The impeachment trials against Donald Trump are already underway even as the former president is watching from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. However, Trump was reportedly expressing frustration towards his legal team for the initial case they presented to defend him.
Trump was closely watching the impeachment trials unfold in Washington, but people familiar with what goes on behind the scenes revealed that the former president was not so calm upon watching the proceedings. According to Politico, Trump was reportedly frustrated with his legal team’s efforts to present their case defending him in sharp contrast to the opening arguments placed by the Democratic House Impeachment Managers. The sources told the outlet that Trump said it was missed opportunity and that his legal team appeared to concede to the fact that Joe Biden won the election, breaking from his baseless theories of fraud and the election getting stolen from him.
The former president plans to spend the week closely watching the impeachment proceedings in the Senate rather than hit the golf courses as he is known to do. The trial is also expected to last for days even through the weekends. Trump is the only president in the country’s history to be impeached twice. Compared to his first impeachment trial, the former president will stay silent on social media as he is already permanently banned by Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube following the January 6 riots.
Trump was impeached by the House on his final week in office on a bipartisan vote for incitement of insurrection, inciting violence at the Capitol last January 6 when the joint session of Congress formally counted the electoral votes. Pro-Trump rioters stormed the building in an attempt to target Congressional leaders as well as then-vice president Mike Pence. Five people, including Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick, were killed in the midst of the violence. Despite the Democratic party holding a thin majority of the Senate, there is a need for a portion of Republican Senators to vote to convict.
The GOP Senators are expected to be faced with uncomfortable footage showing another angle of the violence that occurred in the Capitol in January. The impeachment managers are expected to play unseen security camera footage as part of the effort to hold Trump responsible for inciting the violence.