Trump Impeachment trial: US senators transfixed by riot footage shown at Trump trial | World News – Times of India

WASHINGTON: With footage of a pro-Trump mob storming the US Capitol taking part in out of their chamber, US senators sat transfixed earlier than the stunning pictures that dominated the beginning of the previous president’s impeachment trial.
Despite the sergeant at arm’s command that each one 100 senators stay silent “on pain of imprisonment,” an off-the-cuff, indifferent temper descended Tuesday on the Senate’s Republican facet, the place many lawmakers have mentioned they oppose holding the unprecedented second trial of Donald Trump.
Chitter-chatter swirled. Marco Rubio flipped non-committally via a thick ebook. A sockless Richard Burr, bracing for a marathon session, stuffed his desk with snacks.
Freshman Senator Cynthia Lummis, maybe not having acquired the memo about coronavirus precautions, sat maskless for half-hour as she pored over paperwork.
Even as prime Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer opened the proceedings by describing the incitement of rebellion allegation towards Trump as “the gravest charges ever brought against a president of the United States,” many Republicans met the declaration with a collective shrug.
And conservative Senator Tom Cotton made a degree of engaged on a spreadsheet as an alternative of specializing in the controversy in regards to the constitutionality of the trial.
But when Democratic impeachment supervisor Jamie Raskin performed a 13-minute video montage depicting some of essentially the most violent clashes of the lethal January 6 siege, the chamber fell beneath a hush, with senators riveted by the graphic pictures and chaotic audio.
Republicans and Democrats alike sat inflexible as some of the coarsest epithets ever to paint a Senate continuing rang out within the chamber.
Then, they watched the chilling pictures of a self-described QAnon shaman and different invaders taking on the Senate itself after many of the lawmakers — the identical ones sitting as jurors Tuesday — fled for his or her lives.
“It’s not very often you have a trial at the scene of the crime,” Democratic Senator Chris Murphy instructed AFP shortly earlier than the proceedings started, talking of the emotion that might weigh on senators as they sit in judgment of Trump.
“It was our chamber that was violated,” he added.
“We were all party to the insurrection, we experienced it first-hand,” mentioned one other Democrat, Senator Ben Cardin. “It’s something that’s personal to those of us who were in harm’s way.”
But Republican Senator Bill Cassidy mentioned he wouldn’t be caught up in such passions.
“The settings in which we hold the trial do not make (the events of January 6) more vivid for me,” Cassidy mentioned. “They’re vivid enough in and of themselves.”
They have been for Raskin, too.
The congressman from Maryland, managing the arguments towards Trump simply six weeks after his son died by suicide, choked up as he recalled how his daughter and his son-in-legislation, visiting the Capitol that day, “thought they were going to die.”
Raskin pointed to the a number of deaths and ugly accidents suffered through the rebellion.
“People’s eyes were gouged, an officer had a heart attack, an officer lost three fingers that day,” he mentioned, earlier than including that two officers have since taken their very own lives.
“Senators, this cannot be our future,” he mentioned, imploring the chamber to not ordain a “January exception” that might permit a US president to keep away from punishment within the closing weeks of his phrases.
Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who votes with Democrats, instructed AFP he thought the primary day of the trial was “interesting,” however he wouldn’t be drawn on whether or not he believed the compelling video montage would sway Republicans.
“We’re just going to see how this thing proceeds,” he mentioned.
Meanwhile the safety repercussions of January 6 remained. The US Capitol remained on efficient lockdown, with steel fencing and closely armed National Guard members surrounding the constructing.
Inside the chamber, the general public galleries — the place a person carrying zip-ties that can be utilized to detain or kidnap individuals was photographed in a chilling January 6 picture — have been all however empty, as on a regular basis residents have been barred from attending.