Our live coverage has ended for the night. See how the day unfolded in the posts below.
The second day of former President Trump’s impeachment was dominated by detailed documentation of the events leading up to the Jan. 6 riot.
House impeachment managers presented chilling video – some that had never been seen before – depicting various violent and graphic moments of the insurrection.
In case you missed it, here are some key things to know:
What happens next: Impeachment managers will continue to make their case against Trump tomorrow. The trial resumes at noon. They have up to 16 hours spread over two days to convince GOP senators that Trump was responsible for inciting the deadly Capitol riot.
Sen. Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah, said he spoke to US Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman today after watching new video of how the officer protected him from the mob that breached the Capitol.
The new security video presented by the House Impeachment managers shows Goodman running as the mob begins to enter the Capitol. Goodman passes Romney and redirects him away from the rioters’ path before continuing to the first floor to respond to the initial breach and divert the mob away from lawmakers.
The senator went on to say that he told Goodman “how much I appreciated him, making sure that I was out of harm’s way.”
Recounting the events of Jan. 6, Romney said he received a text that rioters had gotten inside the Capitol, he then stood up to leave the Senate chamber because he wanted to go to his hideaway. Romney said when he got into the hallway “there was no one there,” except for Goodman.
“Officer Goodman came and saw me and said go back in, it’s not safe here, go back in, you’ll be safer in the chamber. So I came back, and took my seat,” Romney said.
Romney didn’t know exactly but he said “just a few minutes” later all senators were evacuated from the Senate chamber.
Despite the riveting video footage that moved senators from both sides of the aisle, many GOP senators are simply not moved enough to convict former President Trump.
Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, would only say Trump bears “some responsibility” for what happened on Jan. 6.
Pressed on whether Trump bears primary responsibility, Rubio said the “primary responsibility are the people that actually did it,” adding, “That’s not the question before us — the vote we’re having is whether we should remove someone from office someone who’s no longer in office.”
Many other GOP senators are echoing Rubio’s comments. Sen. Mike Rounds, from South Dakota, said the impeachment managers put on a polished presentation that was “selectively” edited.
Rounds added that while the presentation was impressive, it did nothing to answer the central barrier for the Republicans.
He predicted that there will still not be enough votes to convict the former President.
Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina, said at best there will be six GOP senators who will vote to convict former President Trump.
“I think you get at best six Republicans — probably five and maybe six,” Scott said when asked if the video footage changed his mind on conviction.
Asked if he considers himself an impartial juror, Scott said, “I think I’m as impartial as the other 99.”
On the afternoon of Jan. 6, Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton believed the situation at the Capitol was so dangerous that he asked one of his staffers to bring his knife to the undisclosed location where senators were being hidden from rioters, and that he was prepared to use it.
Cotton told CNN’s Jamie Gangel that afternoon during the riot: “I’m armed and I’m immune from prosecution” and indicated that he was prepared to defend himself, defend the room, if the rioters attacked and tried to get in where the senators were.
After the stunning videos and photos presented by the House managers today, we now know how close it was for Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Mitt Romney. We know that Kevin McCarthy and other leaders were desperately calling for help. We know that five people died including Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick.
So in real time, on the afternoon of Jan. 6 — around 2:20 p.m. — Cotton thought the situation was so dangerous, he asked for his knife to be brought to him. That there was that kind of threat — mortal danger.
Update: Sen. Cotton’s office has now clarified to CNN that he was armed with a knife, not a gun.
Republican Sen. Mike Lee this evening presented an objection into the final moments of the day’s impeachment proceedings, saying House impeachment managers had mischaracterized his words on Jan. 6.
“Statements were attributed to me repeatedly as to which I have personal knowledge, because I am the source,” said Lee. “They are not true. I never made those statements. I ask that they be stricken.”
The move, which seemed to catch his colleagues, as well as Senate parliamentarians by surprise, temporarily threw the evening into chaos as the presiding officer, as well as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sought to make sense of the objection.
Lee’s objection was over House impeachment managers’ account of an accidental phone call Trump reportedly made to him as the riot was unfolding on Jan. 6, which was intended for Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, in order to convince him to delay the counting of Electoral College votes.
Lee’s spokesperson confirmed the calls from Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani were intended for Tuberville.
Lee picked up the phone and Trump identified himself, and it became clear Trump was looking for Tuberville and had been given the wrong number. Lee, keeping the President on hold, went to find his colleague and handed Tuberville his phone, telling him the President was on the line and had been trying to reach him.
Tuberville spoke with Trump for less than 10 minutes, with the President trying to convince him to make additional objections to the Electoral College vote in a futile effort to block Congress’ certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s win, according to a source familiar with the call. The call was cut off because senators were asked to move to a secure location.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the lead impeachment manager, eventually agreed to Lee’s request calling it “much to do about nothing.”
Schumer warned that the question may be “relitigated tomorrow.”
Moments later the Senate adjourned until 12 p.m. ET on Thursday.
Watch the moment:
The proceedings in the second impeachment trial of former President Trump have concluded for the day.
The trial will resume tomorrow at noon, with House impeachment managers presenting their case against Trump. They have up to 16 hours spread over two days to convince GOP senators that Trump was responsible for inciting the deadly Capitol riot.
As House impeachment manager Joaquin Castro continued laying out the timeline of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, he highlighted remarks from Republicans, urging former President Trump to speak out against the insurrectionists.
“At 2:54 p.m., Alyssa Farrah, a former communications director, begged the President, ‘condemn this now. You’re the only one they will listen to. For our country!’”
“Mick Mulvaney, the President’s former chief of staff, his right-hand man at one point, tweeted at 3:01, ‘the President’s tweet is not enough. He can stop this now and needs to do exactly that. Tell these folks to go home.’”
“Representative Gallagher at 3:11 p.m., while secured in his own office, posted a video to Twitter,” Castro said in his remarks from the Senate floor.
In the video, Gallagher said, “Mr. President, you have got to stop this. You are the only person who can call this off. Call it off.”
“And then when the President didn’t answer his pleas on Twitter, Representative Gallagher went on live television,” Castro said.
“This is insane,” Gallagher said on CNN. “I mean, I have not seen anything like this since I deployed to Iraq in 2007 and 2008. I mean, this is America and this is what’s happening right now. We need — the President needs to call it off. Like call it off. Call it off.”
Castro went on to say that the message was clear that his allies wanted the President to tell the rioters to go home.
Watch here:
As the House impeachment managers continued their presentation this evening, they placed the blame for the mob’s pursuit of Vice President Mike Pence squarely on the shoulders of former President Trump.
“You’ll recall Donald Trump had made Vice President Pence a target. He attacked the Vice President at the rallies, in speeches and on Twitter,” said impeachment manager Rep. Joaquin Castro, adding “and during President Trump’s speech that morning of the attack, he ramped it up again.”
Noting that Trump directed his supporters’ ire at his vice president on nearly a dozen occasions, Castro then quoted the former President, reading a snippet from Trump’s Jan. 6 morning rally.
“Mike Pence, I hope you’re going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of your country. And if you’re not, I’m going to be disappointed in you,” read Castro, sharing Trump’s words verbatim.
Castro went on to explain the impact those words had on the mob.
“By 2:15 p.m., the crowd was chanting in unison, ‘Hang Mike Pence,’ outside the very building he’d been evacuated from with his family,” said Castro.
And as the insurrectionists continued to threaten Pence, Trump failed to temper the situation. Rather, said Castro, he enflamed it.
“He fueled the fire,” said Castro, further laying out the afternoon timeline. “At 2:24 p.m. [Trump] tweeted ‘Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country and our constitution.’”
Next, the House impeachment manager linked Trump’s social media posts to the unruly mob’s actions.
“The insurgents amplified President Trump’s tweet, attacking the vice president with a bullhorn,” Castro said. “Some of these insurgents were heard saying ‘that they hoped to find Vice President Mike Pence and execute him, by hanging him from a Capitol Hill tree as a traitor.’”
Finally, Castro presented a photo, one depicting the US Capitol in the background, with instruments of execution framing the government building.
“They erected a gallows with a noose. This is what Donald Trump incited,” he said, pushing those at this evening’s proceedings to truly digest the imagery. “Please, take a close look at that picture. It harkens back to our nation’s worst history of lynching. A President’s words have the power to move people to action. These were the results.”
During the Senate impeachment trial of former President Trump, the TV camera are focused on the person speaking and at time show the full dais or chamber during a break.
However, as the cameras are controlled by the Senate itself, it means viewers are unable to see how lawmakers react to the presentation, including the graphic videos and retelling of the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Artist Bill Hennessy is in the Senate chamber, delivering scenes from what the cameras won’t or can’t show.
Here are some sketches from today:
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#rosecutors##
Just after the House impeachment managers played powerful new video of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, several Republican senators said that while the video itself was compelling, they do not think the managers have directly connected the violence to the former President.
Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, said the managers’ presentation was “powerful and emotional,” but he doesn’t think it adequately connects Trump to the attack or proves the former President committed high crimes or misdemeanors.
“That was strikingly absent,” he said of the direct link to the former President. “They spent a great deal of time focusing on the horrific acts of violence that were played out by the criminals, but the language from the President doesn’t come close to meeting the legal standard for incitement.”
He claimed that “there’s not a political candidate in the country,” including “every single one of the Democratic senators,” who hasn’t used the same language of Trump, who told his supporters to “fight like hell.”
Cruz admitted that the former President’s rhetoric is, at times, “overheated,” adding, “but this is not a referendum on whether you agree with everything the President says or tweets.”
Sen. James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma, said while he needs to hear the rest of the arguments, the case the managers are trying to make is “that Trump is the one who said go” initiating the riot on Jan. 6. And he argued Trump “has had 100 rallies and we’ve never seen that before, so that’s the tough one to be able to link together.”
The Oklahoma Republican said the videos the managers played were “tough” and “very difficult” to watch and re-walk through the events of the day.
“It’s painful to see,” he said.“And I still can’t believe that there were Americans that smashed their way into the Capitol,” Lankford added.
Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana called the video “riveting,” saying, “it’s just as kind of hard to take now as it was then.”
Asked if this impacts his thinking as he decides whether he’ll vote to acquit the former President, Braun answered, “no, because I’ve seen I think most of it,” adding, “I think it’s good to review it, but I don’t know that that’s going to make a difference for anyone senator just having it on a loop again. But every time you do watch it, it gives you the enormity of the day, so, and the incident.”
Braun added that “obviously” the people who broke into the Capitol on Jan. 6 should be held accountable, saying, “I think trying to then relate it to who caused them to do it will be the tough case to make.”
He said he thinks the rioters were at the Capitol on Jan. 6 because they were “upset with things.”
Asked if Trump bears any responsibility for the riot, even if his involvement does not rise to a high crime or misdemeanor, Braun said, “You know, I think that the day, when you push the envelope on stuff – in this case, it obviously ended up in a way I’m sure he never had intended it to happen. You know it unraveled, and I think still, when it comes to the people that actually broke in here, it’s their responsibility.”
Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, said he thinks “we’ve got to distinguish between the despicable acts we saw here, and to what extent he or those individuals have responsibility,” when asked if Trump bears responsibility for attack.
He added that “you can definitely hold all those folks accountable,” referring about the rioters.
Many of the videos used as evidence by the impeachment managers this week were originally posted to Parler, a social media platform that was popular among Trump supporters at the time of the insurrection.
Parler was taken offline after Amazon Web Services pulled hosting support for the site in the days after the insurrection.
An anonymous computer programmer who uses the online name “Crash override” and the Twitter handle @donk_enby realized that the social media platform was full of videos that could be used as potential evidence to identify insurrectionists.
The programmer sprang into action and began downloading videos from Parler before the site was taken fully offline. “I had an efficient way to download it all. I knew what was there, but it seemed that nobody else could see the value,” she told CNN on Wednesday. In total she gathered 30 terabytes – that’s 30,000 gigabytes – of video, she said.
Seeing so much of the material being used as evidence in this week’s impeachment trials, she told CNN:
She told CNN she is not based in the United States and describes herself as a “hacktivist” – she states in her Twitter bio she uses she/her pronouns. Although she describes herself as a “hacktivist,” she clarified that “everything I archived was publicly accessible.”
ProPublica posted hundreds of the videos gathered by @donk_enby to a database on its website. Parler videos being used by the House impeachment managers were downloaded from this ProPublica database.
Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy said he found much of the House impeachment managers’ case against former President Trump jarring, adding that the the rioters’ attempts to thwart a peaceful transfer of power should alarm anyone who loves America.
“There’s so much. There’s no one thing. There are many things,” said Cassidy when asked today if he found anything in Democrats’ case for impeachment especially jarring. “There’s so much to say that should be taken away. How do you narrow it?”
“You realize that there were people, insurrectionists, that tried to affect the peaceful transfer of power and that should give anyone who loves our republic great pause,” he added, speaking outside the Senate chamber moments before the impeachment trial was set to resume.
Cassidy on Monday was the the sole Republican to switch his vote after an initial vote on the constitutionality of the trial last month. He joined five other GOP colleagues to vote to allow the trial to continue.
Cassidy was reelected in 2020 meaning he we will not face reelection for six years. His vote to proceed with the impeachment trial earned was met with a rebuke from the Republican Party of of Louisiana which issued a statement today saying they were “profoundly disappointed” by his vote.
“We feel that an impeachment trial of a private citizen is not only an unconstitutional act, but also an attack on the very foundation of American democracy, which will have far reaching and unforeseen consequences for our republic,” the statement said.
Rep. David Cicilline, one of the House impeachment managers, laid out the timeline of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack in his remarks today from the Senate floor.
Cicilline argued that former President Trump “did not once condemn this attack.”
Cicilline, of Rhode Island’s 1st district, has been a member of the House Judiciary Committee since 2014 and serves as the chair of the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law. Cicilline also serves on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Cicilline has worked as a member of the House Judiciary Committee to investigate then President Trump during his first impeachment trial. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointed Cicilline to the more prominent role of impeachment manager during this second trial on Jan. 12.
“The President is a clear and present danger to our republic. We will hold him accountable,” Cicilline tweeted.
Cicilline is serving his sixth term in Congress. Early in his career, Cicilline served as a public defender in the District of Columbia. Cicilline served two terms as mayor of Providence and four terms in the Rhode Island House of Representatives.
Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, described sitting through the presentation by the managers today as “extremely quiet, you could have heard a pin drop,” adding that the footage was “riveting.”
“The presentations were compelling, particularly by Representative Plaskett, and also I thought that the Representative from Colorado was very good, as well,” she said.
“I’ll always be grateful to law enforcement and the Capitol police for protecting us, but also proud of the fact that we came back that night and finished our constitutional duty, we did not let the rioters accomplish their goal of disrupting the vote,” she added.
The Senate is back in session after taking a break for dinner.
Before the break, House impeachment managers presented chilling video – some that had never been seen before – depicting various violent and graphic moments of the insurrection.
They are continuing their presentation now.
Sen. John Thune, the minority whip and a member of GOP leadership, told reporters that he believes the House managers have done an “effective job” and are “connecting the dots” from former President Trump’s words to the insurrection.
Thune added later that “I think they’ve done a good job of connecting the dots. The President’s Twitter feed is a matter of public record, and I think I said [they’ve] done an effective job of just going back several months and just showing that public record.”
Asked how he was feeling, Thune said, “I feel sorry for you guys and the staff and everybody else who was here that day. I just think it was a very traumatic experience for a lot of people here and not just people here, but on the way here and anybody who was caught up in the mob. It is a harsh reminder of what happens when you let something like that get out of hand.”
As CNN has reported, it is still unclear what impact all of this has on someone like Thune’s ultimate vote on the question of conviction.
In another sign that a wave of Senate Republicans are not swayed to vote to convict former President Trump at this point, Sen. Roy Blunt, a member of the Republican leadership, compared the protests in the summer to what happened on Jan. 6 at the Capitol.
Asked if it changed his mind about convicting Trump, Blunt, who is up for reelection in Missouri in 2022, said:
Asked if he were shaken by the video, Blunt said, “Well I’ve seen parts of it and I’ve talked to the police about a lot of this, so, you know, it’s obviously a tragic day for the country and not at all what we’d want to see people all over the world seeing happen in the United States.”
Sen. Mitt Romney, who was seen in one of the videos being directed away from the rioters by Officer Eugene Goodman, said he looked forward to thanking the Capitol police officer when he next sees him.
He called the videos shown by the House managers “obviously very troubling” and said that he didn’t know that he was that close to the rioters.
Former President Trump’s defense lawyer Bruce Castor said the House managers failed in their presentation to connect the rioters’ acts to Trump.
Asked if he is worried the video will have an emotional impact on the jury, he said, “It would have an emotional impact on any jury. But there are two sides of the coin and we have not played ours.”
