One of the cool things about Poynters beautiful offices in St. Petersburg, Florida, is something you see just before you step into the building. On the sidewalk, embedded in marble, is the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The First Amendment also had a prominent place on another building. It was embedded on a giant wall at the Newseum the interactive museum in Washington, D.C., that celebrated the media, the freedom of the press and expression and the First Amendment. But the Newseum closed to the public at the end of 2019.

And now, in a heartbreaking symbol, the First Amendment on the Newseum building is being dismantled. A troubling reminder of how many Americans now view the media and the freedom of the press, wouldnt you say?

No announcement has been made, but there is hope it will be reassembled at another location.

Heres a little more information on the First Amendment wall by the company that built it.

This piece originally appeared in The Poynter Report, our daily newsletter for everyone who cares about the media. Subscribe to The Poynter Reporthere.

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The removal of the First Amendment from the Newseum building is a disheartening sight - Poynter

At the impeachment trials outset, lawyers for former President Donald Trump filed a 78-page brief at arguing that he should not be convicted by the Senate. Trump is charged with inciting an insurrection through various statements that allegedly encouraged the January 6 putsch targeting the US Capitol.

The briefs primary arguments are constitutional. It claims that the Constitution does not permit an impeachment proceeding against a former official. And the brief also argues that Trump is immune from impeachment because the actions which led to that impeachment are protected by the First Amendment.

The first argument is, at least, not entirely ridiculous. While the majority view among scholars is that a former official may be impeached and convicted by the Senate, there are non-frivolous arguments that a former president is beyond the impeachment power.

But the claim that impeaching Trump violates the First Amendment is risible. There are at least three separate reasons why the First Amendment does not protect Trump.

The first is that impeachment is, essentially, a human resources matter. The Constitution provides that Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office. So, with Trump out of office, the only question in his second impeachment trial is whether he should be permanently disqualified from certain federal jobs.

As the Supreme Court explained in Connick v. Myers (1983), the States interests as an employer in regulating the speech of its employees differ significantly from those it possesses in connection with regulation of the speech of the citizenry in general. Though the governments power to discipline employees (or former employees) for aberrant speech is not absolute, it is broad enough to allow Trump to be disqualified from office.

The second reason Trump cannot invoke the First Amendment is that many of the statements he made, which allegedly incited the January 6 attack on the Capitol, are lies. Trump accused Democrats of trying to steal the election, and he falsely claimed that he overwhelmingly won an election that he lost by over 7 million votes.

As the Supreme Court held in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), the First Amendment does not protect individuals from defamation suits if they make a false claim with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not. For the reasons explained below, a similar rule should apply to Trump.

Finally, some of Trumps statements such as a January 6 speech where he told his supporters to fight like hell and that youll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong may constitute incitement to imminent illegal action, which is not protected by the Constitution.

Although the First Amendment provides some protection to government employees, those protections are much weaker than those afforded to private citizens, at least when the government seeks to fire or otherwise take a job action against an employee.

Imagine, for example, that a public school hires someone to teach algebra, but this teacher refuses to follow the curriculum and instead spends their class time lecturing their students about 16th-century Japanese art. The First Amendment protects a private citizens right to speak about Japanese art, but the school district could discipline or even fire this teacher for failing to do their job properly even though their only offense was to engage in speech that is normally protected by the Constitution.

Moreover, while the First Amendment provides a relatively robust shield against workplace discipline to rank-and-file government employees, the Constitution offers very little protection to senior officials in political jobs. As a private citizen, for example, Secretary of State Tony Blinken is allowed to criticize President Joe Bidens foreign policy. But as one of Bidens top lieutenants, Blinken may be fired immediately if he makes a disparaging remark about Bidens policies.

As the Supreme Court explained in Branti v. Finkel (1980), if an employees private political beliefs would interfere with the discharge of his public duties, his First Amendment rights may be required to yield to the States vital interest in maintaining governmental effectiveness and efficiency.

Thus, Trumps private political belief that he, and not the lawful winner of the 2020 presidential election, should be president must yield to the States vital interest in maintaining governmental effectiveness and efficiency.

Trumps lawyers, for what its worth, primarily rely on the Supreme Courts decision in Bond v. Floyd (1966), which held that the Georgia House of Representatives violated the First Amendment when it prevented state Representative-elect Julian Bond from taking his seat ostensibly because of statements Bond made criticizing the Vietnam War. (Bond, an important civil rights leader, was one of the first Black representatives elected in Georgia after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965; its fairly likely that the real reason he was excluded had less to do with his opinion of the war than the color of his skin.)

The Bond decision is more than a half-century old, and since then weve seen a whole line of cases involving First Amendment protections for government employees, including the Branti case. So its not entirely clear that Bond remains good law. To the extent that Bond is still valid, however, Trumps lawyers argue that cases like Branti only apply to appointed political officials and that Bond provides much more robust protections to elected officials.

Yet even if we accept that elected officials enjoy greater First Amendment protections than political appointees, the Bond case does not help Trump escape impeachment.

In 1960, civil rights activists ran an advertisement in the New York Times alleging that Alabama police used brutal tactics to suppress protests. In response to this ad, an Alabama police official filed a defamation suit against the Times, pointing to minor factual errors in the advertisements text. An Alabama jury handed down a $500,000 verdict against the Times.

But the Supreme Court tossed out that verdict in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), a seminal decision holding that the First Amendment provides strong protections against defamation lawsuits that threaten free speech. Yet, while these protections are quite robust, especially when a defamation suit involves statements about a public figure that regard a matter of public concern, they are not unlimited.

At the very least, someone can still successfully be sued for defamation if they make a false statement with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not, according to the New York Times decision.

Although New York Times was a case about defamation and not about the First Amendment rights of elected officials, the Court relied heavily on New York Times when it decided Bond. In explaining why Rep. Bonds rights were violated, the Court said that the central commitment of the First Amendment, as summarized in the opinion of the Court in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan is that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.

Under Bond, the New York Times principle was extended to statements by a legislator.

Two years after Bond, the Court handed down its decision in Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District (1968), which established the modern framework governing First Amendment suits by government employees. Pickering involved a public school teacher, not an elected official, but it provides additional support for the view that government employees do not have a First Amendment right to lie.

In Pickering, the Court held that absent proof of false statements knowingly or recklessly made by him, a teachers exercise of his right to speak on issues of public importance may not furnish the basis for his dismissal from public employment.

New York Times, Bond, and Pickering, in other words, all suggest that a government employees First Amendment rights regardless of whether that employee is elected do not include a right to knowingly make false statements, or to make statements with reckless disregard as to whether they are true or not.

So when Trump riled up his supporters by falsely claiming that the 2020 election was stolen from him, he was not protected by the First Amendment.

In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the Supreme Court held that the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.

Thus, while speakers, including Trump, are protected even if they advocate illegal actions, this protection has limits. If such advocacy is made with the intent to incite imminent lawless action, and if such action is likely to result from a persons speech, then that speech is not protected by the First Amendment.

Brandenburg sets a high bar for incitement prosecutions. But Trumps statements immediately before the January 6 putsch were so egregious that they may overcome this high bar. In a speech that he gave right before his supporters attacked the Capitol, Trump told them that if you dont fight like hell, youre not going to have a country anymore, that they need to take back our country, and that they cant show weakness and have to be strong.

Writing in the Washington Post, Harvard law professor Einer Elhauge argues that these statements constitute constitutionally unprotected incitement, even under Brandenburg:

Although Trump tried to protect himself by stating that he was sure that the crowd would peacefully march to the Capitol, that does not alter the fact that he was inciting the crowd to forcibly stop Congress from counting the certified electoral votes once they got there.

Trump thus clearly incited lawless action (obstructing the operations of Congress is a crime) that was imminent (right after the speech, a short walk away). That he wanted to incite such lawless action is confirmed by reporting that for hours he watched the Capitol attack with pleasure and did not take any steps to stop it by calling out the National Guard or by urging his supporters to stand down.

Again, its far from clear that Trump could be prosecuted in a criminal court for his statements Brandenburg makes it extraordinarily difficult for prosecutors to win such cases. But thats not the issue in Trumps impeachment trial.

The issue in Trumps impeachment trial is whether, given the fact that the government has broad authority to make human resources decisions under the First Amendment, Congress may conclude that Trumps statements were so beyond the pale that he should be disqualified from holding high federal office in the future.

Setting aside these legal flaws in Trumps First Amendment argument, theres also a profound practical reason public officials should be subject to impeachment, even if theyve done nothing more than give an illiberal or anti-democratic speech.

Imagine that someday in the future, a new president is elected after campaigning on a fairly mainstream platform. Then, in the presidents inaugural address, they reveal that the entire campaign was a charade: I am a great admirer of Nazi Germany, the new president declares in their inaugural address, and I plan to use my presidency to build a Fourth Reich.

Should Congress really have to wait until this Nazi president takes some affirmative step to implement this agenda before they can be impeached and removed from office?

As George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin writes, the implication of Trumps argument that he cannot be impeached for his speech is that Congress could not impeach and remove a president who openly proclaimed his intention to turn the United States into a communist or fascist dictatorship, because speech advocating despotism is protected against criminal punishment by the First Amendment if uttered by a private citizen.

But Trump is wrong that he is protected by the First Amendment. The government has far more leeway when it makes personnel decisions than it does when it regulates speech by private citizens. And even if Trump had simply spoken as a private citizen, there is a strong argument that his conduct was so egregious that it could be prosecuted as incitement.

Read more here:

Trumps claim impeachment violates the 1st Amendment and Brandenburg v. Ohio, explained - Vox.com

Democrats took aim at the Trump legal teams expected First Amendment defense, saying it has no basis in the evidence.

Watch Raskins remarks in the player above.

Lead House Impeachment Manager Jamie Raskin argued in the Senate trial that there is a First Amendment defense against the impeachment charge is absurd.

Futher, Raskin said, The First Amendment does not create some superpower immunity from impeachment.

Thursdays session follows the previous days raw and visceral video of last months deadly insurrection.

Though most of the Senate jurors seem to have made up their minds, making Trumps acquittal likely, the never-before-seen audio and video released Wednesday is now a key exhibit in Trumps impeachment trial as lawmakers prosecuting the case argue Trump should be convicted of inciting the siege.

Trump lawyers are expected to will argue Friday that his words were protected by the Constitutions First Amendment and just a figure of speech.

Read more:

WATCH: Trump not protected by First Amendment for inciting insurrection, Rep. Raskin says - PBS NewsHour

The complicit, liberal media is full of themselves with their hyperventilating over the record-setting second impeachment attempt brought on by the Trump-hating Democratic congressional leadership. And even though it might make for some good political theater, like a Greek tragedy playing out on a modern stage, it has little basis in reality and even less direct effect on Summit County.

It would be easy to digress into an expose of the Dems double standard on display with their rules for thee but not for me hypocrisy. For example, its OK for Maxine Waters tirade exhorting her mob to harass Trump officials or Obamas Attorney General Eric Holders reference to street violence in the fight against conservatives. Yet when President Donald Trump encourages supporters to exert their Bill of Rights freedom of assembly, freedom of speech and freedom to petition the government, hes blamed for an insurrection.

But Id rather focus on the main issue at hand that affects all of us in Summit County:

The No. 1 priority should be lifting the lockdown under which we have been suffering. What started out as a two-week drill that we all accepted to flatten the curve has evolved into a full years worth of unauthorized, totalitarian emergency powers curtailing our First Amendment civil liberties.

Its time for our local town councils and county commissioners to say enough is enough and reject the governors continued power play, which is being used to move the goal posts and keep us under Big Brothers control.

At the risk of being impeached for inciting violence or calling for an overthrow of the government, I ask all patriots to peacefully and patriotically march on the Summit County courthouse and let your county commissioners know how deeply you object to the current lockdown of local businesses, Main streets, schools and resort life in general. Be numerous, be vocal and be peaceful, but above all, be adamant about demanding that you are mad as hell, and youre not going to take it anymore.

Our great American republic operates best when decisions are made closest to we the people. A one-size-fits-all policy from a dictatorial White House or governors mansion misses the true heartbeat of the local citizens whose needs should be represented at the town and county levels of government.

Admittedly, this is no easy task for local town council members and county commissioners to defy autocratic, and likely unconstitutional, mandates issued from authorities on high. Yet we the people have suffered enough at the footstool of these draconian emergency powers, and we need courageous representatives to stand up and protect our rights to operate our businesses at 100% capacity, fully open our schools for in-person learning and run our towns without the dehumanizing mask mandates. We need our town councils and county commissioners to shed their protective bureaucratic insulation and boldly do what we elected them to do: protect our civil liberties and give us back our freedom!

Anecdotally, we are on the verge of losing more bar and restaurant businesses as these owners can barely make ends meet under a 25% or 50% occupancy restriction. Remove the shackles and get the big government knee off our throats so we can once again breathe the fresh air of American capitalism and get back to providing for our struggling families. No more government-imposed censor, cancel or control.

The current occupants residing in the White House would like to keep us under their thumb with 40-plus executive orders that place government control over our daily decisions, tank the robust Trump economy and replace it with dependency on their elite largesse, e.g., airline passengers are now being threatened with civil or criminal charges for failure to obey Bidens national mask mandate. This is our destiny unless we have the moral and political courage to resist their totalitarian ideology.

The resistance begins locally with our elected town and county representatives. They need to exert their power, endorsed by a grassroots popular movement, to tell the state and national elitists that we vehemently object and will no longer silently comply. We need to put boots on the ground and protesters in the streets to demand the guarantee of our First Amendment freedoms.

Otherwise, we are a sad bunch of deplorable subjects content to willingly sacrifice our liberties for a sense of perceived security. As Ben Franklin observed, a nation willing to sacrifice individual freedom for temporary government security is sure to have neither.

Kim McGaheys column Conservative Common Sense publishes Tuesdays in the Summit Daily News. McGahey is a real estate broker, tea party activist and Republican candidate. He has lived in Breckenridge since 1978. Contact him at kimmcgahey@gmail.com.

Read more:

Opinion | Kim McGahey: It's time to demand our First Amendment freedoms - Summit Daily News

Heres what you need to know:Video

transcript

transcript

Like every other politically motivated witch hunt the left has engaged in over the past four years, this impeachment is completely divorced from the facts, the evidence and the interests of the American people. To claim that the president in any way wished, desired or encouraged lawless or violent behavior is a preposterous and monstrous lie. A small group who came to engage in violent and menacing behavior hijacked the event for their own purposes. This sham impeachment also poses a serious threat to freedom of speech for political leaders of both parties at every level of government. The Senate should be extremely careful about the president, the precedent, this case will set. We heard a lot this week about fight like hell, but they cut off the video before they showed you the presidents optimistic, patriotic words that followed immediately after. Fight like hell, and if you dont fight like hell, youre not going to have a country anymore. Our exciting adventures and boldest endeavors have not yet begun. My fellow Americans, for our movement, for our children and for our beloved country, and I say this despite all thats happened, the best is yet to come. This case, unfortunately, is about political hatred. It has become very clear that the House Democrats hate Donald Trump. This type of political hatred has no place in our political institutions, and certainly no place in the law. This hatred has led the House managers to manipulate and selectively edit Mr. Trumps speech to make it falsely appear that he sought to incite the crowd to violently attack the Capitol. Suddenly, the word fight is off limits? Spare us the hypocrisy and false indignation. Its a term used over and over and over again by politicians on both sides of the aisle. And of course, the Democrat House managers know that the word fight has been used figuratively in political speech forever. But dont take it from me. Its best to listen to them. We are in a fight. We are in a fight. Democrats are fighting as hard as we can. Democrats are standing up to fight. We know how to fight. We like a good fight. Democrats are going to fight like hell. We fight like hell. So why are we here? Politics. Their goal is to eliminate a political opponent. To substitute their judgment for the will of the voters. We will not take most of our time today, us of the defense, in the hopes that you will take back these hours and use them to get delivery of Covid relief to the American people.

Lawyers for Donald J. Trump delivered an incendiary but brief defense of the former president on Friday, calling the Houses charge that he incited an insurrection at the Capitol a preposterous and monstrous lie as they falsely equated his conduct to Democrats own combative rhetoric.

Confident they have enough votes from Republicans to acquit Mr. Trump, the lawyers used only about three of their 16 allotted hours. Their speed allowed senators to complete a period of questioning the prosecution and defense Friday evening and cleared the way for closing arguments and a final verdict, likely on Saturday.

Earlier, the defense team had channeled the former presidents own combative style and embrace of falsehoods to claim, contrary to facts, that Mr. Trump never glorified violence during his presidency and that he consistently called for peace as the rampage at the Capitol unfolded. Showing video clips of Democrats urging their supporters to fight and Mr. Trump venerating law and order, they sought to rewrite not just the narrative of his campaign to overturn the election but that of his entire presidency.

This trial is about far more than President Trump, said Bruce L. Castor Jr., one of the lawyers, as he closed the defense. It is about silencing the speech the majority does not agree with. It is about canceling 75 million Trump voters and criminalizing political viewpoints.

The defenses presentation unfolded after nine House prosecutors spent two days laying out a meticulous case against the former president dramatized with never-before-seen video of the Jan. 6 riot portraying the rampage as the direct result of Mr. Trumps monthslong campaign to overturn the election. Desperate to cling to power, the Democrats argued, Mr. Trump goaded his followers into joining his effort and would do so again, they said, if the Senate failed to convict him and bar him from holding office in the future.

Among the lawyers core arguments were that the Senate lacks jurisdiction to even try a former president now out of office, that Mr. Trumps conduct was protected by the First Amendment and that it came nowhere near the legal definition for incitement.

But standing before a jury of 100 senators, their case was as political in nature as it was legal. Using a favorite tactic of Mr. Trumps, his lawyers also sought to defend his behavior by citing that of others, arguing that he could no more be held responsible for the Capitol assault than Democrats could for the violence that erupted at some racial justice protests last summer.

They also sought to selectively poke holes in Democrats case. Michael van der Veen, one of the lawyers, insisted on Friday that Mr. Trump had only ever been interested in election security reforms, like voter ID laws an assertion that directly contradicted months of public and private actions by Mr. Trump. He said the president intended for the Jan. 6 rally he hosted before the attack to be peaceful, but that it had been hijacked by extremists, including from the far left another claim disproved even by Republicans.

The reality is Mr. Trump was not in any way shape or form instructing these people to fight using physical violence, Mr. van der Veen said. What he was instructing them to do was challenge their opponents in primary elections, to push for sweeping election reforms, to hold big tech responsible all customary and legal ways to petition your government for redress of grievances.

Mr. Castor also pointed to tweets by Mr. Trump while the attack was underway telling his supporters to stay peaceful and support our Capitol Police. But he did not discuss Mr. Trumps actions during the hours when the Capitol was under attack in which managers said he reveled in his success and delayed sending in reinforcements.

We know that the president would never have wanted such a riot to occur, because his longstanding hatred for violent protesters and his love for law and order is on display, worn on his sleeve, every single day that he served in the White House, he said.

Later, during the question and answer session, Mr. van der Veen said Mr. Trump had not been aware that his vice president, Mike Pence, had been in danger, even though a senator he called during the attack told him Mr. Pence was being evacuated from the chamber.

Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.

transcript

transcript

If we do not convict former President Trump, what message will we be sending to future presidents and Congresses? The consequences of his conduct were devastating on every level. Police officers were left overwhelmed, unprotected; Congress had to be evacuated; our staff barricaded in this building, calling their families to say goodbye. And the world watched us. And the world is still watching us to see what we will do this day. And will know what we did this day 100 years from now. Is it not true that under this new precedent, a future House facing partisan pressure to lock her up could impeach a former secretary of state and a future Senate be forced to put her on trial and potentially disqualify from any future office? In this case, we have a president who committed his crimes against the republic while he was in office. He was impeached by the House of Representatives while he was in office. Mr. Raskin cant tell you on what grounds you acquit. If you believe, even though there was a vote, that theres jurisdiction, if you believe jurisdiction is unconstitutional, you can still believe that. If you believe that the House did not give appropriate due process in this, that can be your reason to acquit. It is clear that President Trumps plot to undermine the 2020 election was built on lies and conspiracy theories. How did this plot to unconstitutionally keep President Trump in power lead to the radicalization of so many of President Trumps followers and the resulting attack on the Capitol? What our commander in chief did was the polar opposite of what were supposed to do. We let the people decide the elections. Except President Trump. He directed all of that rage that he had incited to January 6th. Are the prosecutors right when they claim that Trump was telling a big lie? Or in your judgment, did Trump actually win the election? Who asked that? [Sen. Bernie Sanders] I did. My judgment is irrelevant in this proceeding. It absolutely is. Whats supposed to happen here is the article of impeachment is supposed to be [Sen. Patrick Leahy] The Senate will be in order. Whats relevant in this impeachment article is: Were Mr. Trumps words inciteful to the point of violence and riot? Thats the charge. Thats the question. And the answer is no. If the Senates power to disqualify is not derivative of the power to remove a convicted president from office, could the Senate disqualify a sitting president but not remove him or her? Mr. Castro attributed a statement, the time before last that he was up here, that Donald Trump had told his people to fight to the death. Im not from here Im not like you guys I was being very polite and giving him an opportunity to correct the record. And I thought thats exactly what he would do. But instead, what he did is he came up and illustrated the problem with the presentation of the House case. Its been smoke and mirrors, and worse, its been dishonest.

Senators on Friday afternoon opened their first and last window in the trial to directly question the prosecution and defense. But as they submitted questions in writing one by one, most members of the jury appeared more interested in scoring political points than breaking new ground.

Does a politician raising bail for rioters encourage more rioting? read one early question from Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Ted Cruz of Texas and two other Republicans. It was an apparent reference to Democrats who supported bail funds for people arrested while protesting racial violence this summer.

Bruce L. Castor Jr., one of former President Donald J. Trumps lawyers, gave a one word answer: Yes.

Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, asked Mr. Trumps lawyers whether the former presidents big lie was correct when he insisted over and over again that he had won the election. If it was an attempt to force his defense to contradict their client, it did not work.

Who asked that? responded Michael van der Veen, another lawyer for the former president, looking for Mr. Sanders. My judgment? My judgments is irrelevant in this proceeding.

As time ticked by, the former presidents lawyers and the House managers began sniping at each other, too. Mr. van der Veen complained the trial was the most miserable experience Ive had down here in Washington, D.C. and accused Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and the lead manager, of doctoring evidence.

Mr. Raskin was not pleased. Counsel said before, This has been my worst experience in Washington, he said. For that, I say were sorry, but man you should have been here on Jan. 6.

A short time later, Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, who was presiding over the trial, gently warned that all parties in this chamber must refrain from using language that is not conducive to civil discourse.

The exception came from a small group of Republican senators openly contemplating conviction. Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana all seemed interested in what Mr. Trump knew about the unfolding riot, when he knew it and what he did about it.

Mr. van der Veen said he could not precisely say when Mr. Trump learned about the attack, but he blamed it on the Democratic managers for building their impeachment on hearsay on top of hearsay on top of hearsay rather than a thorough investigation.

We have a tweet at 2:38 p.m., so it was certainly sometime before then, he said.

When Mr. Romney and Ms. Collins pressed the lawyers on Mr. Trumps specific knowledge of the threat to his vice president, Mike Pence, the answer was clearer, but it appeared to contradict the word of Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, who told reporters this week he informed the president that the vice president was being evacuated from the Senate chamber during a contemporaneous phone call.

The answer is no, said Mr. van der Veen. At no point was the president informed that the vice president was in any danger.

Democrats scoffed, and argued that any weaknesses in their evidentiary record was the fault of Mr. Trump, who refused an invitation to testify.

Rather than yelling at us and screaming about how we didnt have time to get all the facts about what your client did, bring your client up here and have him testify under oath, Mr. Raskin said.

transcript

transcript

The House managers spoke about rhetoric, about a constant drumbeat of heated language. Well as Im sure everyone watching expected, we need to show you some of their own words. I just dont know why there arent uprisings all over the country. Maybe there will be. There needs to be unrest in the streets for as long as there is unrest in our lives. Weve got to be ready to throw a punch. We have to be able to throw a punch. Donald Trump, I think you need to go back and punch him in the face. Please get up in the face of some Congresspeople. People will do what they do. I want to tell you Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay a price. If you had to be stuck in an elevator with either President Trump, Mike Pence or Jeff Sessions, who would it be? Does one of us have to come out alive. Im just going to keep the fight up. What we have to do right now is fight as hard as we can. We have to rise up and fight back. And so, were going to fight. And were going to continue to fight. I am going to be fighting fighting like hell. Keep fighting, fighting, fighting we kept fighting, and we did. So were going to keep fighting. Never, never, never give up this fight. Im a citizen fighting for it Means not only fighting As a leader who fought for progressive change As a lawyer who fought for people his whole life As well as other fights, and Im proud to have Tim in this fight.

Former President Donald J. Trumps defense team offered their own video presentation on Friday a montage of remarks by Democrats urging supporters to fight a rhetorical drumbeat aimed at countering the impact of the footage of the real fight at the Capitol, images of blood and broken glass, presented by the prosecution on Wednesday.

The strategy by Mr. Trumps lawyers was to prove that Mr. Trumps call for his followers to fight like hell in a speech shortly before members of the crowd stormed Congress on Jan. 6 was no different than anti-Trump remarks made by Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, Representative Maxine Waters of California, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and other members of Congress.

To make their point, the team played a lengthy mash-up of bellicose statements from Democrats including President Bidens claim on the campaign trail that he would have beaten the hell out of Mr. Trump in high school.

The presentation, featuring quick-cut editing and the type of ominous music often heard in negative campaign ads, a sharp contrast to the raw footage, sometimes silent, of the attack that was compiled by the House impeachment managers from security cameras and cellphone video, and accompanied by a minute-by-minute timeline.

The defense teams montage concluded with images of Democrats praising the protests against police violence in cities across the United States last summer, juxtaposed with video of rioting, even though every senior Democrat denounced violence.

I showed you the video because in this political forum, all robust speech should be protected, said Michael van der Veen, one of the presidents lawyers.

When you see speech such as this, you have to apply the First Amendment evenly. Blindly, he said, adding, She is blind, lady justice.

It reflected the argument being promoted by Trump defenders on conservative media outlets like Fox News, and was part of an effort to offer a more defiant defense pushed by the former president, who was dissatisfied with the earlier efforts of his team.

It is not clear that the approach had its desired effect, however.

During the presentation, senators in both parties were overheard chatting and laughing by observers in the chamber. Democrats emerged enraged at what they saw as an argument built upon false equivalence.

Show me anytime that the result was our supporters pulled someone out of the crowd, beat the living crap out of them and then we said: Thats great. Good for you. Youre a patriot, Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware said after watching the video.

Yet the approach might have succeeded in giving Republicans caught between their disdain for Mr. Trumps behavior and fear of his hold over the party enough cover to justify an acquittal.

The Twitter/CNN/MSNBC bubble will mock & dismiss this defense, but it is going to work with Republican voters and it will give much needed cover and justification to Republican Senators to acquit, said Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman and frequent Trump critic, on Twitter during the defenses arguments.

As the Capitol was being infiltrated by a mob last month, what did President Donald J. Trump know about Vice President Mike Pences whereabouts and when did he know it?

That was a question multiple senators were intent on learning more about Friday evening, during a period in the impeachment trial in which senators questioned the House impeachment managers and Mr. Trumps lawyers.

At issue was not only when Mr. Trump took any steps to help end the riot, but also a tweet he posted that day at 2:24 p.m. as rioters had breached the Capitol and Mr. Pence was being rushed out of the Senate chamber.

The vice president didnt have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, Mr. Trump tweeted.

Senator Mitt Romney asked early in the question-and-answer session: When President Trump sent the disparaging tweet at 2:24 p.m. regarding Vice President Pence, was he aware that Vice President Pence had been removed from the Senate by the Secret Service for his safety?

No, Michael van der Veen, one of Mr. Trumps lawyers, said bluntly. At no point, he continued, was the president informed that the vice president was in any danger.

The Democratic House managers, who are serving as prosecutors in the trial, argued that Mr. Trump had to know what was going on at the time of his tweet. The whole world knew it, all of us knew it, said Representative Joaquin Castro, Democrat of Texas. Live television had by this point shown that the insurgents were already inside the building, and that they had weapons and that the police were outnumbered.

The answer also appeared to contradict statements from Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama. Mr. Tuberville told reporters this week about a cellphone call he had with Mr. Trump as the Senate was being evacuated. Well, I mean, I dont know if youve ever talked to President Trump, he said. You dont get many words in, but, uh, he didnt get a chance to say a whole lot because I said, Mr. President, they just took the vice president out, Ive got to go.

The timestamp on Mr. Trumps tweet about Mr. Pence lacking courage shows it was sent about 10 minutes after Mr. Pence was evacuated from the chamber.

The Democratic House managers noted Mr. Tubervilles remarks in their answer to Mr. Romneys question. Later in the evening, Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, brought them up again, asking if Mr. Tubervilles account shows Mr. Trump was tolerant of the intimidation of Vice President Pence.

Both sides largely reiterated their arguments.

But Mr. Trumps lawyer also argued that whatever Mr. Trump knew about Mr. Pences whereabouts was irrelevant to the charge against him, incitement of insurrection. Other legal analysts might be dubious of that argument. If Mr. Trump was aware of his vice presidents imminent danger, it would conceivably bear on Mr. Trumps intentions.

On the eve of a verdict in Donald J. Trumps Senate trial, one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach him confirmed on Friday night that the top House Republican, Representative Kevin McCarthy, told her that the former president had sided with the mob during a phone call as the Jan. 6 Capitol attack unfolded.

In a statement on Friday night, Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler, Republican of Washington, recounted a phone call relayed to her by Mr. McCarthy of California, the minority leader, in which Mr. Trump was said to have sided with the rioters, telling the top House Republican that members of the mob who had stormed the Capitol were more upset about the election than you are.

She pleaded with witnesses to step forward and share what they knew about Mr. Trumps actions and statements as the attack was underway.

To the patriots who were standing next to the former president as these conversations were happening, or even to the former vice president: if you have something to add here, now would be the time, Ms. Herrera Beutler said in the statement.

Her account of the call between Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Trump, first reported by CNN, addressed a crucial question in the impeachment trial: what Mr. Trump was doing and saying privately while the Capitol was being overrun.

Ms. Herrera Beutler said that Mr. McCarthy had relayed details of his phone call with Mr. Trump to her. She has been speaking publicly about it for weeks, including during a virtual town hall on Monday with constituents, and she recounted their conversation again in the statement on Friday.

A spokesman for Mr. McCarthy did not reply to a request for comment. Spokespeople for the House impeachment managers did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The Republican leaders response to Mr. Trump in the weeks since the attack on the Capitol has fluctuated. On the day of the Houses impeachment vote, he said Mr. Trump bore some responsibility for the attack because he had not denounced the mob, but he has since backtracked and sought to repair his relationship with the former president.

By Ms. Herrera Beutlers account, Mr. McCarthy called Mr. Trump frantically on Jan. 6 as the Capitol was being besieged by thousands of pro-Trump supporters trying to stop Congress from counting Electoral College votes that would confirm his loss.

She said Mr. McCarthy asked him to publicly and forcefully call off the riot.

Mr. Trump replied by saying that antifa, not his supporters, was responsible. When Mr. McCarthy said that was not true, the former president was curt.

Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are, he said, according Ms. Herrera Beutlers account of what Mr. McCarthy told her.

Hours after the assault began, Mr. Trump tweeted a video in which he asked those ransacking the Capitol to leave. Go home. We love you. Youre very special, he said.

A core argument of Mr. Trumps defense, made by Michael van der Veen, one of his lawyers, is that Mr. Trump cannot be convicted of inciting an insurrection because everything he said was protected by his rights to free speech under the Constitution.

Mr. van der Veen who is a personal injury lawyer, not a civil liberties lawyer dismissed a letter signed last week by 144 constitutional scholars and First Amendment lawyers from across the political spectrum, who called a free speech defense of Mr. Trump legally frivolous and not grounds for dismissing the charge against him.

Nonetheless, Mr. van der Veen argued, Mr. Trumps speech deserves full protection under the First Amendment. He cited Supreme Court cases holding that elected officials can engage in political speech.

Adam Liptak, who covers the Supreme Court for The New York Times, addressed the argument in a live analysis.

Its true, of course, that elected officials have First Amendment rights, Mr. Liptak wrote. Its also true that government officials may be fired for making statements that would otherwise be protected political speech. An impeachment trial may present that second sort of question.

Mr. Liptak quoted from the House impeachment managers brief that addressed the First Amendment argument advanced by Mr. Trumps lawyers: Under President Trumps view of the First Amendment, even a sitting President who strenuously urged States to secede from the Union and rebel against the federal government would be immune from impeachment.

FACT CHECK

Donald J. Trumps lawyers, mounting their defense of the former president on Friday, made a number of inaccurate or misleading claims about the Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol, Mr. Trumps remarks and the impeachment process itself. Here are some of them.

Michael van der Veen, one of the lawyers, misleadingly said that Mr. Trump did not express a desire that the joint session be prevented from conducting its business but rather the entire premise of his remarks was that the democratic process would and should play out according to the letter of the law. But Mr. Trump repeatedly urged former Vice President Mike Pence to send it back to the States to recertify and noted that he was challenging the certification of the election.

Far from promoting insurrection of the United States, the presidents remarks explicitly encouraged those in attendance to exercise their rights peacefully and patriotically, Mr. van der Veen said. Mr. Trump used the phrase peacefully and patriotically once in his speech, compared to 20 uses of the word fight.

Mr. van der Veen also claimed that one of the first people arrested in connection with the riots at the Capitol was the leader of antifa. That was a hyperbolic reference to John E. Sullivan, a Utah man who was charged on Jan. 15 for violent entry and disorderly conduct. Mr. Sullivan, an activist, has said he was there to film the siege. He has referred to antifa a loose collective of antifascist activists that has no leader on social media, but he has repeatedly denied being a member of the movement, though he shares its beliefs.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has said there is no evidence that supporters of the antifa movement had participated in the Jan. 6 siege.

Mr. van der Veen equated the Jan. 6 siege to the protests at Lafayette Square in front of the White House last summer, and presented a false timeline, claiming that violent rioters repeatedly attacked Secret Service officers and at one point, pierced a security wall, culminating in the clearing of Lafayette Square.

There was no breach. Law enforcement officials began clearing Lafayette Square after 6 p.m. on June 1, to allow Mr. Trump to pose, while holding a Bible, in front of a church near the square. Additional security fencing was installed after those events, according to local news reports and the National Park Service.

Similarly, Mr. van der Veen compared Mr. Trumps complaints and political language about the 2020 election with concerns about the integrity of the 2016 election, arguing that the entire Democratic Party and national news media spent the last four years repeating without any evidence that the 2016 election had been hacked. But American intelligence agencies concluded years ago that Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 election. The Republican-led Senate agreed last year that Russia disrupted that election to help Mr. Trump.

David Schoen, another lawyer, misleadingly claimed that the House held on to the article of impeachment until Democrats had secured control over the Senate and Representative Clyburn made clear they had considered holding the articles for over 100 days to provide President Biden with a clear pathway to implement his agenda.

In fact, Democrats had considered delivering the article to the Senate earlier, almost immediately after it was approved, but Senator Mitch McConnell, then the majority leader, precluded the possibility of an immediate trial in a letter informing Republican lawmakers that the Senate was in recess and may conduct no business until January 19. Mr. Clyburn made his suggestion of withholding the article even longer, after Mr. McConnell had sent his letter.

Mr. Schoen also accused Democrats of presenting a manufactured graphic, referring to a New York Times photo of Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and the lead impeachment manager, looking at a computer screen. The screen featured an image of a tweet Mr. Trump shared stamped with an erroneous date. Left unsaid was that the image was recreated because Mr. Trump has been banned from Twitter and House managers could not simply show the retweet itself. Mr. Schoen then acknowledged that House managers fixed the incorrect date before presenting the graphic during the trial.

Mr. Schoen complained once again that the impeachment did not afford Mr. Trump due process a point Mr. Trumps lawyers and supporters had previously argued during his first impeachment, and a point law scholars had dismissed.

There are no enforceable rights to due process in a House inquiry, and while those rights exist in the Senate trial, they are limited, said Frank O. Bowman III, a law professor at the University of Missouri and an expert on impeachment. Former President Andrew Johnson, for example, was impeached by the House before it even drew up the articles.

Fani T. Willis, the top prosecutor in Fulton County, Ga., is targeting former President Donald J. Trump and a range of his allies in her newly announced investigation into election interference.

Ms. Willis and her office have indicated that the investigation, which she revealed this week, will include Senator Lindsey Grahams November phone call to Brad Raffensperger, Georgias secretary of state, about mail-in ballots; the abrupt removal last month of Byung J. Pak, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, who earned Mr. Trumps enmity for not advancing his debunked assertions about election fraud; and the false claims that Rudolph W. Giuliani, the presidents personal lawyer, made before state legislative committees.

An investigation is like an onion, Ms. Willis told The New York Times in an interview. You never know. You pull something back, and then you find something else.

She added, Anything that is relevant to attempts to interfere with the Georgia election will be subject to review.

Read more from the original source:

Highlights of Day 4 of the Trump Impeachment Trial - The New York Times

The left has a free-speech problem. As Bryce Wyles recent column indicates, there is an increasingly common willingness to strip basic civil liberties in the name of social justice, as well as a troubling lack of understanding of the First Amendment, what it exists to protect and the inherent societal value of free speech. There is deep irony to Wyles statement that people will often assume their freedom of speech means they can deny others right to speech that is simply unconstitutional. This statement is nonsensical not only because nowhere on the list of non-first amendment protected speech is anything resembling silencing others, but also because the hateful speech Wyles describes does nothing to prevent anyone from speaking out against it. Most of all, Wyles article shows a disturbing disregard for freedom of speech. It indicates a belief that only those who wish to express reasonable or even only progressive speech deserve free expression.

The First Amendment protects racist speech, bigoted speech and other hate speech. However, this is not a flaw in our free-speech laws but a deep strength. Like Wyles, I am disgusted by the Universitys chapter of the Young Americas Foundations hateful actions. However, what makes the First Amendment so powerful is that it does not exist to make me comfortable. It does not exist to protect reasonable opinions, good ideas and productive discourse. It exists to protect the repugnant, the controversial and the provocative. A world without the freedom to say controversial things even objectively terrible things is a world without free expression. Without free expression, there can be no civil liberties.

Further, U.Va. is a public university and is thus legally bound to uphold the First Amendment. It both cannot and should not silence any First Amendment protected speech, which ultimately includes all hate speech that does not become harassment, libel or any other non-protected speech act. However, Wyles column reveals a greater problem than ignorance about the First Amendment. The complete willingness to disregard basic liberties in the name of social justice is an increasingly common trend in college leftism. Ultimately, this trend will work to the detriment of liberal thought and erode leftist commitment to liberal values.

As a liberal, I am increasingly troubled by the distinctly authoritarian streak in modern leftism. While I wholeheartedly agree with the leftist cause of economic and racial justice, the increasingly authoritarian, anti-free speech rhetoric used by leftists is deeply harmful to the progressive cause. Over the past few years, I have seen words like free speech and liberty become dirty words in liberal spaces this deeply disturbs me. To abandon a commitment to essential civil liberties yes, even for those with whom you disagree radically is to abandon what liberalism fundamentally stands for in favor of destructive dogmatism. I align with the political left because I deeply believe in the value of a free and open society. This is something that can only be gained when all are able to express their beliefs, and where ideological disagreements are solved in the public forum of debate, discourse and protest. When someone says something repugnant, the solution is not to silence them but to use your rights to vocally and intensely disagree.

If an appeal to the inherent value of civil liberties isnt convincing, then consider a more pragmatic perspective. If your goal is to change minds and hearts, advocating for the censorship of those you dislike isnt going to change anything. In fact, it makes leftists appear volatile, dogmatic and anything but progressive. Public disagreement gives liberals an opportunity to share their best ideas and to actually present compelling arguments for joining the cause. Censorship is lazy and ultimately ineffective.

I believe in the liberal cause and the importance of leftist activism and advocacy for the kinds of radical change needed in our nation. I, too, am enraged by the kinds of hateful, indisputably racist language groups like YAF deploy. However, for all my disagreement, I could not in good conscience wish for their silencing. Instead, I use my own free expression to state deep disgust at their speech, while remaining deeply committed to their right to say it. Authoritarianism is becoming increasingly popular on both sides of the aisle and to devastating effect. If progressivism is to remain a powerful force, and frankly to state a deeper fear of mine if a commitment to liberty is to remain valuable in this nation, leftists must abandon authoritarian sympathies. The freedom of speech is one of the most basic and essential rights given in this country. I, for one, will continue grasping tightly to it.

Emma Camp is an Opinion Columnist for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.

The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of The Cavalier Daily. Columns represent the views of the authors alone.

Continue reading here:

CAMP: The left should embrace free-speech again - University of Virginia The Cavalier Daily

"The concern is they are going to get rid of that international tie to call you a domestic [terrorist], Scott said.

BONNER COUNTY, Idaho A live meeting with constituents over Zoom had Rep. Heather Scott,, R-Blanchard, talking about gun rights, the federal prosecution of insurrectionists and warning those in the call against public education, as reported by our news partner the Bonner County Daily Bee.

One of the biggest topics of the night, gun rights, was brought up in several questions throughout the video call.

Some constituents expressed concerns over whether President Joe Biden might sign an executive order restricting gun rights.

I do not see any [executive orders] on guns, but apparently, Biden has made some comments that he wants Congress to take up gun legislation, Scott said. That's what we're all afraid of. They're coming for our guns and I keep telling people, by the time they come for our guns it's going to be too late.

Scott encouraged those on the call to look into the Idaho Second Amendment Alliance, a group that describes itself as a no-compromise gun rights organization. Others, Scott said, are not.

You can forget about the NRA, she said.

In response to a question about red flag laws laws that would allow police or family members to petition the state to temporarily remove firearms from someone deemed to be a danger to themselves or others Scott said there are many attempts to push them through, which have been largely unsuccessful.

Still, Scott said, she believes there is an ongoing threat to gun rights.

Scott also discussed federal prosecution of insurrectionists at the Capitol building in Washington D.C. on Jan. 6, acknowledging the Sandpoint man who was arrested Friday in connection with the insurrection.

I don't know if he did something bad there or if he just went to protest, but he's been [charged] with an insurrection. This is a huge problem, she said. We don't have to agree with everything government says or does. And so but they are going to start tightening the screws on American citizens and free speech.

Although there are currently no federal offenses designated for domestic terrorism without connection to a foreign entity, Scott said shes concerned that if one is added it would allow the government to infringe on citizens rights.

The Biden administration says he's going after domestic terrorists. The concern is they are going to get rid of that international tie to call you a domestic [terrorist], she said. What that will do is that will make every single person that says something they don't like a domestic terrorist.

Scott criticized Gov. Brad Little on multiple occasions, saying that he, and many of the state legislators are not truly conservative and claimed many politicians to be influenced by globalism and corporate interests through lobby groups.

The governor is part of the [National] Governors Association, she said. The National Governors Association, guess who they have a new partnership with? The World Economic Forum It's the globalists that are basically running the governors.

Scott went on to make the unsubstantiated claim that the group, or globalists, were responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic and are planning a cyber attack.

They are the ones that came out with COVID. And they are the ones that are coming out with a cyber attack, she said. They just said COVID is going to be nothing compared to the cyber attack coming.

Throughout the meeting, Scott said she believes Idaho is not conservative, and that within the Idaho Legislature she estimates there are probably three conservatives in the Senate, and maybe 20, 25, in the House.

She also blamed other legislators for a lack of legislative progress; namely Republican representative Fred Wood, for not hearing bills by more conservative legislators.

[He] will not hear any bills about vaccinations or the health districts or anything, she said.

In response to questions about education, Scott said she believes college to serve only as indoctrination.

I would not send my kids to college, I would find another route, she said. I feel the same way about public schools, unfortunately.

One caller asked whether there would be consequences for Gov. Little banning hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 and the deaths from the virus during that time.

Hydroxychloroquine, which was touted as a treatment for COVID-19 by former President Donald Trump, despite a lack of evidence.

It's just not, it's not going to get better, she said. We're not going to just do this and it's all going to be fixed. It's going to take a lot more than that. And I hope it doesn't take blood but I'm, I'm beginning to wonder.

The Bonner County Bee is a KREM 2 news partner. For more from our news partner,click here.

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North Idaho Rep. Heather Scott discusses gun rights, insurrection, free speech - KREM.com