Honor, ra a reminder of the insurrection that caused his death on the 6th of january. The United States senators whose lives and staffers lives he died protecting is being asked to show bravery, as well. House Impeachment Managers and the ex president s legal team today presented their briefs in next weeks Impeachment Trial and the insurrection at the heart of that trial is not ancient history. They will be weighing decisions with the seat of American Democracy and their workplace still showing the scars from an attack unlike any weve seen in our lives. The managers case is straightforward. They plan to use video of the president s rally leading up to this and comments by his violent supporters to show he instigated the attack and plan to rebut the notion a president cannot be tried after leaving office. As for the defense, well, their brief begins with a mistake, a pretty sloppy one at the top of page one as you see there, the lawyers misspelled United States. Those are the expresident s lawyers. From there they argue that in expresident cannot be convicted on constitutional grounds. In addition, though they make a claim thats easily disproved, reading from their brief quote it is admitted that after the november election, the 45th President exercised his First Amendment right under the constitution to express his belief that the Election Results were suspect. The brief goes on to say quote insufficient evidence exists upon which a jurist could conclude that the 45th President s statements were accurate or not and thereafter denies they were false. Insufficient evidence . A reasonable jurist . Keep in mind more than 60 reasonable jurists decided otherwise already. They were elected judges and appointed judges and republican judges and trump appointees and they sit on the United StatesSupreme Court. The claims made by the president s motley mob of attorneys in the weeks after the election were without merit. They all decided the Election Results were not suspect. The State Of Georgia recounted their ballot three times. Is that somehow insufficient evidence . In fact, when the expresident asked this at his rally, he already had the answer. By the way, does anybody believe that joe had 80 million votes . Does anybody believe that . Yeah, 80 Million People at least do. Every single Secretary Of State, also, democrat and republican believed it. Every single Secretary Of State in every state. Is that insufficient evidence . Is it insufficient evidence that one even told the former president directly just a few days before the rally Georgia Republican and supporter of the former president , prachbz brad raffensperger, here is a portion of their phone call. We have won this election in georgia based on this and there is nothing wrong with saying that, brad. The people in georgia are angry and the people in the country are angry and there is nothing wrong with saying, you know, that youve recalculated. Mr. President , the challenge that you have, the data you have is wrong. The data you have is wrong. Is that insufficient evidence . Again, thats the guy who voted for the former president who wanted him to win. He just didnt want to lie and cheat for him and here is his deputy, also republican back in december warning the former president about the violent consequences of lying about Election Fraud. Mr. President , you have not condemned these actions or this language. Senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions. This has to stop. Someones going to get hurt. Someones going to get shot. Someones going to get killed. That was more than a month before the attack. Four days later, armed Trump Supporters descended on the home of michigan Secretary Of State stoked by the defeated president s false claims about Election Fraud there. A week later, socalled stop the steal rallies across the country turned violent. You see it there. Four people are stabbed in washington. That same morning at 8 05, the president tweets quote i won the election in a landslide. House Impeachment Managers plan to show precisely this incite ment and effect. From what the president says to what his violent supporters do. Not all his supporters are violent, far from it. But were talking about the summary judgments. Blaeb this video compiled by the organization shows the former president s remarks on the 16th Of January Synchronized from videos posted mainly on social media. Here is a portion. Were going to walk town to the capitol. [ cheers ] were going to walk down to the capitol. [ cheers ] and were not going to be cheering too much for some of them. They will never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength yes. [ cheers ] invade the capitol building. Do the right thing. Take the capitol take the capitol take the capitol take the capitol right now so thats how the former president s words were received by a number of people who have been fed a diet month after month of lies by the former president. Weve been told they had been told not to believe the officials, the judges, the Supreme Court judges, not to believe the electors. Theyve been told both that both day and night, day after day, that they had every right to be angry. Yet somehow his attorneys in their filing today said, quote, if you dont fight like hell, youre not going to have a country anymore had anything to do with the action at the capitol as it was clearly about the need to fight for Election Security in general. It sure doesnt seem like a lot of the folks who attacked the capitol were just doing it for Election Security in general. That didnt seem to be the rallying cry. Some of them were overly choreography this overtly comparing this to a new American Revolution and chanting about hanging mike pence. Thats what were doing, fighting back. Whats the point . Whats the end game . Whats the point . Yeah. Were losing our freedom. What do you mean whats the point . Describe it to me. You not even knowing i will describe it to you. Explain it to me what are we supposed to do . Okay . Tell me. The Supreme Court isnt helping us. No one is helping us. Only us can help us. Only we can do it. Lets go what are you going to do . Whatever we have to do. What do you think 1776 was . What do you think 1776 was . That guys name is bardon shilvel. Hes been charged with aiding and abetting, forcibly assaulting or interfering with a federal officer and violent entry. The president s team of attorneys will be arguing that he was just at the Capitol Fighting Metaphorically for Election Security in general. Looking at the capitol tonight, hard not to think of everything that happened there not even a month ago and the seven lives lost in the wake of it, lives taken, not lost. And shortly tonight, one of the fallen returns home to it. The question now is how will he be honored by the men and women he protected and the democracy he died to save. Perspective from benjamin ginsburg, and pete bharara, former u. S. Attorney for the Southern District of new york. So ben, the filing from the former president s legal team alleging his claims of voter fraud cannot be proven false, what do you make of their filing . They had a simple task to keep the 45 republican senators that voted with them on the constitutionality provision happy, and they opened up a couple of doors that are going to cause great nervousness for that secrete jury. One of them is the First Amendment part that he was using protected speech, even though it led to the incitement of a riot and the notion that there was not sufficient proof to show that he was wrong in his remarks is nonsense. There were all the court cases that you referred to before, the certificates by the individual states, that their votes were correct. And what are you saying about the election has never received any evidence at all and thats going to make the republican senators quite nervous. Pete, do you agree with that . What ben is saying, essentially, is just the argument alone of its unconstitutional, you cannot put a former president you cannot impeach a former president , you cant put him on trial for impeachment for when he was in office if they had just stuck to that, that would give cover to a lot of senators to say, yeah, well, i agree with that. We dont need to go to the merits of the charges because just unconstitutional. Look, i mean, these jurors are not traditional jurors and that you see in a criminal or civil trial in federal or state jurisdictions, and they can choose to base their vote on anything they want and choose to base their vote on a constitutional argument that by the way, is not only wrong if you talk to the overwhelming majority of legal experts but also as failed with respect to a particular vote in the senate. We already have that vote. 5545. Including five republicans said it is okay and constitutional and proper and legal to proceed. You can, in fact, have a senate trial of impeachment with respect to a former president so in some ways, that question is settled and i dont know that senators at either party have much pause when it comes to what their strong believes are and on the republican side, what they want to avoid saying or doing. Ben, is that settled . I mean, the argument that a former president can be impeached . I dont think its settled. Theres not any sort of court ruling about it. The congress is a judge of their own procedures, and theres nothing to stop the 45 republican senators from voting not to convict because theyre wrong about the constitutionality argument. There is no consequence against that, which is way the democrats need to present and have indicated theyre going to present sort of a strong visual, emotional case to try and get the republicans nervous. And again, that brief filed today is helpful to the democrats, actually. Helpful to the democrats because it raises uncomfortable questions that challenge republicans . Yes, precisely. I mean, the notion that donald trump was right about Election Fraud is an argument that republican senators dont have to make. Remember, even when they were challenging the state certifications on january 6th, they never argued that there was fraud involved. Now Donald Trumps lawyers have brought that Subject Back Up in that portion of their answer that you just read. Preet, when you look at what was filed by the president s attorneys, they misspelled the United States in their filing right off the top. They did. How does Something Like that just fall through the cracks . I mean, is it just theyre rushing to get it to kinkos to print . Look, its not a brilliant piece of legal writing, but to give them some credit and to forgive them somewhat, they dont have a lot to work with. I think the arguments that the president is making and the arguments they must have had to make with their client, the president , given the reporting about a raft of lawyers resigning from the case a few days ago, its a very challenging thing apparently, both financially because he doesnt like to pay his bills apparently and substantively to represent the president this president , former president of the United States, so they dont have a lot to work with. Theyre being dictated things probably literally probably sentences being dictated by donald trump. They were in a rush because they were only retained recently and this is the product you get. By contrast, you have a very carefully thought out i mean, just trying to be objective about it, you have a wellwritten 80page submission with democrats in favor of the conviction of the article of impeachment that lays out i think a very clear narrative, marshalls the evidence and makes legal arguments that make sense and to my quick eye no glaring typos on page one. So preet, as a former prosecutor, how do you think the house managers should go about presenting their case . There was a reference earlier that ben made to the possibility that theyre going to make an emotional case based on videos and arguments that appeal to passion. Ordinarily somebody might think that doesnt make the best possible case. You argue facts and rules, but think about what is being alleged here. Whats being alleged here is that the president of the United States incited on insurrection. The way you incite an insurrection is appealing to passion and causing people knowing they are able to be warning signs, including probably from his own Law Enforcement officials and certainly, as you pointed out, from the Election Official in georgia, that if you dont tone down the rhetoric, bad things are going to happen. People will be armed and killed. That turned out to be true. So the entire nature of the proceeding, because of the nature of the crime, the high crime or misdemeanor being charged, is very saturated with emotion. And so i think its an appropriate way for them to go about it to show the public that donald trump had every reason to foresee that violence would occur if he spoke the way he spoke and didnt calm people down. Yeah. And that he wanted to overturn the election. It wasnt just that he was promoting this idea of protest. He wanted a particular action. He wanted that action from the secretary of the State Of Georgia. He wanted that action from his own Vice President , mike pence, and when those things failed and a bunch of that i mentioned, he wanted those protesters, the context shows, to figure out a way by force to impede the counting of the votes and overturn the election. I think thats clear. Appreciate it. Thank you. Joining us is Hakim Jeffreys that served in the president s first trial. Thanks for being with us. What do you make of the trump teams legal argument that the trial is unconstitutional because donald trump is no longer president and his speech is protected because there is no proof that he was wrong about Election Fraud . Well, certainly a settled question that the trial can proceed even when a former executive branch, elected official or official has stepped down. The very nature of an insurrection, by definition, is it will come at the end of a president s term to halt the peaceful transfer of power. And so it would defy logic and accountability if someone could simply halt a trial because there was a failed coup attempt or failed attempt at sedition and insurrection, and, therefore, escape accountability. And so i think that that is an argument that is not compelling at all. And with respect to the alleged truthfulness of the president s remarks, every reasonable person in america knows that joe biden won the election. He won the election by more than 80 million votes. Hes governing now on behalf of people who voted for him and voted against him, working on tough challenges on behalf of the american people. And that it was donald trump who was the individual who refused to accept the results and radicalize millions of people which resulted in the violent attack on the capitol on january 6th. The idea the Defense Theme would include the false claims in the former response to congress and state insufficient evidence exists to make a determination on those claims, ben ginsburg was saying that its just ridiculous. I mean, those claims have been rejected and some 60 court cases. We have a client in the former president , the twiceimpeached president and a disgraced president who is directing his legal team to do his bid and go carry out this narrative fantasy of the presidency being stolen. The big lie continues to be perpetrated by donald trump. And thats why we are where we are. And the hope is there will be enough decent and fairminded Senate Republicans who are going to follow the facts, apply the law, be guided by the constitution, and let the chips fall where they may once the compelling evidence by the Impeachment Managers is presented and hold him accountable for the charge of inciting a violent insurrection. The rules of the trial are still being finalized. Senator Lindsey Graham on fox news yesterday said if democrats hold a lengthy trial, including calling witnesses, it could open quote a pandoras box. What do you make of that . Well, i think Lindsey Graham is divorced from reality at this particular point in time because hes no longer in charge of making these decisions on his side of the aisle and suppressing the ability of witnesses to be called or threatening to call irrelevant witnesses. That was the gain that the republican senators played during the last Impeachment Trial when they controlled the majority but there is a in new sheriff in town as it relates to whats going on in the senate, and fairness is going to dictate the witnesses that i believe will be called in this trial. And thats a good thing for truth, for justice, and for the american people. Congressman hakeem jeffries, appreciate your time. 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