Raskin plays powerful video of attack in opening argument
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., tapped by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to serve as the lead House impeachment manager, opened arguments at Tuesday's trial, laying out the constitutionality of the Senate trial.
"You will not hear a lecture here because our case is based on cold, hard facts. It's all about the facts," Raskin said, before warning of the "dangerous" precedent it would set, if the Senate allowed a president to "get away with" committing an impeachable offense in the last few weeks of office, as he argues Trump did.
"This would create a brand new January exception to the Constitution of the United States of America. A January exception. And everyone can see immediately why this is so dangerous. It's an invitation to the president to take his best shot at anything he may want to do on his way out the door, including using violent means to lock that door, to hang onto the Oval Office at all costs, and to block the peaceful transfer of power," Raskin said.
"In other words, the January exception is an invitation to our Founders' worst nightmare. And if we buy this radical argument that President Trump's lawyers advance, we risk having Jan. 6 become our future. What will that mean for America? Think about it. What will the January exception mean to future generations if you grant it?" Raskin asked.
"I'll show you," he said, before playing a roughly 10-minute long video of inter-spliced footage of the Capitol attack, Trump's speech leading up to it and aftermath.
Raskin, a Harvard-educated, former constitutional law professor serving in his third term in the House, was the lead author of the impeachment article and began writing it from inside the Capitol on Jan. 6.
