We are coming on the air this morning with Breaking News from capitol hill. Our first look at just how house Impeachment Managers plan to prosecute their case against donald trump. Set to file their pre friel brief and we are now getting a look at it just seconds ago, this is all ahead of next weeks Historic Second senate trial and we have a better sense of what their argument will be. A point by point case that trump is responsible for inciting the deadly insurrection at the capitol and that his responsibility for those events is unmistakable. Those managers taking direct aim at what im told will be one of the key arguments by the former president s team. That defense team also rushing to meet their own filing deadline today. My new reporting on how theyre going to convince senators or try to to acquit donald trump again. Good morning, im Hallie Jackson in washington along with our nbc news team covering this. Garrett haake on capitol hill, Shannon Pettypiece outside the white house, also joined by former federal prosecutor paul butler. Garrett, let me go to you. Late it out. What are we sees from these house Impeachment Managers, these House Democrats, who are for the first time really in writing laying out their case . Reporter the Impeachment Managers describe the president s the former president s actions as an Impeachable Offense of historic proportions and in their legal brief or at least the excerpts of it that weve been able to get through so far they describe a plot by the president to overturn the Election Results leading up to january 6 and then they describe the president aiming the mob down Pennsylvania Avenue like a loaded cannon. They also spend a significant amount of time defending the constitutionality of this impeachment effort all together, essentially a prebuttal to what they expect will be the trump teams primary argument in his defense, that this is somehow outside the scope of what the house and senate should be doing. The managers will argue that the former president committed this offense while he was still president , he was impeached while he was still president and that the constitution gives the senate the authority to try all impeachments and that there is, in fact, precedent for trying impeachments of former elected officials. So they start to lay out the evidentiary argument and really spend a significant amount of time and energy focusing on the fact that this is right and proper and indeed a necessary Impeachment Trial to go forward with here despite the protestations of the former president and his allies. So stand by for a second, garrett. Shannon, this speaks and when you look i think we have a graphic we are about to pull up, a couple of them, when you look at what these democrats have laid out, it is a rebuttal to what were already hearing or you could say prebuttal to what were already hearing from the former president s defense team. Im told by a source familiar with that formal response that is set to come at some point today, possibly any minute, that the largest focus, the primary focus is going to be on what they describe as the unconstitutionality of this Impeachment Push and that is something that the House Democrats are very as garrett pointed out very directly taking aim at. Reporter right. Exactly. The president s lawyers at least so far havent intoxicated theyre going to focus on the merits but rather the process. As garrett outlined whether or not a president who is no longer in office can be impeached. Also the president s newest lawyer has indicated he could make a Freedom Of Speech argument and suggest that the president was just trying to speak his mind and exercising his First Amendment rights here. Here is what the president s newest lawyer david schoen had to say on Sean Hannitys show about the president s defense. Besides the fact that this process is completely unconstitutional, i think its also the most illadvised legislative action that i have seen in my lifetime. It is tearing the country apart at a time when we dont need anything like that. I think President Biden missed a great opportunity to be a states mann and demanded that this thing be called off. Reporter hallie, one thing thats going to be key to watch for here is how much Election Fraud and voter fraud and these false allegations the president has been making will play a role in his defense. I know that your reporting and reporting by others indicates that that was a big falling out between the president and his previous legal team who all quit just days ago because of this dispute about how Election Fraud should play a role here, hallie. Shannon, im told by that source with knowledge of the brief that there is not a big focus on the false claims of Election Fraud, which is certainly a 18 o from where the former president s head was at last week. Paul butler, were showing some of the excerpts from the pretrial brief and in it the house Impeachment Managers say the evidence is clear and that third excerpt is an interesting one, paul, and here we will go to the next one that the senate should disqualify trump for office, make certain he can never harm our country again, they also caused about due process and the Process Argument being made by republicans and the president s defense team does not hold water. Can you use your Legal Expertise and tell us how youre viewing this as we see now this argument from the house Impeachment Managers that, yes, this actually is constitutional . So, hallie, the house brief directly and unequivocally blames trump for the attack on the capitol. Its main focus is on the law rather than the facts. So its the senate trial that will be the forum for the dramatic video and the stories of the uprising. So the president s main defense apparently will be that its unconstitutional to impeach a president after hes left office. The house brief has a very legal response by saying trump was president at the time that he was impeached, but the brief also argues that if trump is not convicted there would be no effective accountability for any future president because he or she could always resign to avoid impeachment and avoid consequences. The house brief says that the constitution applies every day the president is in office from the first day to the last day and every moment in between. And let me sort of dive into that a little bit more, paul, because the house Impeachment Managers, the democrats, also say this, that the framers of the constitution clearly intended for the Impeachment Process to reach former officials, at One Point Making Note of the fact that donald trump was impeached by the house while he was still in office, saying that that strengthens their case, also saying that the senate found that they had the power to try former officials in 1798, that has been the rule ever since. Paul, they are trying to lay out the legal precedent behind this, just like you would in any other court of law. Thats right. And, in fact, there is precedent that former officials can be impeached after theyve left office, its just that that precedent has never been applied to a president of the United States. The argument in favor of impeachment is, again, about accountability. The constitutional value that no person is above the law. The argument against, the argument that the president former president is likely to make is that by the terms of the Constitution Impeachment does not apply to private citizens and thats what an expresident is. Of course, the counter to that will be once again that when trump was impeached he was a sitting president. Garrett, let me go to you here because the democrats are making the case that donald trump is personally responsible for what they describe as that violent attack at the capitol. He was impeached while still in office. The case for trying him after he has left office is stronger than any of the precedence, adding that the constitution was designed to address precisely this kind of misconduct. When you look at the ways that these arguments are coalescing the central one as weve been talking about here for the last couple of minutes relates to the constitutionality of convicting potentially a former president once they are no longer in office. As shannon and i talked about, just a week ago based on our reporting here, President Trump the former president was trying to make this about his false claims of Election Fraud, was trying to get his former legal team to talk more about that in their arguments here, that legal team dissolved because of that, now you have these two other attorneys coming in. Garrett, from a political, strategic perspective, right, when you look at where republicans who are de facto jurors in that room are, that Constitutionality Argument on the part of the president s defense, former president s defense, speaks to that, right, because of that recent senate vote. We know many republicans dont think this is constitutional, either. Thats exactly right. We had this vote in the senate just a week ago now based on a motion from rand paul in which 45 republican senators essentially said theyre not convinced this is constitutional and i think thats important. It wasnt a vote to throw out the case necessarily as is sometimes shorthanded but essentially 45 republican senators saying theyre not entirely convinced that this is a constitutional effort at all. You have to get over that bar before you can begin really trying the former president based on the facts and i think that is key because there is really no appetite among republican senators to debate the former president s claims of Election Fraud. They dont want to get into that. They dont want to be looking back at georgia, they dont want to be looking back at pennsylvania. Thats a political loser for republicans and they know that. If the former president is going to be acquitted, i think youre going to see it based on belief that its somehow either unconstitutional or simply inappropriate to be trying a former president in this way. Garrett haake, Shannon Pettypiece, paul butler, thank you for being with us on this Breaking News to start our show at the moment. There is tons of action on the hill, not just this impeachment management situation, but a push by democrats to move fast on covid relief, even if it means doing it without republican support. What you can expect to see today. And later congresswoman alexandria ocasiocortez shows emotional details about what happened to her during the capitol riots and another traumatic experience from her past. Stay with us. Traumatic experience from her past stay with us and i just hear where is she . Where is she . And this was the moment where i thought everything was over. Oug. Ugh, theres that cute guy from 12c. Go talk to him. Yeah, no. 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Lipton is a proud sponsor of the american heart associations life is why campaign. History says fine jewelry for occasions. We say forget occasions. snap fine jewelry for every day. Minus the traditional markups. Were mejuri. Handcrafted like the olden days. Designed for the golden days ahead. so there are some new movements on President Bidens nearly 2 trillion Coronavirus Relief bill. Senator Bernie Sanders getting ready, signaling that democrats are willing to go it alone. He is ready to introduce a bill that would speed up passage this have thing in the senate, thats happening today. Let me bring in Leigh Ann Caldwell who is on capitol hill, Peter Alexander is at the white house. Leigh ann, talk to us about what Senator Sanders is trying to get the ball rolling on basically. Reporter well, hallie, first this meeting last night with republicans, senator Susan Collins called it excellent. She indicated that perhaps there are some areas that they could compromise, perhaps on this maybe not the size of the Stimulus Check, but perhaps who receives the Stimulus Check. You know, these are bidens people, lawmakers who really enjoyed talking to the senators, these senators enjoyed talking with them, but the big question is is there room for compromise as they move forward because theyre still extremely far apart, including on this issue of state and local funding where the Biden Administration and democrats want 300 billion which is something that republicans havent even mentioned in their proposal. So Bernie Sanders, as you mentioned, is prepared as head of the Budget Committee to move forward on this process that would only need a simple majority to pass this covid relief bill in the senate. Lets take a listen to how he lays it out on chris hayes last night. Now is not the time to count pennies. Now is the time to address these monumental crises and i think what the president is proposing is a very good start in doing that. Reporter and sanders has the support of most democrats in the senate who say that something needs to be done, Something Big, something bold and something needs to be done now and they are reluctant, most democrats anyway, to wait around trying to negotiate with republicans who have indicated that they dont want something as big and as bold, but these two processes dont have to they can go in coordination with each other. They dont necessarily cancel each other out at this point. They can move with a partisan process while also trying to negotiate and at any point, though, they can call it off and go it alone, hallie. Peter, the white house seems willing to move forward kind of solo with just democratic support if need be, right . Reporter yeah, thats right. I was just speaking to a senior white house official just moments ago, a hallie, to said that they want to be a part of this Engagement Process with the republicans who are here yesterday, that they are looking for places where they agree saying among other things in the conversations that took place yesterday that on some of the figures in terms of covid relief and how to deal with Small Businesses they may share the top line number but the republicans may have different views about how to go about this. But the bottom line is they are still very apart in terms of their sense of how significant of a package, how big a package this needs to be. Lets put up this statement from jen psaki the White House Press secretary. She says while there were areas of agreement the president also reiterated his view that Congress Must respond boldly and urgently. He will not slow down kwork on this urgent Crisis Response and will not settle for a package that fails to meet the moment. That really does give you a snapshot of the way that this white house views this moment as this sort of historic Inflection Point in effect where they need to do Something Big here. Republicans note there have already been five packages before this. The white house says, well, then, look at the issues, look at how Many Americans are still facing Food Insecurity and still need dollars to help sort of take care of their families. They say the real action has to happen. Now, on the topic of this bid for bipartisanship they say this reconciliation as leigh ann was laying out, this desire to have a simple majority pass things, if they take that route with only democrats it doesnt mean the republicans cant still join, though they are skeptical that all ten who were here yesterday would ultimately be on board. Hallie . Peter, thank you. Leigh ann, appreciate it. As we talk about