just before the end of his term.

I'm just asking for the logic in that because it sounds pretty weak to me that no incitement to violence would ever be taken seriously, because you could always say that Politicians speaking hyperbole.

You could always say it's a way of speaking.

But freedom of speech doesn't equal freedom of consequence.

On if people follow your words when you say you have to show strength or when your attorney says trial by combat, or when you suggest that something has to happen to Mike Pence on, then people go in with a gallows talking about hanging him.

Surely you have tow, see the consequences off your words.

Well, look, you know, and again if if you're right about that and that that should be distinguished from any, uh, comment that a politician or a president ever makes, which is which subject every president potentially to prosecution for incitement of violence, then find prosecute the president after he leaves office.

But you know, we're talking about an impeachment here that is being brought at the earliest, which would be one week, which is Wednesday, one week before President Trump leaves office in a new administration takes office.

And it seems to me a decidedly different thing to say that that would be something that's in the country's best interest.

Everybody should just take a deep breath and relax well and allowing administration to come into office.

Yeah, it's easier to take a deep breath and relax if you're not looking at a man who still has the nuclear codes.

If you're not looking at the fact that his Homeland Security chief just resigned tonight.

So you've presumably got nobody in charge of that.

If you could relax in the face of an FBI, that's not true.

There's not nobody in charge, Okay, so let's not exaggerate here.

Well, the FBI have said they're expecting Walter and functions and functions just fine, and the president doesn't order things with nuclear codes on his own.

There's a whole bunch of procedures that are in place with the United States military and the Department of Defense before that would ever happen.

So before everybody rushes to the ramparts here to say that you know, disaster is imminent, just understand that there are all kinds of protections involved to ensure that something like what you're talking about never happened last week because you know that the FBI has warned having that the FBI has warned that those are two different things.

Okay, you're talking about the action of the United States government to enter into a nuclear war.

And you're trying to suggest that that's just a likely is having people take the capital of the United States by violence.

All I'm saying is this man, this man who has managed to get a crowd even if he didn't mean to to go to the capital to raise it, to steal, to leave people dead.

I guess the question is, if they can use the First Amendment to say that he didn't really mean any of that stuff.

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Why are the Democrats racing to impeach Trump if he’s out of office in 8 days time? - BBC Newsnight

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