"...according to McCarthy, the president said: 'Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.'"
That's it.
That's the big revelation from Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.).
The single article of impeachment passed by the House is entitled "INCITEMENT OF INSURRECTION." But the argument for finding him guilty of this charge is very weak, in my opinion, and Rep. Beutler's statement does nothing to bolster that case. I believe there is much stronger evidence for finding Trump guilty of failing to take action to stop the riotous, violent assault on the Capitol. The president is, after all, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. The directors of the Secret Service and the FBI report to the President, as do the Attorney General and the Secretary for Homeland Security. And the rioters were supposedly Trump supporters. Trump could have called on them directly to stand down before they assaulted the halls of Congress. He could have directed various law enforcement agencies to jump in and protect the Capitol and the people working there. He should have. But he didn't. He is guilty of that failure to act.
So here's my question: Why did the House charge Trump with incitement and not with some version of dereliction of duty for failing to stop the riot and protect the nation's Capitol and its elected representatives? He should have intervened, but he didn't. Why doesn't that failure to act constitute the very heart of the Democrats' case against Trump? Why wasn't Trump's inaction the basis of a second article of impeachment? If you know, please respond. . . I'll offer a couple of guesses, but I really don't know.
One guess is that Democrats have been calling Trump a totalitarian and a fascist for his entire term in office, and they have often claimed that he wouldn't step down peacefully but would, instead, launch a coup or otherwise try to subvert the electoral process and/or use the armed forces of the U.S. government to illegitimately remain in office. Well, he didn't cancel the election. He lost it. And he didn't launch a coup. So perhaps the Democrats wanted to charge him with "incitement of insurrection" because that validated the accusations they had hurled against him for the last four years.
I have a second suggested reason for why the Democrats charged Trump with "incitement of insurrection" rather than with some version of dereliction of duty and failure to protect -- for not stopping the mob that attacked the Capitol. If Trump were tried by the Senate for his failure to stop the attack on the Capitol, then that might open the door for the Republicans to focus on other people with authority who also failed to act to adequately protect the Capitol that day. Lindsay Graham has suggested that Speaker Pelosi might bear some responsibility for that failure. I have no idea if that's true or not. What about the mayor of D.C.? What about the Capitol Police Chief, who resigned on Jan. 8, two days after the assault on the Capitol? Were there others who could have taken stronger, more effective action to protect the Capitol but didn't? That's a potential can of worms that the Democrats would not want to open, I imagine, both because it might embarrass some people and because it would distract from keeping the focus solely on Trump.