Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says an acquittal in former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial will only be possible if the jury includes his co-conspirators.
“If Senate Republicans fail to convict Donald Trump, it won’t be because the facts were with him or his lawyers mounted a competent defence.
“It will be because the jury includes his co-conspirators,” Clinton wrote further on the micro-blogging website, The Hill on Thursday.
According to The Hill, the former U.S. top diplomat’s tweet came after the second day of arguments from House impeachment managers before the Senate.
If Senate Republicans fail to convict Donald Trump, it won't be because the facts were with him or his lawyers mounted a competent defense. It will be because the jury includes his co-conspirators.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 10, 2021
Representatives David Cicilline and Joaquin Castro attempted to “draw a direct line between” the rioters (who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6) and Trump where at least one person was reading a tweet from Trump attacking Vice President Mike Pence over a megaphone during the riot.
Clinton, last month expressed solidarity toward the impeachment of Trump by saying it was essential to impeach him in the wake of the Capitol riots but warned that impeachment alone “won’t remove white supremacy from America”.
In an opinion piece for The Washington Post, Clinton wrote that the attack on the Capitol was the “tragically predictable result” of white-supremacist grievances fuelled by Trump.
She stressed that his departure from office, whether immediately or on Jan. 20, “will not solve the deeper problems exposed by this episode.”
Impeachment managers also introduced never-before-seen footage of Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman apparently directing Senator Mitt Romney (Republican from Utah) away from the House side of the Capitol.
“It was obviously very troubling to see the great violence that our Capitol Police and others were subjected to. It tears at your heart and brings tears to your eyes.
“That was overwhelmingly distressing and emotional,” the 2012 presidential candidate later told reporters he had been unaware of his proximity to the rioters before viewing the footage.
The upper chamber in the U.S. Congress is unlikely to secure the two-thirds majority necessary to convict Trump which would bar him from holding office again.
However, only six Republicans voted that the trial itself was constitutional earlier this year. The Senate determined on Tuesday on a 56-to-44 vote that it has jurisdiction to try the former the president.
A two-thirds majority will be needed for conviction, meaning that at least 17 of the 50 Senate Republicans have to break ranks and join their Democratic colleagues.
Trump’s impeachment trial resumed on Wednesday as the U.S. Senate proceeds to hear arguments for and against convicting him of instigating last month’s violent attack on Congress.
House managers, who are the first to take the floor, plan to use previously unseen security footage to show “extreme violence” of the Jan. 6 assault and make clear how close Trump’s loyalists came to lawmakers, the Washington Times said.
Trump’s lawyers have urged the Senate to dismiss as unconstitutional and “self-evidently wrong” allegations that their client had a role in the attack on the Capitol by his loyalists who sought to prevent the congressional certification of his loss to Joe Biden.
