The U.S. Senate on Tuesday voted, mainly along party lines, that former President Donald Trump's impeachment trial is constitutional. Now senators must determine whether Trump committed high crimes and misdemeanors by inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Impeachment managers have since begun laying out their case by highlighting the former president's language during a rally on Jan. 6 and his frequent unfounded claims of widespread election fraud, and linking that with the violence that erupted at the Capitol that day as the Electoral College met.
Trump's lawyers have argued that some of the language singled out by Democrats, including urging his followers to "fight," falls well within the norms of political speech protected by the First Amendment. We look at the arguments thus far and what to expect in the days ahead.
Air date: Feb. 11, 2021
GUESTS:
- Julia R. Azari - Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Marquette University in Wisconsin. She is a contributing writer to FiveThirtyEight and the political science blog, The Mischiefs of Faction.
- John Greabe - Director of the Warren B. Rudman Center for Justice, Leadership & Public Service and Professor of law at the UNH School of Law.
