From the closing argument of impeachment manager Madeleine Dean (D-PA):

For those who say we need to get past this, we need to come together, we need to unify, if we don’t set this right and call it what it was, the highest of constitutional crimes by the president of the United States, the past will not be past. The past will become our future.

Correction: I initially misidentified Dean.

Well, that didn’t last long.

Dems seemed to have seized the advantage, backed by five GOP senators, to present at least some witnesses in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump. The fierce reaction of GOP senators to what House impeachment managers and Dem senators wanted to do testified to the the advantage Dems had taken hold of.

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Very surprising, very dramatic events just in the last half hour of the impeachment trial. The Senate has voted to call witnesses, something that seemed all but ruled out just last night. The trial was supposed to end today with a vote to acquit. The shift was triggered by the revelations of Rep. Herrera Beutler (R) of Washington who heard from Rep. Kevin McCarthy of an exchange the day of the insurrection in which President Trump defended the insurrectionists to McCarthy when McCarthy called Trump begging him to call off the mob.

Big unexpected news this morning as the Senate has voted 55-45, with five Republicans joining all 50 Democrats, to consider witnesses subpoenas. This was on the heels of last night’s CNN report that put into sharper focus the phone call between President Trump and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) during the Capitol siege.

Even though the last two days of the impeachment trial have included new information about the fact that former President Trump put his veep in harms way, Vice President Mike Pence is standing by his man.

At least five people died during the events of January 6th on Capitol Hill. More than 100 Capitol Police officers were injured, at least 15 of whom required hospitalization. Two Capitol Police officers took their own lives in the days immediately following the assault, presumably spurred by trauma and/or guilt over the insurrection. But the death of Officer Brian Sicknick has loomed over the events of the January 6th like no other. While others were bludgeoned or attacked and could have died of their injuries the fact that Sicknick did die added a gravity to the events of January 6th it would not, for better or worse, otherwise have had.

Because of this, a new ‘truth movement’ has begun to crop up on the right suggesting Sicknick’s death was unrelated to the insurrection and may even be part of a cover-up to tarnish the reputation of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. It’s ugly and utterly predictable.

We just started the second day of House impeachment managers’ arguments as they seek to persuade a jury of senators to convict Trump of inciting the insurrection. All eyes, of course, are on the Republicans in the chamber.

Donald Trump’s trial for incitement to insurrection is bound by two key facts. First is the fact that all but three or four Republican senators will vote to acquit him no matter what. The second is the nature of ‘incitement’ as a crime. Incitement is at the outer bounds of what we normally consider to be criminal actions inasmuch as it amounts to using words to get other people to do things absent compulsion. It is a crime, as it should be, but in a criminal trial context it is a high bar for prosecutors to meet. Still, we are left to consider how much the President inspired and directed what happened on January 6th, 2021.

The House managers are doing a good job of it. But in terms of what the President thought he was doing … well, he told us in real time.

From TPM Reader CB …

I wanted to share my De-Trumping story, because I think it’s fairly unique.

Like a lot of people, I swore before the 2016 election I’d leave the United States if Trump got elected. Unlike a lot of people, I followed through. It took a little bit, but I switched to a job I could work remotely, sold my stuff, and left in mid-2018.

Kevin McCarthy is far and away the weakest congressional leader, in either party or house of Congress, in living memory. Indeed, you have to go deep into American history to find anyone comparable. And if you go too far back you get to periods when the role of House and Senate leaders were just too different to make any comparisons. So with this fact in hand, I’ve heard a number of people ask just how it is he manages to remain leader. But this question mistakes the structure of the current Republican congressional party, especially in the House. McCarthy is leader precisely because he is as weak as he is. It’s a feature, not a bug.