© (JOSHUA ROBERTS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) talks with reporters during dinner break in the second day of former US President Donald Trump's impeachment trial before the Senate on Capitol Hill February 10, 2021, in Washington, DC. - Democrats present the case against Donald Trump in his Senate impeachment trial Wednesday, arguing that he directed an enraged crowd to storm Congress in the dying days of his presidency -- even if Republicans look unlikely to convict. (Photo by JOSHUA ROBERTS / POOL / AFP) (Photo by JOSHUA ROBERTS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
After castigating former President Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign for comments he made about women or various ethnic groups - or even fellow members of the GOP who dared cross him - Republicans adopted a sort of institutional, studied ignorance when asked to reflect on Trump's behavior as president.
"I didn't see his presser."
"I don't read the president's Twitter account."
"I've been too busy attending to the business of the American people to pay attention to remarks that you're all apparently obsessed with covering."
Those were the types of arguments made by Republican lawmakers for four years of Donald Trump's presidency.
That all changed this week on the Senate floor, where a relatively captive group of senators was forced to sit, listen and watch as Democratic House impeachment managers laid out their case against Trump for inciting a deadly riot at the Capitol.
The prosecution included on Wednesday an utterly chilling video presentation that showed, with previously unreleased footage, how close House Speaker Nancy Pelosi came to being killed by the marauders and how determined the mob was to hang then-Vice President Mike Pence. The shouts and pleas of frantic U.S. Capitol Police officers - assaulted and overwhelmed by the pro-Trump insurrectionists - let the senators know how much danger they, too, were in on that day.
Under the rules of the trial, senators-turned-jurors are not allowed to talk or wander about - though Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican who was the driving force behind the effort to deny President Joe Biden the congressional certification of his win, took advantage of a pandemic loophole to sit in the upper gallery, feet up and flipping through papers. So there they sat, at the actual scene of the Jan. 6 crime, and listened while a tag team of House managers made a brick-by-brick argument for convicting Trump.
Senators typically meander around the chamber during votes, chatting with each other and consulting with staff on the outer edges of the historic room. It's not uncommon, in fact, for senators to wait to be called several times by the Senate clerk before announcing an "aye" or "nay" vote.
Not Wednesday. The video, narrated in matter-of-fact tones that made the report even more alarming, left no question about what actually happened outside and inside the Capitol on Jan. 6. Much of it - such as the security video showing rioters trying to ram into an office filled with terrified Pelosi staffers or the police body-camera footage showing assaults on police hours after the initial attack on the Capitol - was likely new to the assembled senators.
"President Trump put a target on their backs, and this mob broke into the Capitol to hunt them down," said Delegate Stacey Plaskett, Virgin Islands Democrat and one of the impeachment managers.
Her part of the presentation included court documents in which one of the men attacking the Capitol talked about trying to get "Crazy Nancy" - and, according to other marauders, to kill her. "Where are you, Nancy? We're looking for you! Nancy. . Oh, Nancy!" One man called tauntingly, in tones reminiscent of a character in a horror movie.
"'Crazy Nancy.' That's the president's nickname for the speaker of the House," Plaskett said.
Rep. Eric Swalwell, California Democrat, took over the narration and recounted his own fear as the mob attempted to get into the House chamber where Biden's winning Electoral College votes were being officially tallied.
He called his wife, Swalwell told the senators, and told her what the California lawmaker said he imagined many in the Senate had also done that day. "I love you and the babies. Please hug them for me," Swalwell said.
He showed video of the mob nearing the Senate chamber and the now-jurors being ushered quickly out of the room critical minutes before the attackers got into the Senate chamber, went through the lawmakers' private papers and photographed their contents.
"You were just 58 steps away from where the mob was amassing," Swalwell said ominously.
Swalwell, like Plaskett, offered advance warning of particularly graphic and disturbing video. He paused in silence for a moment after Ashley Babbitt, a member of the insurrectionist crowd who was fatally shot by a law enforcement officer as she was attempting to get into the House chamber. After the wrenching video of a Capitol Police officer screaming in agony as he was crushed in a doorway, Swalwell stopped, looked down and then exited the area where he had been presenting the case.
The new details - along with a chronological account of Trump's tweets and statements as the deadly drama unfolded - were a prosecutor's dream: It's uncommon for someone pressing a criminal case to have actual video of the crime - not to mention new details of how close the jury came to being victims themselves.
But the chances of Trump actually getting convicted by the 50-50 Senate remain far-fetched at best. Just six GOP senators voted on Tuesday to affirm the very constitutionality of trying a man who was president when he was impeached but left office before the then-Republican controlled Senate began trial proceedings. It would take 17 GOP votes to convict Trump, assuming all 50 Democrats vote to do so.
"The 6 Jan attack on the Capitol was far more dangerous than most realize," Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican, tweeted out before the stomach-turning afternoon video was shown. "And we have a criminal justice system in place to address it," Rubio added, apparently referring to the rioters and not to Trump.
Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican who voted to challenge the Electoral College votes even after the attack happened, was more direct in his condemnation of the trial.
"The Democrats' impeachment is partisan political theater," Cruz tweeted. "It will end in failure."
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