The Senate’s impeachment trial officially got underway earlier today and, as expected, it was high on theatrics, emotion, and the predictable media gushing and swooning.
The House’s lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who objected to some of Trump’s electoral votes in 2016, used his time at the microphone and in front of the cameras to argue that “legal scholars” agree with the Democrat position that holding an impeachment trial for a man who no longer holds the office of the presidency is constitutional.
One of the more dramatic moments from Raskin’s opening remarks was when he played a 13-minute video that included clips of Trump giving his speech at the ellipse juxtaposed with people leaving midway and heading towards the Capitol building.
CNN’s Manu Raju tweeted out a 10-minute version. The more complete version is below his tweet:
Democrats kick off impeachment trial with video of Jan. 6, showing Trump’s remarks at the rally followed by the violent and deadly insurrection in the Capitol.
“Senators, the president was impeached by the U.S. House of representatives January 13th for doing that,” Raskin says pic.twitter.com/YOA75QXEnc— Manu Raju (@mkraju) February 9, 2021
Here is Rep. Jamie Raskin’s full 13-minute video montage of the Capitol insurrection.https://t.co/1pQtNtMHmd
— The Recount (@therecount) February 9, 2021
Many of the Usual Suspects on the left cheered the video as a “slam dunk” and evidence of the supposed “airtight” case Democrats have against Trump.
But there was something missing from it, something pretty important: the part where Trump talked about how he knew rally attendees would soon be heading to the Capitol to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard”:
.@RepRaskin plays a deceptively edited video of Trump’s Jan. 6 speech that leaves out the passage where he said people should protest “peacefully and patriotically.” This is sheer demagoguery, an abuse of power by the Democrat-run House, ands should be rejected. #ImpeachmentTrial
— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) February 9, 2021
Watch the clip Democrats left out below:
Convenient that they left this out of the opening video montage at the sham impeachment trial.
“Patriotically and peacefully…”pic.twitter.com/rUoblpZXwS
— RSBN 🇺🇸 (@RSBNetwork) February 9, 2021
While Democrats are not obligated to present that information in their case, it speaks to the weakness of it that they didn’t include Trump’s key statement about people in the crowd “peacefully and patriotically” exercising their First Amendment rights in the montage. I mean it was part of the same speech. Public figures who are trying to incite people to wreak havoc and commit violence don’t typically tell their crowds of supporters to be peaceful in their actions.
Despite Raskin omitting those inconvenient Trump comments from the video, Trump’s team will be making their case soon, and there’s no doubt that they’ll correct the record and embarrass Democrats as the cameras roll in the process. Also, as I reported Monday, his defense attorneys are coming to the trial prepared with some video clips of their own, which will include Rep. Maxine Waters’ infamous June 2018 speech where she told a crowd of angry leftists to confront Trump officials no matter where they saw them, and “push back” and tell them they are “not welcome anymore, anywhere.”
As I said yesterday, this trial shouldn’t even be happening, but since it is, at least we know Trump’s attorneys will be able to give as good as they get and — in the process — inform the American people as to the duplicity of the Democrats’ antics where so-called objective “journalists” have failed.
Related: Prof. Jonathan Turley Explains the Dangers of Senate Democrats ‘Playing Games’ With 14th Amendment
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