lawyers for donald trump have wrapped up
their defense in the former american
president's impeachment trial
denying that trump played any part in
inciting the capitol hill riots last
month
the defense team took just three hours
to make their case and called the trial
a political witch hunt
the senate will reconvene on saturday
morning when members are expected to
vote
on whether to convict trump
day four of a trial which has an all but
guaranteed outcome
it was time for donald trump's legal
team to make their defense
and lay out why the former president
shouldn't be convicted
the article of impeachment now before
the senate
is an unjust and blatantly
unconstitutional act
of political vengeance their argument
focused on freedom of speech
insisting trump was exercising his first
amendment rights
when casting doubt on the election
results the constitution in the first
amendment
must certainly apply to these
impeachment proceedings
and mr trump's speech deserves full
protection under the first amendment
the defense also showed a 10-minute
video of democrats
using the word fight to argue that
trump's words of
fight like hell on january 6
did not incite the rioters who attacked
the capital afterward
suddenly the word fight is off limits
sparrows the hypocrisy and false
indignation
the defense team's statements followed
two days of arguments by democrat
prosecutors
who said trump set the stage for the
violence of january 6.
they said he summoned the crowd to
washington and did nothing to stop the
rioting
even as it played out on television
this is about protecting our republic
and articulating and defining
the standards of presidential conduct
and if you want this
to be a standard for totally appropriate
presidential conduct
going forward be my guest but we're
headed for a very different kind of
country at that point
mr president in a moment the democrats
are unlikely to gain a conviction
as few republican senators have come out
against trump
who remains popular among republican
voters
both parties are eager to move to a
final vote
which could come as soon as saturday
but all signs point to ending as a
partisan draw
and a second acquittal for donald trump
and stolen by the fake and for more on
this i'm joined by dw reporter william
bluecroft william one thing i'd like to
understand the defense was given 16
hours to make its case but it took less
than four
what does that mean well democrat
house managers the prosecution in their
time also didn't take their entire 16
hours a lot of but they did take more
than the three or four hours that we saw
yesterday from the defense
i mean it basically says that they don't
think very highly of this trial they
want to get it over with they know that
the
outcome is pretty much assured they
don't have to mount a very strong
defense to get
republicans to vote with them and
therefore acquit donald
trump and also remember there were
repeated shakeups in the trump
legal team so that probably affected
planning and organization and just who
was
doing what really yeah the the the
the effort was very clearly reflected
by how poorly they did in that first
time around even donald trump was
reported to have been
outraged at how weak their original
defense was
and you could hear in this much stronger
more muscular defense yesterday
very much with having donald trump
watching this and many of his supporters
in mind when they went through their
points
and how overall once the defense got
going did their arguments
compare to the prosecutions do you think
well democrats the house managers they
laid out a very
long consistent case not just on january
6 but in the weeks leading up to it in
fact all of donald trump's term in
office
where he repeatedly used rhetoric that
was stoking this kind of violence and
this kind of anger that we saw erupt on
january 6th
and the defense only focused on january
6th only on that one
speech the fight like hell speak just
before uh
the mob attacked the capital now that
was part of the
article of impeachment that democrats
are arguing that they brought uh
trump to trial on but that is not the
entirety of their case and
the defense just ignored all of these
other points that they were making
they they made quite a what aboutism
case
drawing a false equivalency between
trump's actions and words
and other instances in different
contexts of democrats and liberals
doing much this much the same thing but
in completely different contexts and not
not uh really explaining what that
context was so it was a very much a
cherry-picked kind of uh
kind of defense that left a lot of
people scratching their heads what it
was really about
okay well listen we're expecting a vote
today largely along party lines it looks
like a foregone conclusion
the republicans will vote to to acquit
is there anything else to look for
yeah i mean we know we're unlikely to
see 17 republican senators
join democrats to convict trump so
the question is how many will we know
five to six
republican senators voted to have this
trial take place so we can maybe expect
to see five or six
of republican senators vote to convict
it could be more will it be 10 will be
12 will be eight
that will be interesting the ultimate
number and as well as who is voting to
convict
mitch mcconnell the leader of the senate
uh leader of the republicans formerly
the leader of the senate
uh and a huge enabler of donald trump
over all these years has really
distanced himself from donald trump and
has left it very open as to how he's
going to vote
it'll be very very interesting to see if
he ultimately votes to convict
or not and then what that means for the
republican party going forward
all right we'll be watching that closely
all day thank you william gluecroft for
that insight