House Democrats say evidence Trump incited mob is ‘overwhelming’

House Democrats said the evidence is “overwhelming” that Donald Trump committed a “grievous betrayal of his oath of office”, as they laid out their case against the former president ahead of his second impeachment trial.

Mr Trump was impeached last month in a bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives on a charge of inciting an insurrection in connection with the January 6 siege on the US Capitol, when a mob of his supporters stormed the legislative complex in an attack that left five people dead.

In a brief filed on Tuesday, House Democrats — who will act as impeachment managers, or prosecutors, in the Senate trial — said Mr Trump had “singular responsibility” for the “tragedy”.

“It is impossible to imagine the events of January 6 occurring without President Trump creating a powder keg, striking a match, and then seeking personal advantage from the ensuing havoc,” they wrote.

Mr Trump is just the third president in US history to be impeached, and the only one to be impeached twice. The former president was first impeached in December 2019 on two charges relating to his efforts to get the Ukrainian president to dig up dirt on Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Mr Trump was acquitted on both charges after just one Republican senator, Mitt Romney, broke ranks with his party and voted to convict.

Mr Trump’s second Senate trial will begin in earnest next week. It remains unlikely that he will be convicted, however, given the upper chamber of Congress is split, 50-50, and all but five Senate Republicans last week backed a motion calling into question whether it was constitutional to try a former president. Two-thirds of the chamber would need to find Mr Trump guilty in order for him to be convicted.

The House impeachment managers argued in their brief that the Senate still had jurisdiction over Mr Trump, even though he left the White House last month. Democrats want to convict the former president and bar him from holding future office.

“The text and structure of the Constitution, as well as its original meaning and prior interpretations by Congress, overwhelmingly demonstrate that a former official remains subject to trial and conviction for abuses committed in office,” the managers wrote.

They added: “The Constitution governs the first day of the president’s term, the last day, and every moment in between. Presidents do not get a free pass to commit high crimes and misdemeanours near the end of their term.”

Mr Trump has largely stayed out of the public eye since snubbing Joe Biden’s inauguration and is now living at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. He hired a new legal team this week after the lawyers he initially hired quit. David Schoen and Bruce Castor Jr will represent the former president in next week’s trial.