IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
Sitting as a Court of Impeachment
In re
IMPEACHMENT OF
PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP
TRIAL MEMORANDUM
OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
IN THE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL OF PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP
United States House of Representatives
Jamie Raskin
Diana DeGette
David Cicilline
Joaquin Castro
Eric Swalwell
Ted Lieu
Stacey Plaskett
Madeleine Dean
Joe Neguse
U.S. House of Representatives Managers 

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................................1
STATEMENT OF FACTS...............................................................................................................................5
A. President Trump Refuses to Accept the Results of the 2020 Election................................5
B. President Trump Encourages His Followers to Come to Washington on January 6, 
2021 and “Fight” to Overturn the Election Results............................................................. 12
C. Vice President Pence Refuses to Overturn the Election Results....................................... 18
D. President Trump Incites Insurrectionists to Attack the Capitol ........................................ 20
E. Insurrectionists Incited by President Trump Attack the Capitol ....................................... 22
F. President Trump’s Dereliction of Duty During the Attack ................................................ 29
G. The House Approves An Article of Impeachment with Bipartisan Support................... 34
ARGUMENT................................................................................................................................................... 36
I. PRESIDENT TRUMP COMMITTED HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS.......................................... 36
A. President Trump Violated His Oath of Office ..................................................................... 37
B. President Trump Attacked the Democratic Process............................................................ 38
C. President Trump Imperiled Congress .................................................................................... 39
D. President Trump Undermined National Security ................................................................. 40
II. THERE IS NO DEFENSE FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP’S CONDUCT ........................................................ 42
A. Fair Impeachment Process....................................................................................................... 42
B. Criminality................................................................................................................................... 43
C. Election Results.......................................................................................................................... 44
D. Free Speech................................................................................................................................. 45
III. THE SENATE HAS JURISDICTION TO TRY THIS IMPEACHMENT ...................................................... 48
A. Former Officials in England and the Early American States Were Subject to 
Impeachment and Disqualification for Abuses Committed in Office .............................. 50
B. The Framers Adhered to the Tradition That Former Officials Were Subject to 
Impeachment, Conviction, and Disqualification for Misconduct in Office..................... 53 

1. The Constitutional Convention ................................................................................. 55
2. Constitutional Text and Structure ............................................................................. 59
C. Congressional Precedent Supports Jurisdiction over President Trump............................ 71
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................................... 75 

1
INTRODUCTION
This trial arises from President Donald J. Trump’s incitement of insurrection against the 
Republic he swore to protect. The House of Representatives has impeached him for that
constitutional offense. To protect our democracy and national security—and to deter any future 
President who would consider provoking violence in pursuit of power—the Senate should convict 
President Trump and disqualify him from future federal officeholding. 
On January 6, 2021, with Vice President Michael Pence presiding, Congress assembled to 
perform one of its most solemn constitutional responsibilities: the counting of electoral votes for 
President of the United States. This ritual has marked the peaceful transfer of power in the United 
States for centuries. Since the dawn of the Republic, no enemy—foreign or domestic—had ever 
obstructed Congress’s counting of the votes. No President had ever refused to accept an election 
result or defied the lawful processes for resolving electoral disputes. Until President Trump.
In a grievous betrayal of his Oath of Office, President Trump incited a violent mob to attack 
the United States Capitol during the Joint Session, thus impeding Congress’s confirmation of Joseph 
R. Biden, Jr. as the winner of the presidential election. As it stormed the Capitol, the mob yelled out
“President Trump Sent Us,” “Hang Mike Pence,” and “Traitor Traitor Traitor.” The 
insurrectionists assaulted police officers with weapons and chemical agents. They seized control of 
the Senate chamber floor, the Office of the Speaker of the House, and major sections of the Capitol 
complex. Members and their staffs were trapped and terrorized. Many officials (including the Vice 
President himself) barely escaped the rioters. The line of succession to the Presidency was 
endangered. Our seat of government was violated, vandalized, and desecrated. Congress’s counting 
of electoral votes was delayed until nightfall and not completed until 4 AM. Hundreds of people 
were injured in the assault. Five people—including a Capitol Police officer—died.  

2
President Trump’s responsibility for the events of January 6 is unmistakable. After losing 
the 2020 election, President Trump refused to accept the will of the American people. He spent 
months asserting, without evidence, that he won in a “landslide” and that the election was “stolen.” 
He amplified these lies at every turn, seeking to convince supporters that they were victims of a 
massive electoral conspiracy that threatened the Nation’s continued existence. But every single 
court to consider the President’s attacks on the outcome of the election rejected them. And state 
and federal officials from both parties refused President Trump’s increasingly desperate demands 
that they break the law to keep him in power. With his options running out, President Trump 
announced a “Save America Rally” on January 6. He promised it would be “wild.” 
By the day of the rally, President Trump had spent months using his bully pulpit to insist 
that the Joint Session of Congress was the final act of a vast plot to destroy America. As a result—
and as had been widely reported—the crowd was armed, angry, and dangerous. Before President 
Trump took the stage, his lawyer called for “trial by combat.” His son warned Republican legislators 
against finalizing the election results: “We’re coming for you.” Finally, President Trump appeared 
behind a podium bearing the presidential seal. Surveying the tense crowd before him, President 
Trump whipped it into a frenzy, exhorting followers to “fight like hell [or] you’re not going to have a 
country anymore.” Then he aimed them straight at the Capitol, declaring: “You’ll never take back 
our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
Incited by President Trump, his mob attacked the Capitol. This assault unfolded live on 
television before a horrified nation. But President Trump did not take swift action to stop the 
violence. Instead, while Vice President Pence and Congress fled, and while Capitol Police officers 
battled insurrectionists, President Trump was reportedly “delighted” by the mayhem he had 
unleashed, because it was preventing Congress from affirming his election loss. This dereliction of  

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duty—this failure to take charge of a decisive security response and to quell the riotous mob—
persisted late into the day. In fact, when Congressional leaders begged President Trump to send 
help, or to urge his supporters to stand down, he instead renewed his attacks on the Vice President 
and focused on lobbying Senators to challenge the election results. Only hours after his mob first
breached the Capitol did President Trump release a video statement calling for peace—and even 
then, he told the insurrectionists (who were at that very moment rampaging through the Capitol) 
“we love you” and “you’re very special.” President Trump then doubled down at 6:01pm, issuing a 
tweet that blamed Congress for not surrendering to his demand that the election results be 
overturned: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is 
so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly 
treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!” 
The Nation will indeed remember January 6, 2021—and President Trump’s singular 
responsibility for that tragedy. It is impossible to imagine the events of January 6 occurring without 
President Trump creating a powder keg, striking a match, and then seeking personal advantage from 
the ensuing havoc. In the words of Representative Liz Cheney, the House Republican Conference 
Chair: “The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the 
flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened 
without the President. The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the 
violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of  

4
his office and his oath to the Constitution.”1
 Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell recently 
affirmed that “[t]he mob was fed lies” and “provoked by the president.”2
 
President Trump committed this high crime and misdemeanor amid his final days in office. 
Given the clarity of the evidence and the egregiousness of his wrongdoing, the House approved an 
article of impeachment for incitement of insurrection. Now, merely weeks later, President Trump
will argue that it serves no purpose to subject him to a trial and that the Senate lacks jurisdiction to 
do so. He is mistaken. As we explain at length below—and as scholars from diverse viewpoints
have long recognized—the text and structure of the Constitution, as well as its original meaning and 
prior interpretations by Congress, overwhelmingly demonstrate that a former official remains 
subject to trial and conviction for abuses committed in office. Any other rule would make little 
sense. The Constitution governs the first day of the President’s term, the last day, and every 
moment in between. Presidents do not get a free pass to commit high crimes and misdemeanors
near the end of their term. The Framers of our Constitution feared more than anything a President 
who would abuse power to remain in office against the will of the electorate. Allowing Presidents to 
subvert elections without consequence would encourage the most dangerous of abuses. 
For that reason, President Trump’s conduct must be declared unacceptable in the clearest 
and most unequivocal terms. This is not a partisan matter. His actions directly threatened the very 
foundation on which all other political debates and disagreements unfold. They also threatened the 
constitutional system that protects the fundamental freedoms we cherish. It is one thing for an 
official to pursue legal processes for contesting election results. It is something else entirely for that 
1 Liz Cheney, I Will Vote To Impeach The President (Jan. 12, 2021). 2 Mike DeBonis & Paul Kane, Uncertainty Reigns in Senate as Schumer Pushes Fast Agenda and McConnell Calls Out 
Trump, Wash. Post (Jan. 19, 2021). 

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official to incite violence against the government, and to obstruct the finalization of election results, 
after judges and election officials conclude that his challenges lack proof and legal merit. 
To reaffirm our core constitutional principles—and to deter future Presidents from 
attempting to subvert our Nation’s elections—the Senate should convict President Trump and 
disqualify him from holding or enjoying “any Office or honor, Trust, or Profit under the United 
States.”3
 That outcome is not only supported by the facts and the law; it is also the right thing to do. 
President Trump has demonstrated beyond doubt that he will resort to any method to maintain or 
reassert his grip on power. A President who violently attacks the democratic process has no right to 
participate in it. Only after President Trump is held to account for his actions can the Nation move 
forward with unity of purpose and commitment to the Constitution. And only then will future 
Presidents know that Congress stands vigilant in its defense of our democracy.
STATEMENT OF FACTS
A. President Trump Refuses to Accept the Results of the 2020 Election
Before a single voter cast a ballot in the 2020 presidential election, President Trump made it 
clear that he had no intention of abiding by the verdict of the American people.4
 In a July 2020 
interview, he pointedly refused to agree that he would accept the election results.5
 Pressed in 
September 2020 on whether he would “commit to making sure that there is a peaceful transferal 
[sic] of power after the election,” he responded: “We’re going to have to see what happens.”6
 
Throughout this period, he insisted at rallies and through social media that if he appeared to lose the 
3 U.S. Const., Art. I, § 3, cl. 7. 4 Nick Niedzwiadek, The 9 Most Notable Comments Trump Has Made About Accepting the Election Results, Politico 
(Sept. 24, 2020). 5 Ryan Goodman et al., Incitement Timeline: Year of Trump’s Actions Leading to the Attack on the Capitol, Just Security 
(Jan. 11, 2021). 6 Id. 

6
election, the only possible explanation was a conspiracy to defraud him and those who supported 
him. On August 17, for instance, he asserted that “the only way we’re going to lose this election is if 
this election is rigged.”7
 One week later, he declared that “[t]he only way they can take this election 
away from us is if this is a rigged election.”8
 He echoed these points at every opportunity, laying the 
groundwork for a refusal to accept any outcome other than his own continued grip on power.
This was not mere rhetoric, as became apparent immediately after Election Day. Based on 
incomplete early returns, and despite warnings from virtually every expert and election official in the 
country, President Trump claimed victory and tried to stop states from counting millions of lawful 
ballots. On November 4, for example, he tweeted: “We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL 
the Election. We will never let them do it.”9
 Over the following days, many media outlets 
(including Fox News) reported that Joseph R. Biden, Jr. had won the election. President Trump 
responded by asserting—on November 8—that “this was a stolen election.”10 He repeated that 
same theme many times over the following months, urging his supporters to “Stop the Steal!”11 
It was never clear who President Trump blamed for this asserted fraud—which, according to 
him, was vast enough to affect the outcome in many different states. At various points throughout 
7 Donald Trump Speech Transcript Wisconsin August 17, Rev (Aug. 17, 2020). 8 Donald Trump 2020 RNC Speech Transcript August 24, Rev (Aug. 24, 2020). 9 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Nov. 4, 2020, 12:49 AM). 10 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Nov. 8, 2020, 9:17 AM). 11 See e.g., Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Nov. 21, 2020 3:34 PM) (Watch: Hundreds of 
Activists Gather for ‘Stop the Steal‘ Rally in Georgia https://t.co/vUG1bqG9yg via BreitbartNews Big Rallies all over 
the Country. The proof pouring in is undeniable. Many more votes than needed. This was a LANDSLIDE!”); Donald J. 
Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Nov. 24, 2020 10:45 PM) (“Poll: 79 Percent of Trump Voters Believe ‘Election 
Was Stolen‘ https://t.co/PmMBmt05AI via @BreitbartNews They are 100% correct, but we are fighting hard. Our big 
lawsuit, which spells out in great detail all of the ballot fraud and more, will soon be filled. RIGGED ELECTION!”); 
Donald Trump Speech on Election Fraud Claims Transcript, December 2, Rev (Dec. 2, 2020) (But no matter when it happens, 
when they see fraud, when they see false votes and when those votes number far more than is necessary, you can’t let 
another person steal that election from you. All over the country, people are together in holding up signs, “Stop the 
steal.”); Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Dec. 19, 2020 9:41 AM) (He didn’t win the Election. He lost 
all 6 Swing States, by a lot. They then dumped hundreds of thousands of votes in each one, and got caught. Now 
Republican politicians have to fight so that their great victory is not stolen. Don’t be weak fools!). 

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late 2020, President Trump accused some combination of corrupt state election officials, fraudulent 
voters, doctored voting machines, and unspecified shadowy actors. In a speech on December 2, for 
example, he alleged “tremendous voter fraud and irregularities” resulting from a suspicious late￾night “massive dump” of votes; he added in this speech that certain votes were “counted in foreign 
countries,” that “[m]illions of votes were cast illegally in the swing states alone,” and that “[i]t is 
statistically impossible” that he lost.12 “This election was rigged,” he insisted.
13 
Our legal system affords many ways in which a candidate can contest the outcome of an 
election. President Trump took full advantage of those opportunities, focusing on the states in 
which he claimed President Biden had been improperly recognized as the winner: Arizona, Georgia, 
Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. President Trump and his allies ultimately filed 62 
lawsuits in state and federal courts contesting every aspect of those elections.14 But all of these suits 
were dismissed, save for one marginal Pennsylvania suit that did not affect the outcome there.15 In 
dismissing these suits, judges at all levels—including several of President Trump’s own judicial 
appointees—found that his claims were “not credible,” “without merit,” and “flat out wrong.”16 
Courts warned that some of his suits improperly aimed to “breed confusion,” “undermine the 
public’s trust in the election,” and “ignore the will of millions of voters.”17 As Judge Stephanos Bibas 
(a Trump appointee) observed in one characteristic opinion: “Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of 
12 Donald Trump Speech on Election Fraud Claims Transcript, December 2, Rev (Dec. 2, 2020). 13 Id.; see also, e.g., Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Dec. 30, 2020 2:48 PM) (“United States had 
more votes than it had people voting, by a lot. This travesty cannot be allowed to stand. It was a Rigged Election, one 
not even fit for third world countries!”). 14 William Cummings et al., By the Numbers: President Donald Trump’s Failed Efforts to Overturn the Election, USA 
Today (Jan. 6, 2021). 15 Id. 16 Id.
17 Allison Durkee, Trump Election Lawsuit Against Brad Raffensperger, Brian Kemp Fails in Georgia, Forbes (Jan. 5, 
2021). 

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our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it 
so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.”18 The U.S. Supreme 
Court itself denied numerous emergency applications aimed at overturning the election results; in 
response, President Trump tweeted that our highest court is “totally incompetent and weak on the 
massive Election Fraud that took place in the 2020 Presidential Election.”19
President Trump had the right to seek redress through the legal system. But he turned to 
improper and abusive means of staying in power when it became clear that the courts were 
unconvinced by his claims. Specifically, he launched a pressure campaign initially aimed at state 
election officials that soon expanded to the Department of Justice and Members of Congress. 
Starting in mid-November, President Trump brought the full power of his office to bear on 
state officials, pushing them to overturn and block certification of the election results by any means 
necessary. He pursued this agenda through tweets, phone calls, and meetings with officials, seeking 
at every opportunity to reverse the election so that he could remain in office.20 For example, despite 
clear evidence of President Biden’s victory in Michigan, President Trump issued false accusations 
that “[t]he Democrats cheated big time and got caught.”21 He personally lobbied two members of 
the Board of Canvassers for Wayne County to rescind their prior votes in favor of certifying the 
election results.22 He also (unsuccessfully) tried to induce Michigan’s top Republican legislative 
18 Donald J. Trump For President v. Boockvar, No. 20-3371 (3d Cir. Nov. 27, 2020). 19 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Dec. 26, 2020 8:51 AM).
20 Maggie Haberman et al., Trump Targets Michigan in His Ploy to Subvert the Election, N.Y. Times (Nov. 19, 2020); 
Amy Gardner et al., Trump asks Pennsylvania House Speaker for Help Overturning Election Results, Personally Intervening in a Third 
State, Wash. Post (Dec. 8, 2020); Ryan Randazzo et al., Arizona Legislature ‘Cannot and Will Not’ Overturn Election, Republican 
House Speaker Says, Arizona Republic (Dec. 4, 2020). 21 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Nov. 18, 2020) (“The Great State of Michigan, with votes 
being far greater than the number of people who voted, cannot certify the election. The Democrats cheated big time, 
and got caught. A Republican WIN!”). 22 Kendall Karson et al., Republican Canvassers Ask To ‘Rescind’ Their Votes Certifying Michigan Election Results, ABC 
News (Nov. 19, 2020). 

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officials to violate Michigan law by rejecting the popular vote and selecting a Trump slate of electors; 
in furtherance of this effort, he had them fly to Washington, D.C., for a White House meeting.
23
Trump applied particularly intense pressure to Georgia officials. On November 11, while 
Georgia’s vote count was in progress, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger publicly 
stated that there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud and that ballots were being accurately 
counted.24 President Trump then tweeted about Raffensperger seventeen times between November 
11 and the date on which Georgia finally certified its election results. On Thanksgiving Day, he 
declared Raffensperger an “enemy of the people” for insisting upon the integrity of Georgia’s 
election.25 Reflecting an ominous pattern that would recur many times over the weeks that followed, 
President Trump’s attacks on Raffensperger sparked threats of death and violence; one such 
message warned that “the Raffenspergers should be put on trial for treason and face execution.”26 
Nonetheless, President Trump continued his assault on Raffensperger. President Trump’s attacks 
were so concerning that Gabriel Sterling, another Republican election official in Georgia, publicly 
warned: “Mr. President … Stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone’s 
going to get hurt, someone’s going to get shot, someone’s going to get killed.”27
President Trump’s campaign to reverse the election results—and to keep himself in the 
White House—lasted through the days immediately preceding the assault on the Capitol. On 
23 Tom Hamburger et al., Trump Invites Michigan Republican Leaders To Meet Him At White House As He Escalates 
Attempts To Overturn Election Results, Wash. Post (Nov. 19, 2020). 24 Tim Reid & Lisa Lambert, Republican Georgia Secretary of State Says No Sign of Widespread Fraud in Vote Count, 
Reuters (Nov. 11, 2020). 25 Tim Kephart, Trump Calls Ga. Secretary of State “Enemy of the People”, CBS46 (Nov. 27, 2020). 26 Jake Lahut, Georgia’s Republican Secretary Of State And His Wife Received Texts Telling Them They Deserve ‘To Face A 
Firing Squad’ As Trump Escalated His Attacks On Election Results, Business Insider (Nov. 19, 2020); Donald J. Trump 
(@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Dec. 7, 2020, 7:50 PM). 27 Stephen Fowler, ‘Someone’s Going To Get Killed’: Ga. Official Blasts GOP Silence On Election Threats, NPR (Dec. 1, 
2020).  

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December 23, for instance, President Trump reportedly called one of Georgia’s lead election 
investigators, urging him to “find the fraud” and claiming that the official would be a “national 
hero” if he did so.28 On January 2, President Trump called Raffensperger to push him to somehow 
“find” enough votes to overturn the state’s results: “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one 
more than we have because we won the state.”29 President Trump also made a clear and chilling 
threat to Georgia’s highest election official: Failing to “find” enough votes to overturn the results of 
the Georgia election would be “a criminal offense” and “a big risk to you.”30 By this point, it was 
evident that President Trump would resort to any means necessary to reverse the election outcome. 
That is confirmed by his persistent (and increasingly extreme) efforts to transform DOJ into 
an arm of his assault on state election results. At President Trump’s direction, then-Attorney 
General William Barr authorized federal prosecutors “to pursue substantial allegations of voting and 
vote tabulation irregularities prior to the certification of elections.”31 That prompted sixteen 
Assistant United States Attorneys in fifteen districts to urge Barr to cease the investigation because 
there was no evidence of such substantial voting irregularities. DOJ’s own investigation ultimately 
confirmed as much: Barr announced on December 1 that DOJ had “uncovered no evidence of 
widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election.”32 Barr reportedly told 
President Trump at the time that his claims of election stealing were “bullshit.”33 
28 Amy Gardner, ‘Find the Fraud’: Trump Pressured a Georgia Elections Investigator in a Separate Call Legal Experts Say 
Could Amount to Obstruction, Wash. Post (Jan. 9, 2021). 29 Amy Gardner & Paulina Firozi, Here’s the Full Transcript and Audio of the Call Between Trump and Raffensperger, 
Wash. Post (Jan. 5, 2021). 30 Id.
31 Katie Benner & Michael S. Schmidt, Barr Hands Prosecutors the Authority to Investigate Voter Fraud Claims, N.Y. 
Times (Nov. 9, 2020); Memorandum from the Attorney General, Post-Voting Election Irregularity Inquiries (Nov. 9, 
2020). 32 Michael Balsamo, Disputing Trump, Barr Says No Widespread Election Fraud, Associated Press (Dec. 1, 2020). 33 Jesse Byrnes, Barr Told Trump that Theories About Stolen Election Were “Bulls---”: Report, The Hill (Jan. 18, 2021). 

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President Trump then apparently pressured Barr’s successor, Acting Attorney General 
Jeffrey Rosen, to appoint special counsels and file briefs aimed at overturning the election results.34 
When Rosen refused, President Trump reportedly hatched a scheme to fire Rosen and replace him 
with a different official who would be willing to deploy DOJ’s resources in support of President 
Trump’s efforts to keep himself in office.35 President Trump backed down only after he learned that 
most of DOJ’s political leadership would resign in protest if he fired Rosen.36
As this timeline indicates, President Trump’s rejection of the election results—and his 
steadily more extreme efforts to overturn them—persisted from Election Day through January 6. 
He did not cease his campaign even after the Electoral College met on December 14, with 
presidential electors casting 306 Biden votes and only 232 Trump votes. Nor did he cease after 
Senate Majority Leader McConnell recognized Mr. Biden’s victory: “Many millions of us hoped that 
the presidential election would yield a different result, but our system of government has processes 
to determine who will be sworn in on January the 20th. The Electoral College has spoken.”37 
Instead, President Trump responded to these developments by escalating and refocusing his attacks 
on Members of Congress, pushing them to reject the Electoral College vote and then engineer his 
retention in office. On December 18, for instance, he tweeted that “@senatemajldr and Republican 
34 Katie Benner, Trump and Justice Dept. Lawyer Said to Have Plotted to Oust Acting Attorney General, N.Y. Times (Jan. 
22, 2021); Matt Zapotosky et al., Trump Entertained Plan to Install an Attorney General Who Would Help Him Pursue Baseless 
Election Fraud Claims, Wash. Post (Jan. 22, 2021); Jess Bravin & Sadie Gurman, Trump Pressed Justice Department to Go 
Directly to Supreme Court to Overturn Election Results, Wall Street J. (Jan. 23, 2021). 35 Id. 36 Katie Benner, Trump and Justice Dept. Lawyer Said to Have Plotted to Oust Acting Attorney General, N.Y. Times (Jan. 
22, 2021).37 Niels Lesniewski, McConnell Recognizes Biden Win: ‘The Electoral College Has Spoken, Roll Call (Dec. 15, 2020); 
Nicholas Fandos, Defying Trump, McConnell Seeks to Squelch Bid to Overturn the Election, N.Y. Times (Dec. 15, 2020). 

12
Senators have to get tougher, or you won’t have a Republican Party anymore. We won the 
Presidential Election, by a lot. FIGHT FOR IT. Don’t let them take it away!”38
B. President Trump Encourages His Followers to Come to Washington on 
January 6, 2021 and “Fight” to Overturn the Election Results
Following the Electoral College vote, President Trump fixated on January 6, 2021—the date 
of the Joint Session of Congress—as presenting his last, best hope to reverse the election results and 
remain in power. Even as he continued improperly pressuring state officials, DOJ, and Members of 
Congress to overturn the electoral outcome, he sharply escalated his public statements, using more 
incendiary and violent language to urge supporters to “stop the steal” on January 6. He insisted that 
the election had been “rigged” and “stolen,” and that his followers had to “fight like hell” and “fight 
to the death” against this “act of war,” since they “can’t let it happen” and “won’t take it anymore!” 
These statements turned his “wild” rally on January 6 into a powder keg waiting to blow. Indeed, it 
was obvious and entirely foreseeable that the furious crowd assembled before President Trump at 
the “Save America Rally” on January 6 was primed (and prepared) for violence if he lit a spark. 
By mid-December 2020, President Trump had spent months insisting to his base that the 
only way he could lose the election was a dangerous, wide-ranging conspiracy against them that 
threatened America itself. After the Electoral College vote, he channeled that fury toward January 6, 
which he presented as the final firewall against a historic fraud that “stole” their democracy. On 
December 19, he tweeted: “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in 
D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” 39 On December 26, he tweeted: “If a Democrat 
Presidential Candidate had an Election Rigged & Stolen, with proof of such acts at a level never seen 
38 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Dec. 18, 2020, 9:14 AM).
39 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Dec. 19, 2020, 1:42 AM). 

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before, the Democrat Senators would consider it an act of war, and fight to the death. Mitch & 
the Republicans do NOTHING, just want to let it pass. NO FIGHT!” (emphasis added).40 
Fourteen minutes later, he tweeted again: “The ‘Justice’ Department and the FBI have done nothing 
about the 2020 Presidential Election Voter Fraud, the biggest SCAM in our nation’s history, 
despite overwhelming evidence. They should be ashamed. History will remember. Never give up. 
See everyone in D.C. on January 6th.”41 And on January 1, he tweeted: “The BIG Protest Rally 
in Washington, D.C., will take place at 11.00 AM on January 6th . . . StopTheSteal!”42 That same 
day, Kylie Jane Kremer, the head of Women For America First—a group that had helped organize 
the Second Million MAGA March on December 12 (which ended in 4 stabbings and 33 arrests)43—
tweeted a link to the website “Trumpmarch.com.” At the top of the post she added, “the cavalry is 
coming Mr. President!” President Trump retweeted her post, responding, “A great honor!”44 
As January 6 approached, and President Trump’s other attempts to overturn the election 
failed (including his schemes at DOJ), he further escalated his call to arms. On January 4, he gave an 
angry speech in Dalton, Georgia, warning that “Democrats are trying to steal the White House 
… [y]ou can’t let it happen. You can’t let it happen,” and “they’re not taking this White 
House. We’re going to fight like hell, I’ll tell you right now.”45 The next day, on January 5, he 
tweeted: “Washington is being inundated with people who don’t want to see an election victory 
stolen by emboldened Radical Left Democrats. Our Country has had enough, they won’t take it 
40 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Dec. 26, 2020, 8:00 AM). 
41 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Dec. 26, 2020, 8:14 AM). 
42 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Jan. 1, 2021, 2:53 PM). 43 NBC Washington Staff, 4 Stabbed, 33 Arrested as Trump Supporters, Counterprotesters Clash in Downtown DC, NBC 
Washington (Dec. 12, 2020). 44 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Jan. 1, 2021, 12:52 PM); Donald J. Trump 
(@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Jan. 1, 2021, 3:34 PM). 45 Donald Trump Rally Speech Transcript Dalton, Georgia: Senate Runoff Election, Rev (Jan. 4, 2021). 

14
anymore! We hear you (and love you) from the Oval Office. MAKE AMERICA GREAT 
AGAIN!”46 Trump made it clear that his goal was to prevent the election results from being 
certified: “I hope the Democrats, and even more importantly, the weak and ineffective 
RINO section of the Republican Party, are looking at the thousands of people pouring into 
D.C. They won’t stand for a landslide election victory to be stolen. @senatemajldr @JohnCornyn 
@SenJohnThune”47 
Through these and other statements, President Trump spent the weeks preceding his rally 
doing everything in his power to persuade attendees that their votes—and the election itself—were 
going to be stolen away in the Joint Session of Congress. That is, unless they somehow stopped it
by making plans to “fight like hell” and “fight to the death” against this “act of war” by “Radical 
Left Democrats” and the “weak and ineffective RINO section of the Republican Party.” 
By this point, it was clear that President Trump was comfortable urging, approving, and 
even celebrating violence. During a debate on September 29, for instance, he told the Proud Boys—
a violent extremist group with ties to white nationalism—to “stand back and stand by.”48 On 
October 30, when a caravan of his supporters in Texas attacked a bus full of Biden campaign 
workers, nearly running it off the road, President Trump tweeted a stylized video of the caravan and 
captioned it, “I LOVE TEXAS!”49 Days later, he declared that “these patriots”—who could easily 
have killed a busload of innocent campaign staff—“did nothing wrong.”50
46 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Jan. 5, 2021, 5:05 PM).
47 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Jan. 5, 2021, 5:12 PM). 48 Sheera Frenkel & Annie Karni, Proud Boys Celebrate Trump’s ‘Stand By’ Remark About Them At The Debate, New 
York Times (Sept. 29, 2020). 49 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Oct. 31, 2020 8:14 PM).
50 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Nov. 1, 2020, 8:18 AM); Katie Shepherd, Trump Cheers 
Supporters Who Swarmed A Biden Bus In Texas: ‘These Patriots Did Nothing Wrong’, Wash. Post (Nov. 2, 2020). 

15
Throughout this period, it was widely reported and well known that President Trump’s 
attacks on election officials had sparked threats, intimidation, and actual violence.51 Following 
President Trump’s attacks on Michigan’s election process, armed supporters surrounded the home
of the Michigan Secretary of State; after President Trump’s attacks on the election in Arizona, his 
supporters surrounded the home of the Arizona Secretary of State and chanted, “We are watching 
you!”; after President Trump targeted the election outcome in Georgia, state election officials 
received a wave of death threats.52 On December 1, as described above, Gabriel Sterling (who voted 
for Trump) warned President Trump that his incendiary rhetoric could mean that “someone’s going 
to get killed.” Yet President Trump not only refused to condemn any of this dangerous and 
threatening conduct; as detailed above, he also escalated his inflammatory and militaristic demands. 
That trend was matched by escalating violence. On December 12, for instance, clashes between 
Trump supporters and law enforcement and counter protestors at the “Second Million MAGA 
March” resulted in dozens of arrests and several stabbings, and at least one leader of the Proud Boys
was later arrested for vandalizing a church.53 
Given all that, the crowd which assembled on January 6 unsurprisingly included many who 
were armed, angry, and dangerous—and poised on a hair trigger for President Trump to confirm 
that they indeed had to “fight” to save America from an imagined conspiracy. Answering to the 
President’s call to mobilize, thousands arrived in Washington for the purpose (aggressively 
51 Michael Wines, Here Are the Threats Terrorizing Election Workers, N.Y. Times (Dec. 3, 2020). 52 Nick Corasaniti et al., As Trump Rails Against Loss, His Supporters Become More Threatening, N.Y. Times (updated 
Jan. 7, 2021); Video: Group Chants ‘We Are Watching You’ outside Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs’ Home, KPNX-TV 12 
News (Nov. 18, 2020). 53 Peter Hermann & Keith Alexander, Proud Boys Leader Barred From District By Judge Following His Arrest, Wash. 
Post (Jan. 5, 2021); Jason Slotkin et al., 4 Stabbed, 33 Arrested After Trump Supporters, Counterprotesters Clash in D.C., NPR 
(Dec. 12, 2020). 

16
championed by the President) of doing anything necessary to stop the Joint Session of Congress 
from finalizing the election results. Many who arrived brought weapons, plans of the Capitol 
building, and even tactical gear, including ropes, military helmets, ladders, and zip tie restraints.
54
This mobilization was not hidden away in the dead of night. It was widely discussed on 
websites—such as TheDonald.win—that, as confirmed by a former White House staff member, 
were “closely monitored” by President Trump’s social media operation.55 These sites hosted 
hundreds of posts about plans for the attack on the Capitol, with detailed discussions of weaponry 
and directions to “find the tunnels” and “arrest the worst traitors.”56 At TheDonald.win, one poster 
stated: “If Congress illegally certifies Biden, … Trump would have absolutely no choice but to 
demand us to storm Congress and kill/beat them up for it.”57 Another poster wrote: “[Trump] can 
order the NAT guard to stand down if needed. unfortunately he has no control over the Capitol 
Police... but there are only around 2k of them and a lot are useless fat asses or girls.”58 In their 
posts, extremists made it clear that they were prepared to fight at President Trump’s direction.
These calls for violence at the Capitol were widely covered. On January 2, for example, Fox
News reported on a social media declaration by Proud Boys Leader Enrique Tarrio that the Proud 
Boys would come to the January 6 rally prepared for violence.59 Another Proud Boys organizer said, 
54 See, e.g., Evan Hill et al., They Got a Officer!’: How a Mob Dragged and Beat Police at the Capitol, N.Y. Times (Jan. 
11, 2021); Peter Hermann, ‘We Got to Hold This Door’, Wash. Post (Jan. 14, 2021); Rich Schapiro, Stun Guns, ‘Stinger Whips’ 
and a Crossbow: What Police Found on the Capitol Protesters, NBC News (Jan. 13, 2021). 55 Andrew Feinberg, White House Insiders Say Trump Knew What Was About To Happen At The Capitol—
Because of His Social Media Guru Dan Scavino, Independent (Jan. 12, 2021). 56 Adam Rawnsley and Justin Rohrlich, ‘Ready to Die’: Two Months of MAGA Mob Warning Signs, The Daily Beast 
(Jan. 7, 2021). 57 Greg Miller et al., A Mob Insurrection Stoked by False Claims Of Election Fraud And Promises Of Violent Restoration, 
Wash. Post (Jan. 9, 2021). 58 House Judiciary Committee Majority Staff Report: Materials in Support of H. Res. 24, Impeaching Donald 
John Trump, President of the United States, for High Crimes and Misdemeanors, 117th Cong, at 20 (Jan. 12, 2021). 59 Caitlin McFall, Proud Boys Flock to Washington ‘Incognito’ for Jan. 6 Protests, Fox News (Jan. 2, 2021). 

17
“We are going to smell like you, move like you, and look like you. The only thing we’ll do that’s us 
is think like us! Jan 6th is gonna be epic.”60 On January 5, the Washington Post warned that “[f]ar￾right online forums are seething with references to potential violence and urging supporters of 
President Trump to bring guns to Wednesday’s protests in Washington.”61 These calls to action, the 
Washington Post explained, were “direct responses to Trump’s demands that his supporters pack the 
nation’s capital in support of his bogus claims that November’s national vote for Biden resulted 
from election fraud.”62 Other outlets reported threats to the Joint Session, with headlines such as 
“Violent threats ripple through far-right internet forums ahead of protest,” and “MAGA Geniuses 
Plot Takeover of US Capitol.”63
City officials, such as D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, also warned that the rally posed a high risk 
of violence. Mayor Bowser announced that all D.C. police officers would report on January 6, and 
asked residents to avoid the downtown area and “not to engage with demonstrators who come to 
our city seeking confrontation.”64 Law enforcement activity in the days leading up to January 6 
confirmed that the gathering was dangerous. On January 3, a Capitol Police intelligence report 
warned of increased risk of violence targeted against Congress “as the last opportunity to overturn 
the results of the presidential election.”65 On January 5, an FBI office in Virginia also issued an 
60 Joshua Zitser, Far-Right Group Proud Boys Claim They Will Attend January 6 Rally ‘Incognito’ and Wear All-Black to 
Blend In With Antifa Protestors, Business Insider (Jan. 3, 2021). 61 Craig Timberg & Drew Harwell, Pro-Trump Forums Erupt with Violent Threats Ahead of Wednesday’s Rally Against 
the 2020 Election, Wash. Post (Jan. 5, 2021). 62 Id.. 63 Brandy Zadrozny & Ben Collins, Violent Threats Ripple Through Far-Right Internet Forums Ahead of Protest, NBC 
News (Jan. 5, 2021); Andrew Beaujon, MAGA Geniuses Plot Takeover of US Capitol, Washingtonian (Jan. 5, 2021); Luke 
Barr, Law Enforcement Braces For Protests As Trump Supporters Gather In Captial, ABC News (Jan. 5, 2021). 64 Press Release, Office of the Mayor of the District of Columbia, Mayor Bowser Continues Preparation for 
Upcoming First Amendment Demonstrations (Jan 3, 2021). 65 Carol D. Leonnig, Capitol Police Intelligence Report Warned Three Days Before Attack That ‘Congress 
Itself’ Could Be Targeted, Washington Post (Jan. 15, 2021). 

18
explicit warning that extremists were preparing to travel to Washington to commit violence and start 
a “war.”66 District of Columbia police made several protest-related arrests on January 4 and 5, 
including for weapons charges and assaulting a police officer. The arrests were widely publicized 
and included the leader of the Proud Boys, who was arrested with high capacity firearms magazines, 
which he claimed were meant to be supplied to another rally attendant.67 
In all these ways—and more, as we will show at trial—President Trump created a powder 
keg on January 6. Hundreds were prepared for violence at his direction. They were prepared to do 
whatever it took to keep him in power. All they needed to hear was that their President needed 
them to “fight like hell.” All they needed was for President Trump to strike a match.
C. Vice President Pence Refuses to Overturn the Election Results
By the time the rally began, President Trump had nearly run out of options. He had only
one card left to play: his Vice President. But in an act that President Trump saw as an unforgivable 
betrayal, Vice President Pence refused to violate his oath and constitutional duty—and, just hours 
later, had to be rushed from the Senate chamber to escape an armed mob seeking vengeance. 
In the weeks leading up to the rally, President Trump had furiously lobbied Vice President 
Pence to refuse to count electoral votes for President Biden from any of the swing states.68 These 
demands ignored the reality that the Vice President has no constitutional or statutory authority to 
take that step. Over and over again, President Trump publicly declared that if Vice President Pence 
refused to block the Joint Session from finalizing President Biden’s victory, then the election, the 
66 Devlin Barrett and Matt Zapotosky, FBI Report Warned Of ‘War’ At Capitol, Contradicting Claims There Was No 
Indication Of Looming Violence, Washington Post (Jan. 12, 2021). 67 Jennifer Steinhauer et al., Leader of Proud Boys, a Far-Right Group, Is Arrested as D.C. Braces for Protests, N.Y. 
Times (Jan. 4, 2021); Peter Hermann & Keith Alexander, Proud Boys Leader Barred From District By Judge Following His 
Arrest, Wash. Post (Jan. 5, 2021). 68 Jonathan Swan, Zachary Basu, Off the Rails Episode 7: Trump Turns on Pence, Axios (Jan. 20, 2021). 

19
party, and the country would be lost. “I hope Mike Pence comes through for us, I have to tell you,”
President Trump said in Georgia on January 4.69 The next day, he tweeted: “If Vice President 
@Mike_Pence comes through for us, we will win the Presidency.”70 President Trump reiterated this 
demand just hours before the rally: “States want to correct their votes, which they now know were 
based on irregularities and fraud, plus corrupt process never received legislative approval. All Mike 
Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN. Do it Mike, this is a time for 
extreme courage!”71 On the morning of January 6, President Trump reportedly told Vice President 
Pence, “You can either go down in history as a patriot, or you can go down in history as a pussy.”72
Later that day, while President Trump was speaking at his rally, Vice President Pence issued 
a public letter rejecting President Trump’s threats. “It is my considered judgment,” he wrote, “that 
my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to 
determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.”73 
This letter sounded the death knell to any peaceful methods of overturning the election 
outcome. It was well known that the House and Senate were going to count the lawfully certified 
electoral votes they had received. President Trump’s efforts to coerce election officials, state 
legislatures, the DOJ, Members of Congress, and his own Vice President had all failed. But he had 
long made it clear that he would never accept defeat. He would fight until the bitter end. And all that 
remained for President Trump was the seething crowd before him—known to be poised for 
69 Donald Trump Rally Speech Transcript Dalton, Georgia: Senate Runoff Election, Rev (Jan. 4, 2021). 70 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Jan. 6, 2021, 1:00 AM). 71 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Jan. 6, 2021, 8:17 AM). 72 Peter Baker et al., Pence Reached His Limit With Trump. It Wasn’t Pretty., N.Y. Times (Jan. 12, 2021). 73 Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence), Twitter (Jan. 6, 2021, 1:02 PM). 

20
violence at his instigation—and the Capitol building just a short march away, where Vice President 
Pence presided over the final, definitive accounting of President Trump’s electoral loss.
D. President Trump Incites Insurrectionists to Attack the Capitol 
Shortly before noon on January 6, President Trump took the stage at his “Save America 
Rally” and spoke from a podium bearing the Seal of the President of the United States.74 By the 
time he addressed the angry crowd, Rudy Giuliani (his lawyer) had called for “trial by combat.”75 
President Trump praised Giuliani, saying “he’s got guts, he fights.” 
Over the following hour, President Trump repeatedly reiterated his claim that Democrats 
had “stolen” the election. He described vote tranches that favored President Biden as “explosions 
of bullshit.” 76 He exhorted the crowd to “fight much harder” to “stop the steal” and “take 
back our country.”77 He also demanded again that Vice President Pence illegally interfere with the 
work of the Joint Session—a position that the Vice President rejected even as President Trump 
spoke. Time and again, President Trump declared that the future of the country was on the line and 
that only the crowd assembled before him could stop the massive fraud taking place at the Capitol.
At numerous points during the rally, President Trump urged the crowd toward the Capitol, 
where the Joint Session was about to start.78 In response, an early wave surged toward the building 
and started to pull down barricades around its perimeter. Twenty minutes into the rally, President 
Trump said that those marching toward the Capitol should do so “peacefully.” But then he spoke 
74 Watch LIVE: Save America March at The Ellipse featuring President @realDonaldTrump, RSBN TV (Jan. 6, 2020). 75 Id.; see also Rudy Giuliani Speech Transcript at Trump’s Washington, D.C. Rally: Wants ‘Trial by Combat’, Rev (Jan. 6, 
2021). 76 Watch LIVE: Save America March at The Ellipse featuring President @realDonaldTrump, RSBN TV (Jan. 6, 2020). 77 Id.; see also Maggie Haberman, Trump Told Crowd ‘You Will Never Take Back Our Country with Weakness’, N.Y. 
Times (Jan. 6, 2021).
78 Watch LIVE: Save America March at The Ellipse featuring President @realDonaldTrump, RSBN TV (Jan. 6, 2020). 

21
for another 50 minutes, using highly inflammatory rhetoric—exactly the kind of language calculated 
to incite violence given what had been reported about the crowd. He declared, “we fight, we fight 
like hell,” because “if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore.”79
Videos of the crowd eliminate any doubt that President Trump’s words in fact incited the 
crowd to commit violence. Immediately after President Trump told the crowd that “you’ll never 
take back our country with weakness,” and that “[y]ou have to show strength,” supporters can 
be heard loudly shouting “take the Capitol right now!” and “invade the Capitol building!”80 At 
another point, the crowd interrupted him with chants of “Fight for Trump!” The President did not 
try to soothe their aggression, but instead smiled and responded, “Thank you.”81 As many in the 
crowd instantly recognized, the tenor of his speech (and his repeated demand that they “fight like 
hell” and “show strength” to save their country) belied any desire for a peaceful demonstration.82 
Those who had come to the rally looking for a signal from their President found it in his remarks. 
Rather than quell the crowd, urge peaceful demonstration, or promise to carry on the fight over the 
years to come, the overwhelming thrust of President Trump’s remarks—delivered to an armed, 
angry crowd widely known to be prepared for violence on his behalf—was a militaristic demand that 
they must fight to stop what was occurring in the Capitol at that very moment. 
President Trump ended his speech by again imploring supporters to march to the Capitol, 
shouting, “So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue!”83 Although President Trump ducked out and 
79 Id.
80 Ryan Goodman & Justin Hendrix, “Fight for Trump”: Video Evidence of Incitement at the Capitol, Just Security (Jan. 
25, 2021).81 Watch LIVE: Save America March at The Ellipse featuring President @realDonaldTrump, RSBN TV (Jan. 6, 2020). 82 Julia Jacobo, This Is What Trump Told Supporters before Many Stormed Capitol Hill, ABC News (Jan. 7, 2021). 83 Id. 

22
returned to the White House to watch the day’s events on television—and to lobby allies to stall the 
Joint Session—thousands of people, many of them armed, marched on the Capitol as he instructed.
E. Insurrectionists Incited by President Trump Attack the Capitol 
Provoked and incited by President Trump, who told them to “fight like hell,” hundreds of 
insurrectionists arrived at the Capitol and launched an assault on the building—a seditious, deadly 
attack against the Legislative Branch and the Vice President without parallel in American history. 
In short order, President Trump’s mob crashed through security barriers that had been set 
up around the Capitol perimeter, tore down scaffolding, and bludgeoned law enforcement personnel 
guarding the building.84 Rioters wearing Trump paraphernalia shoved and punched Capitol Police 
officers, gouged their eyes, assaulted them with pepper spray and projectiles, and denounced them as 
“cowards” and “traitors.”85 Rioters attacked law enforcement personnel with weapons they had 
brought with them or stolen from the police: sledgehammers, baseball bats, hockey sticks, crutches, 
flagpoles, police shields, and fire extinguishers.86 They tore off officers’ helmets, beat them with 
batons, and deployed chemical irritants including bear spray, a chemical irritant similar to tear gas, 
designed to be used by hunters to fend off bear attacks.
87 Some attackers wore gas masks and 
bulletproof vests; many carried firearms—indeed, at least six handguns were recovered after the 
84 Lauren Leatherby et al., How a Presidential Rally Turned Into a Capitol Rampage, N.Y. Times (Jan. 12, 2021). 85 Marc Fisher et al., The Four-Hour Insurrection, Wash. Post (Jan. 7, 2021). 86 Evan Hill et al., They Got a Officer!’: How a Mob Dragged and Beat Police at the Capitol, N.Y. Times (Jan. 11, 2021); 
Peter Hermann, ‘We Got to Hold This Door’, Wash. Post (Jan. 14, 2021). 87 Id.; Peter Hermann, ‘We Got to Hold This Door’, Wash. Post (Jan. 14, 2021); Lauren Leatherby et al., How a 
Presidential Rally Turned Into a Capitol Rampage, N.Y. Times (Jan. 12, 2021); Rich Schapiro, Stun Guns, ‘Stinger Whips’ and a 
Crossbow: What Police Found on the Capitol Protesters, NBC News (Jan. 13, 2021). 

23
insurrection88—while others carried knives, brass knuckles, a noose, and other deadly weapons.89 
One officer attempting to guard the Capitol described the attack as a “medieval battle scene.”90 
After storming through the barricades surrounding the building, rioters laid siege to the 
Capitol itself. One rioter screamed, “What are we waiting for? We already voted and what have 
they done? They stole it! We want our fucking country back! Let’s take it!”91 Some in the mob 
scaled walls to reach the Capitol, while others climbed makeshift ladders and still others clambered 
over one another to get inside.92 The mob physically overwhelmed law enforcement personnel 
guarding the entrances to the building and smashed through windows to gain access.
93 Police put
their own lives at risk to defend the Capitol, but they were overcome by a crush of insurrectionists.
The mob breached the Capitol on the Senate side first, after the Joint Session had separated 
for each Chamber to consider an objection to Arizona’s Electoral College votes.94 Senators were in 
the midst of debate when rioters stormed into the building.95 Secret Service agents swiftly rushed 
Vice President Pence out of the Senate and evacuated him and his family to elsewhere in the Capitol 
complex, avoiding a potentially deadly encounter.96 A Capitol Police officer shrewdly and heroically 
led a violent crowd away from the entrance to the Senate Chamber, narrowly preventing a swarm of 
88 See, e.g., Officer Dallan Haynes Statement of Facts, at 2 (Jan. 7, 2021); DC Police Department 
(@DCPoliceDept), Twitter (Jan. 7, 2021, 1:52 PM). 89 Officer Christopher Frank Affidavit, at 1 (Jan. 6, 2021), https://perma.cc/YN87-BDKH; Officer Alexandria 
Sims Affidavit, at 1 (Jan. 7, 2021), https://perma.cc/392C-CGPC; Special Agent Lawrence Anyaso Affidavit, at 1 (Jan. 7, 
2021), https://perma.cc/M3GZ-WSVM; Luke Mogelson, Among the Insurrectionists, The New Yorker (Jan. 15, 2021). 90 Peter Hermann, ‘We Got to Hold This Door’, Wash. Post (Jan. 14, 2021). 91 Ryan Goodman & Justin Hendrix, “Fight for Trump”: Video Evidence of Incitement at the Capitol, Just Security (Jan. 
25, 2021).92 Marc Fisher et al., The Four-Hour Insurrection, Wash. Post (Jan. 7, 2021). 93 Id. 94 Lauren Leatherby & Anjali Singhvi, Critical Moments in the Capitol Siege, N.Y. Times (Jan. 15, 2021). 95 Lauren Leatherby et al., How a Presidential Rally Turned Into a Capitol Rampage, N.Y. Times (Jan. 12, 2021). 96 Ashley Parker et al., How the Rioters Who Stormed the Capitol Came Dangerously Close to Pence, Wash. Post (Jan. 15, 
2021). 

24
insurrectionists from overcoming Senators who remained just feet away.97 After that, the violent 
mob inside the Capitol embarked on a deadly mission. 
Videos of the events show that dozens of the insurrectionists specifically hunted Vice 
President Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi—the first and second in the line of Presidential 
succession, respectively. “Once we found out Pence turned on us and that they had stolen the 
election, like, officially, the crowd went crazy,” said one rioter. “I mean, it became a mob.”98 
Rioters chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!” 99 Another shouted, “Mike Pence, we’re coming for you … 
fucking traitor!”100 Others shouted, “Tell Pelosi we’re coming for that bitch.”101 One rioter said 
that he and other rioters “kicked in Nancy Pelosi’s office door” and that “Crazy Nancy probably 
would have been torn into little pieces but she was nowhere to be seen.”102
The insurrectionists also menaced Members of Congress, their staffs, their families, and 
Capitol personnel. Senators were evacuated from their Chamber, scrambling quickly just as the mob 
massed nearby.
103 Rioters ultimately overpowered Capitol Police throughout the complex, forcing 
them to retreat closer and closer to where Members had sought safety. In the House, terrified 
Members were trapped in the Chamber; they prayed and tried to build makeshift defenses while 
97 Id.; Rebecca Tan, A Black Officer Faced Down a Mostly White Mob at the Capitol. Meet Eugene Goodman, Wash. Post 
(Jan. 14, 2021). 98 Ashley Parker et al., How the Rioters Who Stormed the Capitol Came Dangerously Close to Pence, Wash. Post (Jan. 15, 
2021). 99 Peter Baker et al., Pence Reached His Limit with Trump. It Wasn’t Pretty, N.Y. Times (Jan. 12, 2021). 100 Ryan Goodman & Justin Hendrix, “Fight for Trump”: Video Evidence of Incitement at the Capitol, Just Security 
(Jan. 25, 2021). 101 Matthew S. Schwartz, As Inauguration Nears, Concern Of More Violence Grows, NPR (Jan. 9, 2021). 102 David K. Li & Ali Gostanian, Georgia Lawyer Said He Kicked in Pelosi’s Door, She Could’ve Been ‘Torn into Little 
Pieces’, NBC News (Jan. 19, 2021). 103 Marc Fisher et al., The Four-Hour Insurrection, Wash. Post (Jan. 7, 2021). 

25
rioters smashed the entryway.
104 Capitol Police dragged furniture to barricade the House Chamber 
doors against the mob attempting to break in; they then drew their guns to guard the doors.
105 
Instructed to put on gas masks to protect against chemical agents, some Members called loved ones 
for fear that they would not survive the assault by President Trump’s insurrectionist mob.106
As Members on the House floor evacuated through the Speaker’s Lobby, rioters saw them 
and attempted to break through the barricaded glass door, which Capitol Police protected with their 
guns drawn. The officer at the door shot one woman attempting to break through, merely ten yards 
from the path where Members were being evacuated to safety from the House floor. Meanwhile, 
Members of Congress, press, and staff remained trapped in the Gallery, one floor up and fearing for 
their lives. When gunshots were heard outside the House Chamber, police screamed, “Get down! 
Get down!” and Members in the Gallery crawled to shelter behind chairs.107 
Members and staff who were not on the House floor at the time of the siege were also in 
danger. Many barricaded themselves in their offices. Speaker Pelosi’s staff hid under a table with 
the lights turned off for hours while they could hear rioters outside in the Speaker’s office.
108 One 
Member asked his chief of staff to protect his visiting daughter and son-in-law “with her life”—
which she did by standing guard at the door clutching a fire iron while his family hid under a table.109
104 Lauren Leatherby et al., How a Presidential Rally Turned Into a Capitol Rampage, N.Y. Times (Jan. 12, 2021); CBS 
News, Video Shows Members of Congress Taking Cover in House Gallery (Jan. 6, 2021); Haley Britzky, This Army Ranger-Turned￾Congressman Was Last Out of the House Chamber During the Capitol Riots, Task and Purpose (Jan. 7, 2021). 105 CNN, Lawmaker Describes Moment Captured in Dramatic Photo, YouTube (Jan. 6, 2021). 106 Rep. Dan Killdee (@RepDanKildee), Twitter, (Jan. 6, 2021, 2:52 PM); Rose Minutaglio, Rep. Susan Wild On 
The ‘Sheer Panic’ She Felt In That Viral Photo, Elle (Jan. 7, 2021). 107 Rose Minutaglio, Rep. Susan Wild On The ‘Sheer Panic’ She Felt In That Viral Photo, Elle (Jan. 7, 2021). 108 Christina Zhao, Pelosi Gets Emotional Talking About Her Staffers Hiding Under Desks Amid Capitol Riot, 
Newsweek (Jan. 10, 2021). 109 John Hendrickson, Jamie Raskin Lost His Son. Then He Fled a Mob, The Atlantic (Jan. 8, 2021). 

26
Once inside, insurrectionists desecrated and vandalized the Capitol. They ransacked 
Congressional Leadership offices—breaking windows and furniture, and stealing electronics and 
other sensitive material.110 They left bullet marks in the walls, looted art, smeared feces in hallways, 
and destroyed monuments, including a commemorative display honoring the late Representative 
John Lewis.111 Many rioters carried Trump flags and signs, while others wore the insignia of fringe 
militias and extremists such as the Proud Boys and neo-Nazis, including a shirt emblazoned with the
slogan, “Camp Auschwitz.”112 One insurrectionist paraded the Confederate battle flag through the 
Capitol halls—an act that thousands of troops gave their lives to prevent during the Civil War.113 
Shortly after Senators had been evacuated from the Senate Chamber, insurrectionists entered 
it and rummaged through Senators’ desks, taking photos of private notes and letters.114 One of them 
shouted “Trump won that election!” on the Senate dais where Vice President Pence had presided.
115 
Another rioter climbed onto the dais, announcing that “I’m gonna take a seat in this chair, because 
Mike Pence is a fucking traitor.”116 He left a note on the Vice President’s desk stating, “ITS ONLY 
110 Natasha Bertrand, Justice Department Warns of National Security Fallout from Capitol Hill Insurrection, Politico (Jan. 
7, 2021); Wilson Wong, Shattered Glass, Ransacked Offices: Images of Damage at U.S. Capitol Left by Pro-Trump Mob, NBC 
News (Jan. 7, 2021). 111 See Chris Sommerfeldt, Pro-Trump Rioters Smeared Poop in U.S. Capitol Hallways During Belligerent Attack, N.Y. 
Daily News (Jan. 7, 2021); The Hill (@thehill), Twitter (Jan. 7, 2021, 1:16 PM); Sarah Bahr, Curators Scour Capitol for 
Damage to the Building or Its Art, N.Y. Times (Jan. 7, 2021); Lauren Egan, Capitol Reels from Damage and Destruction Left by 
Violent Rioters, NBC News (Jan. 7, 2021). 112 Here Are Some of the People Charged since a Mob Breached the Capitol, Wash. Post (Jan. 15, 2021); Elana Schor, 
Anti-Semitism Seen in Capitol Insurrection Raises Alarms, Associated Press (Jan. 13, 2021); Special Agent Affidavit, at 13 (Jan. 
15, 2021), https://www.justice.gov/opa/page/file/1355921/download. 113 Id.; Julia Jacobo, A Visual Timeline on How the Attack on Capitol Hill Unfolded, ABC News (Jan. 10, 2021). 114 Id.; Lauren Leatherby & Anjali Singhvi, Critical Moments in the Capitol Siege, N.Y. Times (Jan. 15, 2021); Luke 
Mogelson, Among the Insurrectionists, The New Yorker (Jan. 15, 2021). 115 Igor Bobic (@igorbobic), Twitter (Jan. 6, 2021, 2:47 PM). 116 Luke Mogelson, Among the Insurrectionists, The New Yorker (Jan 15. 2021). 

27
A MATTER OF TIME / JUSTICE IS COMING.”117 Some insurrectionists carried zip ties that 
could be used as handcuffs—apparently in anticipation of taking hostages.
118 
Meanwhile, the mob outside the building continued to attack the police and wreak havoc. 
Some erected a gallows directly outside of the Capitol.119 Others disabled police vehicles, and still 
others left threatening messages for Members of Congress.120 In a nearby pickup truck belonging to 
a Trump supporter who had driven to Washington for the day’s events, police discovered materials 
for making napalm-like explosives, a rifle, a shotgun, three pistols, five types of ammunition, a 
crossbow, several machetes, a stun gun, and smoke devices.121 Police found two other explosive 
devices near the Capitol, outside the offices of the Republican National Committee and the 
Democratic National Committee.122 Law enforcement is currently seeking more information on a 
hooded figure captured on camera transporting the suspected pipe bombs.
123
Provoked by President Trump’s statements at the rally, many insurrectionists who assaulted 
the Capitol proudly proclaimed that they were doing President Trump’s bidding. One told police 
officers that he came as part of a group of “patriots” “at the request of the President.”124 In a 
livestreamed video from inside the Capitol, another declared that “[o]ur president wants us here. 
117 Id. 118 Alexander Mallin & Ivan Pereira, Capitol Riot Suspects Who Allegedly Brought Zip Ties, Wore Tactical Gear Arrested, 
ABC News (Jan. 11, 2021). 119 Azi Paybarah & Brent Lewis, Stunning Images as a Mob Storms the U.S. Capitol, N.Y. Times (Jan. 6, 2021). 120 Id. 121 Here Are Some of the People Charged Since a Mob Breached the Capitol, Wash. Post (Jan. 15, 2021). 122 Michael Balsamo, Discovery of Pipe Bombs in DC Obscured by Riot at Capitol, Associated Press (Jan. 11, 2021). 123 See DC Police Department (@DCPoliceDept), Twitter (Jan. 8, 2021, 10:52 AM). 124 Special Agent James Soltes Affidavit, at 3 (Jan. 8, 2021). 

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… We wait and take orders from our president.”125 Yet another rioter yelled at police officers,
“[w]e were invited here … by the President of the United States!”126 
After the insurrection, one participant who broke into the Capitol wearing combat gear and 
carrying zip ties stated that he acted because “[t]he President asked for his supporters to be there to 
attend, and I felt like it was important, because of how much I love this country, to actually be 
there.”127 Another asserted, “I thought I was following my President. … He asked us to fly there, he 
asked us to be there, so I was doing what he asked us to do.”128 She explained that she believed 
that she had “answered the call of [her] president,” echoing the views of other participants.129 
Subsequent reporting revealed that far-right groups had rallied members to attend the event based 
upon “the green light from the President.”130
The insurrectionists killed a Capitol Police officer by striking him in the head with a fire 
extinguisher.131 They injured over 140 police officers, including at least 81 U.S. Capitol Police 
officers and 65 members of the Metropolitan Police Department, with many requiring 
hospitalization and significant medical treatment.132 One suffered an apparent heart attack after he 
was hit six times with a stun gun; another lost part of a finger.133 To cite just a few of the many
125 Dan Barry et al., ‘Our President Wants Us Here’: The Mob That Stormed the Capitol, N.Y. Times (Jan. 9, 2021). 126 See Philip Bump, A House Republican Wanted Proof of Incitement. Here Are Four Rioters Who Came to D.C. Because 
of Trump, Wash. Post (Jan. 13, 2021).
127 Here Are Some of the People Charged since a Mob Breached the Capitol, Wash. Post (Jan. 15, 2021). 128 David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud), Twitter (Jan. 15, 2021, 8:30 PM). 129 Alan Feurer & Nicole Hong, ‘I Answered the Call of My President’: Rioters Say Trump Urged Them On, N.Y. Times 
(Jan. 17, 2021). 130 Georgia Wells et al., Proud Boys, Seizing Trump’s Call to Washington, Helped Lead Capitol Attack, Wall Street J. 
(Jan. 17, 2021); Aruna Viswanatha & Sadie Gurman, Far-Right Affiliations Seen among Those Recently Charged in Capitol Riot, 
Wall Street J. (Jan. 17, 2021). 131 Marc Santora et al., Capitol Police Officer Dies from Injuries in Pro-Trump Rampage, N.Y. Times (Jan. 8, 2021). 132 Peter Hermann & Julie Zauzmer, Beaten, Sprayed with Mace and Hit with Stun Guns: Police Describe Injuries to 
Dozens of Officers during Assault on U.S. Capitol, Wash. Post (Jan. 11, 2021); Special Agent Michael Palian Affidavit, at 5 
(Jan. 19, 2021); Tom Jackman, Police Union Says 140 Officers Injured in Capitol Riot, Wash. Post (Jan. 27, 2021). 133 Peter Hermann & Julie Zauzmer, Beaten, Sprayed with Mace and Hit with Stun Guns: Police Describe Injuries to 
Dozens of Officers during Assault on U.S. Capitol, Wash. Post (Jan. 11, 2021).  

29
incidents of violence captured on video: multiple officers were dragged down a flight of stairs and 
beaten with metal pipes and an American flag pole; another was bludgeoned with a hockey stick; 
another was crushed as he attempted to guard a door to the Capitol.134 Rioters shouted as they 
surrounded one fallen officer: “We got one!” Others urged, “Kill him with his own gun!”135 Four 
rioters died during the attack.136 
It took more than three hours to secure the Capitol after the insurrectionists invaded the 
building.
137 Another three hours passed before the Joint Session could resume.138 The rioters tried 
but—as Majority Leader McConnell noted—ultimately failed to prevent Vice President Pence and 
Congress from carrying out their constitutional responsibility to count the Electoral College votes.
139 
At approximately 4 AM, President Biden was confirmed as the winner of the 2020 election.140
F. President Trump’s Dereliction of Duty During the Attack
As armed insurrectionists breached the Capitol—and as Vice President Pence, the Congress, 
and the Capitol Police feared for their lives—President Trump was described by those around him 
as “borderline enthusiastic because it meant the certification was being derailed.”141 Senior 
administration officials described President Trump as “delighted” and reported that he was “walking 
around the White House confused about why other people on his team weren’t as excited as he was 
134 Id.; Evan Hill et al., They Got a Officer!’: How a Mob Dragged and Beat Police at the Capitol, N.Y. Times (Jan. 11, 
2021); Katie Shepherd, Video Shows Capitol Mob Dragging Police Officer Down Stairs. One Rioter Beat the Officer with a Pole Flying 
the U.S. Flag, Wash. Post (Jan. 11, 2021); Peter Hermann, ‘We Got to Hold This Door’, Wash. Post (Jan. 14, 2021); Pierre 
Thomas et al., “Like a Medieval Battle Scene”: Officers Recount Being Attacked by Capitol Mob, ABC News (Jan. 15, 2021). 135 Peter Hermann, ‘We Got to Hold This Door’, Wash. Post (Jan. 14, 2021). 136 Jack Healy, These Are the Five People Who Died in the Capitol Riot, New York Times (Jan. 11, 2021). 137 Shelly Tan et al., How One of America’s Ugliest Days Unraveled Inside and Outside the Capitol, Wash. Post (Jan. 9, 
2021). 138 Id. 139 Matthew Choi, “They Failed”: McConnell Condemns Rioters Who Stormed the Capitol, Politico (Jan. 6, 2021). 140 Shelly Tan et al., How One of America’s Ugliest Days Unraveled Inside and Outside the Capitol, Wash. Post (Jan. 9, 
2021). 141 Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins), Twitter (Jan. 6, 2021, 10:34 PM). 

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as you had rioters pushing against Capitol Police trying to get into the building.”142 These feelings 
were reflected in President Trump’s actions (and inactions) over the following hours, which reveal
an extraordinary, unprecedented repudiation of the President’s duties to protect the government. 
At 1:49 PM, after insurrectionists had overcome the Capitol perimeter—and after reports of 
pipe bombs had been confirmed—President Trump retweeted a video of his speech at the rally, 
which included his message that “Our country has had enough, we will not take it anymore, and 
that’s what this is all about. … You have to be strong.”143 Just over thirty minutes later, at 2:24 PM, 
while rioters were still attacking police and after Vice President Pence had been evacuated from the 
Senate floor, President Trump again tweeted to excoriate the Vice President for refusing to obstruct 
the Joint Session: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to 
protect our Country and our Constitution.”144 President Trump thus singled out Vice President 
Pence for direct criticism at the very same time the Vice President and his family were hiding from a 
violent mob provoked by President Trump. As one rioter explained, the mob “went crazy” after 
learning that “Pence turned on us and that they had stolen the election.”145
As the assault continued, President Trump continued his efforts to prevent the Joint Session 
from affirming the election results. After Senators had been evacuated from the Senate Chamber, 
President Trump called Senator Mike Lee—apparently trying to reach Senator Tommy Tuberville—
not to check on his safety, or assess the security threat, but to try to persuade him to delay and 
142 Andrew Prokop, Republican Senator: White House Aides Say Trump Was “Delighted” as Capitol Was Stormed, Vox 
(Jan. 8, 2021). 143 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Jan. 6, 2021, 1:49:54 PM). 144 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Jan. 6, 2021, 2:24 PM). 145 Ashley Parker et al., How the Rioters Who Stormed the Capitol Came Dangerously Close to Pence, Wash. Post (Jan. 15, 
2021). 

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further obstruct the Electoral College vote count.146 In fact, there is no evidence that President 
Trump called Vice President Pence, Speaker Pelosi or Senator Chuck Grassley—the first three in the 
line of succession—or anyone else in the Capitol to check on their safety during the attack. 
Recognizing President Trump’s singular responsibility for the assault, as well as his unique 
ability to both provoke and quell the riotous mob, Members of the House and Senate from both 
parties urged the President to intervene.
147 This occurred both publicly and privately. House 
Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy confirmed that he had “talked to the President” on the telephone 
and said: “I think we need to make a statement. Make sure that we can calm individuals down.”148 
Republican Representative Mike Gallagher tweeted, “Mr. President. You have got to stop this. You 
are the only person who can call this off.”149 Mick Mulvaney, the President’s former Acting Chief of 
Staff, tweeted that President Trump “can stop this now and needs to do exactly that. Tell these 
folks to go home.”150 Even the President’s own Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, was prompted to 
speak to him after aides bluntly insisted on it: “They are going to kill people.”151
But the President did not take any action at all in response to the attack until 2:38 PM, when 
he issued his first tweet, and 3:13 PM, when he issued a second. These tweets told his followers to 
“support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement … Stay peaceful!”152 and “ask[ed] everyone at the 
146 Sunlen Serfaty et al., As Riot Raged at Capitol, Trump Tried to Call Senators to Overturn Election, CNN (Jan. 8, 
2021). 147 See e.g., Ashley Parker et al., Six Hours of Paralysis: Inside Trump’s Failure to Act after a Mob Stormed the Capitol, 
Wash. Post (Jan. 11, 2021); Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi), Twitter (Jan. 6, 2021, 3:55 PM). 148 Associated Press, Trump Doesn’t Ask Backers to Disperse after Storming Capitol, PBS (Jan. 6, 2021); see also Chris 
Christie says Trump Should Tell Protesters to Leave Capitol, ABC News (Jan. 6, 2021). 149 Editorial, Mike Gallagher Is Right: ‘Call It Off, Mr. President’, Wisconsin State Journal (Jan. 6, 2021). 150 Mick Mulvaney (@MickMulvaney), Twitter (Jan. 6, 2021, 3:01 PM). 151 Ashley Parker et al., Six Hours of Paralysis: Inside Trump’s Failure to Act after a Mob Stormed the Capitol, Wash. 
Post (Jan. 11, 2021). 152 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Jan. 6, 2021, 2:38 PM). 

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U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order.”153 
These tweets were, obviously, totally ineffectual at stopping the violence. And they did not reflect 
any substantial effort on the part of the President of the United States to protect the Congress. 
During this time, not only did President Trump fail to issue unequivocal statements ordering 
the insurrectionists to leave the Capitol; he also failed in his duties as Commander in Chief by not 
immediately taking action to protect Congress and the Capitol. This failure occurred despite 
multiple members of Congress, from both parties, including on national television, vehemently 
urging President Trump to take immediate action.
The next action that President Trump took—while the violence persisted and escalated—
occurred more than three hours from the start of the siege. At this point, he released a scripted 
video that included a call for “peace” and “law and order,” and instructed his followers, “you have 
to go home now.”154 But even in that video, President Trump continued to provoke violence, telling 
his supporters—who were at that very moment committing violence inside the Capitol and terrorizing 
Members of Congress—that the election was “stolen from us.”155 He added that “[i]t was a 
landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side.” He concluded by telling the 
violent insurrectionists: “We love you, you’re very special. … I know how you feel. But go 
home and go home in peace.”156
153 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Jan. 6, 2021, 3:13 PM). 154 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Jan. 6, 2021, 4:17 PM); President Trump Video Statement on 
Capitol Protestors, C-SPAN (Jan. 6, 2021). 155 Id. 156 Id.; see also Tony Keith, Twitter ‘Locks’ President Trump for 12 Hours Wednesday Evening, KKTV (Jan. 6, 2021). 

33
The violence he had provoked unsurprisingly continued after President Trump released this 
video.
157 In the early evening, after the Capitol had finally been secured and the scope of the 
devastation was clear, President Trump sent another tweet. But rather than forcefully denounce the 
violence and express concern for the safety of law enforcement personnel and Members of 
Congress, he again validated the insurrection, reiterated his falsehoods about the election, and 
lionized the rioters as patriots: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred 
landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great 
patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. 
Remember this day forever!”158
Like his predecessors, President Trump swore an oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the 
Constitution of the United States.” But on January 6, after inciting violence against the Congress to 
block certification of the election results, President Trump failed to honor that oath. And he 
concluded the day not by apologizing, or by repudiating the insurrectionists, but instead by 
embracing them and lending the imprimatur of the Presidency to their acts of domestic violence. 
Since the events of January 6, President Trump has shown no remorse for his role in 
provoking an attack on our seat of government. To the contrary, he insisted to reporters days later 
that his speech prior to the insurrection had been “totally appropriate.”159 Despite repeated 
157 Evan Hill & Arielle Ray, Body Camera Footage Shows Capitol Rioters Trampling Over Woman, N.Y. Times (Jan. 28, 
2021). 158 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Jan. 6, 2021, 6:01 PM). 159 Kevin Liptak & Betsy Klein, Defiant Trump Denounces Violence but Takes No Responsibility for Inciting Deadly Riot,
CNN (Jan. 12, 2021). 

34
entreaties, it took him three days to order the flag of the United States to be flown at half-staff to 
commemorate the death of a Capitol Police Officer who had been killed by insurrectionists.160
President Trump’s conduct on and after January 6 exacerbated the continuing threat of 
violence following the assault on the Capitol. As a result, the federal and state governments had to 
take unprecedented measures to ensure security in Washington. The states sent 25,000 National 
Guard troops to protect the inauguration of an incoming President from potential violence incited 
by the outgoing President.161 In addition, state capitols across the Nation shut their doors and took 
extreme security measures during the days leading up to the inauguration for fear of further violence 
in support of President Trump.162 As the Director of the FBI stated, there was a major “potential 
for violence at multiple protests and rallies” both in Washington and at state capitols around the 
country “that could bring armed individuals within close proximity to government buildings and 
officials.”163 Ultimately, President Trump announced he would not attend the inauguration of 
President Biden.164 He never issued any statement condemning threatened attacks on the 
inauguration or repudiating violence against the lawful government of the United States of America
G. The House Approves An Article of Impeachment with Bipartisan Support 
In light of the crisis that President Trump created and the overwhelming public evidence of 
his guilt, the House acted quickly to impeach him.165 Five days after the assault on the Capitol, an 
article of impeachment for incitement of insurrection was introduced in the House and referred to 
160 David Choi, Trump Lowers the White House Flag after Pressure from Both Republicans and Democrats, Business 
Insider (Jan. 10, 2021). 161 Emily Davies et al., With Mall, Bridges and Streets Closed in D.C., the Nation Prepares for a Celebration of Democracy 
Mostly Devoid of its Citizens, Wash. Post (Jan. 15, 2021), https://perma.cc/FR4Y-6G7N. 162 Associated Press, State Capitols Boarded Up, Fenced Off, Patrolled by Troops, KNAU (Jan. 18, 2021). 163 Press Release, FBI, FBI Director Christopher Wray’s Remarks at Briefing on Inauguration Security (Jan. 15, 2021). 164 Kaitlin Collins & Kevin Liptak, Trump Tweets He is Skipping Biden’s Inauguration, CNN (Jan. 8, 2021). 165 H. Res. 24, 117th Cong. (Jan. 11, 2021).  

35
the House Committee on the Judiciary. The following day, the House Committee on Rules 
convened a hearing to take testimony on the impeachment resolution.
166 During this hearing, the 
Chairman of the Judiciary Committee submitted a 50-page report documenting the Committee’s 
findings in support of impeachment.167 At the conclusion of this hearing, the Rules Committee 
adopted by a recorded vote a special rule providing for House debate on the resolution.168 
One day later—January 13, 2021—the House voted to impeach President Trump with 
bipartisan support on charges that he incited an insurrection. The article of impeachment was 
adopted with the support of 232 House Members, including every Democrat and ten Republicans.169 
The House acted with urgency because President Trump’s rhetoric and conduct before, during, and 
after the riot made clear that he was a menace to the Nation’s security and democratic system. 
Moreover, President Trump never disputed the facts that gave rise to his impeachment, which were 
captured on recordings. Instead he merely stated publicly that what he did was appropriate.
Several Republican Members of the House issued statements explaining their decision to 
vote for impeachment. For example, Representative John Katko explained:
It cannot be ignored that President Trump encouraged this insurrection—both on 
social media ahead of January 6th, and in his speech that day. By deliberately 
promoting baseless theories suggesting the election was somehow stolen, the 
president created a combustible environment of misinformation, disenfranchisement, 
and division. When this manifested in violent acts on January 6th, he refused to 
promptly and forcefully call it off, putting countless lives in danger.170 
166 House Rules Committee Debate on Resolution to Remove President Trump From Office, C-SPAN (Jan. 12, 2021). 167 House Judiciary Committee Majority Staff Report: Materials in Support of H. Res. 24, Impeaching Donald John Trump, 
President of the United States, for High Crimes and Misdemeanors, 117th Cong (Jan. 12, 2021). 168 U.S. House Committee on Rules, Report on Providing for Consideration of the Resolution (H. Res. 24, Impeaching 
Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for High Crimes and Misdemeanors), H. Rept. 117-2, 117th Cong. (Jan. 12, 
2021). 169 Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, Roll Call 17, H. Res. 24 (Jan. 13, 2021. 170 Press Release, Representative John Katko, Statement from Rep. Katko on Articles of Impeachment (Jan. 12, 
2021). 

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Representative Tom Rice stated:
It has been a week since so many were injured, the United States Capitol was 
ransacked, and six people were killed, including two police officers. Yet, the 
President has not addressed the nation to ask for calm. He has not visited the 
injured and grieving. He has not offered condolences. Yesterday in a press briefing 
at the border, he said his comments were “perfectly appropriate.”171
Representative Adam Kinzinger similarly explained: “There is no doubt in my mind that the 
President of the United States broke his oath of office and incited this insurrection. He used 
his position in the Executive to attack the Legislative.”172 Representative Liz Cheney put the 
point simply when she recognized that “[t]here has never been a greater betrayal by a 
President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”173
ARGUMENT
I. President Trump Committed High Crimes and Misdemeanors 
A President is subject to impeachment, conviction, and disqualification from future federal 
officeholding if he commits high crimes and misdemeanors. President Trump’s incitement of 
insurrection meets that standard.174 His conduct endangered the foundation of our government. 
171 Press Release, Representative Tom Rice, Rep. Tom Rice Votes to Impeach President Trump (Jan. 13, 2021). 172 Press Release, Representative Adam Kinzinger, Congressman Kinzinger Statement on Impeachment (Jan. 
12, 2012).173 Press Release, Representative Liz Cheney, I Will Vote To Impeach The President (Jan. 12, 2021). 174 See Dan McLaughlin, Convict and Disqualify Trump, National Review (Jan. 15, 2021); David Post, A Senatorial 
Impeachment Two-Step?, The Volokh Conspiracy (Jan. 13, 2021); Gene Healy, Only Impeachment is Censure Enough, CATO 
Institute (Jan 13. 2021); Eric Posner, The Effort to Disqualify Trump is Worth It, Project Syndicate (Jan. 12, 2021); ACLU 
Again Calls for Impeachment of President Trump, ACLU Press Release (Jan. 10, 2021); Frank O. Bowman, III, The Constitutional 
Case for Impeaching Donald Trump (Again), Just Security (Jan. 9, 2021); Jeannie Suk Gerson, The Case For Removing Donald 
Trump, New Yorker (Jan. 9, 2021); Michael Stokes Paulsen, The Constitutional and Moral Imperative of Immediate Impeachment, 
The Bulwark (Jan. 8, 2021); Jonathan H. Adler, Yes, Congress May Impeach and Remove President Trump for Inciting Lawless Behavior 
at the Capitol, The Volokh Conspiracy (Jan. 8, 2021); Noah Feldman, I Testified at Trump’s Last Impeachment. Impeach Him 
Again., Bloomberg (Jan. 7, 2021); Steven G. Calabresi & Norman Eisen, We Disagree on a Lot. But We Both Think Trump 
Should Be Convicted, N.Y. Times (Jan. 13, 2021); David Landau and Rosalind Dixon, The 25th Amendment Can Remove Trump, 
but We Shouldn’t Stop There, N. Y. Times (Jan. 7, 2021); Stanford Law’s Michael McConnell on the 25th Amendment and Trump,  

37
A. President Trump Violated His Oath of Office 
Every President swears an oath to “faithfully execute the Office of the President of the 
United States”175 and assumes the constitutional duty to “take Care that the laws be faithfully 
executed.”176 Impeachment is a safeguard against Presidents who violate that oath (and betray that 
duty) by using the powers of their office to advance their own personal political interests at the 
expense of the Nation. In particular, the Framers of the Constitution feared a President who would 
corrupt his office by sparing “no efforts or means whatever to get himself re-elected.”177
President Trump’s effort to extend his grip on power by fomenting violence against 
Congress was a profound violation of the oath he swore. If provoking an insurrectionary riot 
against a Joint Session of Congress after losing an election is not an impeachable offense, it is hard 
to imagine what would be. The Framers themselves would not have hesitated to convict on these 
facts. Their worldview was shaped by a study of classical history, as well as a lived experience of 
resistance and revolution. They were well aware of the danger posed by opportunists who incited 
mobs to violence for political gain. They drafted the Constitution to avoid such thuggery, which 
they associated with “the threat of civil disorder and the early assumption of power by a dictator.”178
James Madison thus worked “to avoid the fate of those ‘ancient and modern confederacies,’ which 
he believed had succumbed to rule by demagogues and mobs.”179 The Federalist Papers, too, strongly 
Stanford Law School (Jan. 7, 2021); Keith E. Whittington, The Conservative Case For Impeaching Trump Now, Wash. Post (Jan. 
7, 2021); David Priess & Jack Goldsmith, Can Trump Be Stopped?, Lawfare (Jan. 7, 2021); Cass Sunstein, Does the 25th 
Amendment Apply to Trump? Quite Possibly, Bloomberg (Jan. 7, 2021); John Podhoretz, Donald Trump Should Be Impeached and 
Removed from Office Tomorrow, Commentary Magazine (Jan. 6, 2021); Melissa De Witte and Sharon Driscoll, Stanford Scholars 
React to Capitol Hill Takeover, Stanford News (Jan. 6, 2021); Ilya Somin, A Qualified Defense of Impeaching Trump Again, Reason 
(Jan. 6, 2021); Will Baude, Samuel Bray & Stephen Sachs, Impeach and Remove, The Volokh Conspiracy (Jan. 6, 2021). 175 U.S. Const., Art. II, § 1, cl. 8. 176 U.S. Const., Art. II, §§ 1, 3. 177 2 The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, at 64 (Max Farrand ed., 1911) (Farrand). 178 Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution 282 (1967). 179 Jeffrey Rosen, American is Living James Madison’s Nightmare, The Atlantic (October 2018). 

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warned against aspiring tyrants who would aggrandize themselves—and threaten the Republic—by 
stirring popular fury to advance personal ambition.
180 The founding generation was familiar with 
leaders who provoked mobs for their personal gain and threatened the political order. They would 
have immediately recognized President Trump’s conduct on January 6 as an impeachable offense.
B. President Trump Attacked the Democratic Process 
The gravity of President Trump’s offense is magnified by the fact that it arose from a course 
of conduct aimed at subverting and obstructing the election results. Since President George 
Washington willingly relinquished his office after serving two terms, our Nation has seen an 
unbroken chain of peaceful transitions from one presidential administration to the next—that is, 
until January 6, 2021. President Trump’s incitement of insurrection disrupted the Joint Session of 
Congress as it performed its duty under the Twelfth Amendment to count the Electoral College 
votes.181 Although this assault was put down after several hours, and the Joint Session fulfilled its 
responsibility later that night, President Trump’s abuse of office threatened and injured our 
democratic order. Under absolutely no circumstance may a candidate for any position, at any level 
of government, respond to electoral defeat by provoking armed violence.
As evidenced by the statements of William Davie, George Mason, and Gouverneur Morris at 
the Constitutional Convention, the Framers “anticipated impeachment if a President placed his own 
interest in retaining power above the national interest in free and fair elections.”182 At a time when 
‘‘democratic self-government existed almost nowhere on earth,’’183 the Framers imagined a society 
‘‘where the true principles of representation are understood and practised, and where all authority 
180 Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers: No. 1. 181 U.S. Const. Amend. XII.; Electoral Count Act of 1887, Pub. L. 49-90, 24 Stat. 373. 182 See H. Rep. 116-346 at 52. 183 Akhil Amar, America’s Constitution: A Biography 8 (2006) 

39
flows from, and returns at stated periods to, the people.’’184 That would be possible only if ‘‘those 
entrusted with [power] should be kept in dependence on the people.’’185 Thus, “[w]hen the 
President concludes that elections threaten his continued grasp on power, and therefore seeks to 
corrupt or interfere with them, he denies the very premise of our constitutional system.”186 
President Trump placed his own political ambition above our Nation’s commitment to democracy 
and the rule of law—and for that reason his actions plainly rank as high crimes and misdemeanors. 
C. President Trump Imperiled Congress
President Trump’s conduct not only harmed democracy, but also jeopardized the safety of 
the Vice President and nearly the entire Legislative Branch, as well as the police officers protecting
the Capitol. Members of Congress and their staffs were forced to improvise barricades and hiding 
places while they awaited rescue by law enforcement. Others were trapped in the House Chamber, 
where they seized gas masks and ducked behind furniture to avoid insurrectionists. Many feared for 
their lives as armed attackers battered doors and Capitol Police drew weapons. The duration and 
severity of this threat were amplified by President Trump’s dereliction of duty during the attack. 
The Framers understood that “[t]he accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and 
judiciary, in the same hands, … may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”187 They 
wrote a Constitution that creates a system of checks and balances within the federal government. A 
President may be impeached for conduct that severely undermines this structural separation of 
powers.
188 Our constitutional system simply cannot function if the President, acting to extend his
184 See 4 Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions at 331. 185 James Madison, Federalist No. 37. 186 See H. Rep. 116-346 at 53. 187 James Madison, The Federalist Papers: No. 47. 188 See H. Rept. 116-346 at 45-46, 145-148.  

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own grasp on power against the expressed will of the people, prompts an armed attack against a co￾equal branch that prevents it from performing its core constitutional responsibilities. 
President Trump’s conduct will have other lasting effects on Congress. Before January 6, 
the Capitol was a place that the people of the United States could freely visit to see their democratic 
system at work. Since January 6, the Capitol complex has more closely resembled a fortress, ringed 
by fences with barbed wire and heavily guarded by the Capitol Police and the National Guard. The 
American people cannot now get anywhere near their Capitol. That is a sorry state of affairs for our 
Nation, one that no President should have played a role in bringing about. 
D. President Trump Undermined National Security 
A final consideration requiring President Trump’s conviction is the harm he inflicted on the 
national security of the United States. Most immediately, the insurrectionist mob had access to, and 
stole, sensitive materials and electronics—including a laptop from the office of the Speaker of the 
House.
189 The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia has stated that “electronic items” and 
other “[d]ocuments [and] materials” were “stolen from [S]enators’ offices.”190 These devices could 
be used to infiltrate federal networks.191 It has therefore been necessary to undertake a thorough
review to determine the extent of the security breach and implement appropriate remedial measures. 
The attack that President Trump provoked has also emboldened other violent extremists.192 
As government officials and outside experts have warned, it may come to be seen as a rallying point 
for further insurrection—and as a “significant driver of violence” that inspires extremists “to engage 
189 Raphael Satter, Laptop Stolen from Pelosi’s Office during Storming of U.S. Capitol, Says Aide, Reuters (Jan. 8, 2021). 190 Brian Fung, Capitol Riots Raise Urgent Concerns about Congress’s Information Security, CNN (Jan. 8, 2021). 191 Samantha Masunaga, The Attack on the Capitol May Pose a Cybersecurity Risk. Here’s How, L.A. Times (Jan. 8, 
2021). 192 Molly Hennessy-Fiske, ‘Second Revolution Begins’: Armed Right-Wing Groups Celebrate Capitol Attack, L.A. Times 
(Jan. 6, 2021). 

41
in more sporadic, lone-actor or small-cell violence” against targets including “racial, ethnic, or 
religious minorities and institutions, law enforcement, and government officials and buildings.”193 
President Trump’s conduct on January 6 brought distinct extremist groups into ad hoc coalition
with one another, which might strengthen their “willingness, capability, and motivation to attack and 
undermine” the government.194 Further, the armed insurrection has been nothing short of a 
“propaganda coup … in fueling recruitment and violence for years to come.”195 President Trump 
only made matters worse when he tweeted, in the evening, “Remember this day forever!”—a 
statement that armed extremists will indeed remember. (Sadly, it will be remembered too by the 
Members of Congress, their staffs, and the law enforcement officials who were attacked by the 
insurrectionist mob.) In all of these respects, President Trump made Americans less safe, 
particularly Americans who belong to communities targeted by right-wing extremist groups. 
Finally, President Trump’s conduct tarnished the reputation of the United States abroad. 
Images of insurrectionists sacking the seat of American democracy—stirred to action by a President
who said “we love you” during the assault—have been a propaganda bonanza for America’s 
adversaries, for whom “the sight of the U.S. Capitol shrouded in smoke and besieged by a mob 
whipped up by their unwillingly outgoing president” is “proof of the fallibility of Western 
democracy.”196 This country’s reputation as a stable democracy has sustained a heavy blow. For 
193 Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Federal Authorities Warn That the Capitol Breach Will Be a ‘Significant Driver of Violence’, 
N.Y. Times (Jan. 13, 2021). 194 Id. 195 Neil MacFarquhar et al., Capitol Attack Could Fuel Extremist Recruitment for Years, Experts Warn, N.Y. Times 
(Jan. 16, 2021). 196 Alexander Smith & Saphora Smith, U.S. Foes like China and Iran See Opportunity in the Chaos of Trump-Stoked 
Riot at Capitol, NBC News (Jan. 8, 2021). 

42
years to come, the insurrectionist attack that President Trump incited may gravely undermine 
American efforts to promote democracy, even as it emboldens authoritarian regimes. 
Since our Nation was founded, it has been well recognized that impeachment is warranted 
for “betrayal of the Nation’s interest—and especially for betrayal of national security.”197 President 
Trump’s pursuit of power at all costs is a betrayal of historic proportions. It requires his conviction. 
II. THERE IS NO DEFENSE FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP’S CONDUCT 
Every argument that may be raised in President Trump’s defense further demonstrates that 
he is a danger to our democratic system of government. 
A. Fair Impeachment Process 
President Trump incited a mob that attacked Congress during the Joint Session. The 
House’s expeditious response to this attack was both necessary and appropriate. There must be no 
doubt that Congress will act decisively in the fact of such extraordinary abuse—which threatened 
not only the peaceful transfer of power, but also the very lives of senior government officials. 
Any claim that the House moved too quickly in responding to a violent insurrection that 
President Trump incited is mistaken. The House serves as a grand jury and prosecutor under the 
Constitution. The events that form the basis for President Trump’s impeachment occurred in plain 
view. They are well known to the American people. Many Members of Congress were themselves 
witnesses to his conduct and its consequences. There is no basis on which President Trump could 
assert that what a horrified Nation saw with its own eyes, and heard with its own ears, is somehow 
“fake news.” Accordingly, in this unprecedented circumstance, the House acted squarely within its 
constitutional responsibilities in swiftly and emphatically approving an article of impeachment. 
197 H. Rept. 116-346 at 49. 

43
Here, in the Senate, is where the Constitution calls for a trial and where President Trump will have 
ample opportunity to make his case through procedures that the Senate adopts. 
For that reason, any process-based objections to this impeachment are wrong. This case 
does not involve secretive conduct, or a hidden conspiracy, requiring months or years of 
investigation. It does not raise complicated legal questions about the definition of a high crime and 
misdemeanor. And the gravity of the President’s abuse—as well as the continuing nature of the 
threat it poses to our democracy if left unanswered—demand the clearest of responses from the 
Legislative Branch. Indeed, hundreds of people have already been arrested and charged for their 
role in the events of January 6. There is no reason for Congress to delay in holding accountable the 
President who incited the violent attack, inflamed the mob even as it ransacked the Capitol, and 
failed to take charge of a swift law enforcement response because he believed such dereliction of 
duty might advance his political interest in overturning the results of an election that he lost. 
B. Criminality
The Constitution authorizes impeachment and conviction for “high Crimes and 
Misdemeanors.” As Alexander Hamilton explained in the Federalist Papers, impeachable offenses 
“are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate 
chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.”198 Therefore, whether President Trump’s 
conduct violated the criminal law is a question for prosecutors and courts; “offenses against the 
Constitution are different than offenses against the criminal code.”199 The only question here is 
198 Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers: No. 65; see H. Rept. 116-346 at 58. 199 See Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment, Report by the Majority Staff of the House 
Committee on the Judiciary, at 5 (Dec. 2019).  

44
whether President Trump committed offenses justifying conviction and disqualification from future 
officeholding. For the reasons given above, the answer to that question is indisputably “yes.”
C. Election Results
President Trump may persist in asserting that he actually won the 2020 presidential election, 
despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary—and despite the rejection of this claim by every 
court and election official to consider it. President Trump may also suggest that his abuse of office 
is somehow justified or excused by his belief that the election was “rigged.” Any such argument 
would rest upon demonstrable falsehoods about the legitimacy of the election results. 
Moreover, we live in a Nation governed by the rule of law, not mob violence incited by 
candidates who cannot accept their own defeat. President Trump was not the first Presidential 
candidate who declared himself cheated out of victory.200 Andrew Jackson, for instance, strongly 
believed that the 1824 election had been stolen from him because powerful forces refused to accept 
his candidacy on behalf of the common man. Richard Nixon believed in 1960 that he had been 
cheated out of the Presidency by widespread voter fraud in Illinois, which he thought secured John 
F. Kennedy’s victory. And in 2000, Vice President Al Gore and many of his political supporters 
thought he would have won the Presidency had all of Florida’s votes been properly counted. Yet 
despite their feelings of grievance, all of these Presidential candidates accepted the election results 
and acquiesced to the peaceful transfer of power required by the Constitution. President Trump, 
alone in our Nation’s history, did not. His belief that he won the election—regardless of its truth or 
falsity (though it is assuredly false)—is no defense at all for his abuse of office. 
200 For the discussion in this paragraph, see generally Robert Mitchell, A Presidential Election History Lesson: 
Americans Often Waited Days Or Weeks For The Outcome, Wash. Post (Nov. 4, 2020). 

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D. Free Speech 
The First Amendment exists to protect our democratic system. It supports the right to vote 
and ensures robust public debate. But rights of speech and political participation mean little if the 
President can provoke lawless action if he loses at the polls. President Trump’s incitement of deadly 
violence to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power, and to overturn the results of the election, 
was therefore a direct assault on core First Amendment principles. Holding him accountable 
through conviction on the article of impeachment would vindicate First Amendment freedoms—
which certainly offer no excuse or defense for President Trump’s destructive conduct.
Most fundamentally, the First Amendment protects private citizens from the government; it 
does not protect government officials from accountability for their own abuses in office. Therefore, 
as scholars from across the political spectrum have recognized, the First Amendment does not apply 
at all to an impeachment proceeding.
201 The question in this case is not whether to inflict liability or 
punishment on a private citizen; instead, the Senate must decide whether to safeguard the Nation’s 
constitutional order by disqualifying an official who committed egregious misconduct. As one 
scholar writes, “the First Amendment does not shrink the scope of the impeachment power or alter 
what conduct would fall within the terms of high and misdemeanors.”202 
Indeed, the notion that a President can attack our democracy, provoke violence, and 
interfere with the Electoral College so long as he does so through statements advocating such 
lawlessness would have astonished the Framers. They wrote the impeachment provisions of the 
201 See Michael C. Dorf, Free Speech, Due Process, and Other Constitutional Limits in Senate Impeachment Trials, Dorf on 
Law (Jan. 20, 2021, 7:00 AM); Keith E. Whittington, Is There A Free Speech Defense to an Impeachment?, Lawfare (Jan. 19, 
2021, 4:18 PM); Jonathan H. Adler, Yes, Congress May Impeach and Remove President Trump for Inciting Lawless Behavior at the 
Capitol, The Volokh Conspiracy (Jan. 8, 2021, 3:21 PM); Ilya Somin, The First Amendment Doesn't Protect Trump Against 
Impeachment for his Role in Inciting the Assault on the Capitol, The Volokh Conspiracy (Jan. 8, 2021, 4:17 PM); 202 See Keith E. Whittington, Is There A Free Speech Defense to an Impeachment?, Lawfare (Jan. 19, 2021, 4:18 PM). 

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Constitution to guard against any presidential conduct that constitutes a great and dangerous offense 
against the Nation—no matter the means for carrying out that malfeasance. And here, the House 
approved an article of impeachment that concerns not solely the President’s incitement, but also his
conduct preceding and following his provocation of an armed assault on the Capitol. 
Regardless, even if the First Amendment were applicable here, private citizens and 
government officials stand on very different footing when it comes to being held responsible for 
their statements. As the leader of the Nation, the President occupies a position of unique power. 
And the Supreme Court has made clear that the First Amendment does not shield public officials 
who occupy sensitive policymaking positions from adverse actions when their speech undermines 
important government interests.203 Thus, just as a President may legitimately demand the resignation 
of a Cabinet Secretary who publicly disagrees with him on a matter of policy (which President 
Trump did repeatedly), the public’s elected representatives may disqualify the President from federal 
office when they recognize that his public statements constitute a violation of his oath of office and 
a high crime against the constitutional order. No one would seriously suggest that a President 
should be immunized from impeachment if he publicly championed the adoption of totalitarian 
government, swore an oath of eternal loyalty to a foreign power, or advocated that states secede 
from and overthrow the Union—even though private citizens could be protected by the First 
Amendment for such speech.
204 By its own terms, and in light of its fundamentally democratic 
203 See Branti v. Finkel, 445 U.S. 507, 517-518 (1980); Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 366-367 (1976) (plurality). 204 See Keith E. Whittington, Is There A Free Speech Defense to an Impeachment?, Lawfare (Jan. 19, 2021, 4:18 PM)
(listing additional examples). 

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purposes, the First Amendment does not constrain Congress from removing an official whose 
expression makes him unfit to hold or ever again occupy federal office.
205
Yet even if President Trump’s acts while occupying our highest office were treated like the 
acts of a private citizen, and even if the First Amendment somehow limited Congress’s power to 
respond to presidential abuses, a First Amendment defense would still fail. Speech is not protected 
where it is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or 
produce such action.”206 Given the tense, angry, and armed mob before him, President Trump’s 
speech—in which he stated “you’ll never take back our country with weakness,” proclaimed that 
“[y]ou have to show strength,” and exhorted his supporters to “go to the Capitol” and “fight like 
Hell” immediately before they stormed the Capitol—plainly satisfies that standard. 
Separate from these legal points, President Trump may assert that this impeachment reflects 
“cancel culture” or some supposed intolerance of his right to voice objections to the election results. 
That would be a red herring. President Trump endangered the very constitutional system that 
protects all other rights, including freedom of expression. It would be perverse to suggest that our 
shared commitment to free speech requires the Senate to ignore the obvious: that President Trump 
is singularly responsible for the violence and destruction that unfolded in our seat of government on 
January 6. “It can’t be that the solemn price for protecting our civil liberties against current and 
future abuses is that the president can incite a mob bearing huge flags with his name on them to 
storm the Capitol, kill a police officer, and further, not immediately tell them to stop or, as 
205 Branti, 445 U.S. at 517, 519. Indeed, impeachment is fundamentally an employment action against a public 
official, and thus the First Amendment would not insulate the President’s statements from discipline even if it applied, 
because the government’s interest in orderly operation would outweigh the President’s speech interests. See Garcetti v. 
Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006); Connick v. Meyers, 461 U.S. 138 (1983); Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563 (1968). 206 Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969). 

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commander-in-chief, to refuse to send help . . . . [T]hat would be a sure way to make a mockery of 
the civil liberties . . . contemplated and secured by the Constitution and Bill of Rights.”207
III. THE SENATE HAS JURISDICTION TO TRY THIS IMPEACHMENT
Given the overwhelming strength of the case against him, we expect President Trump will 
seek to escape any reckoning for his constitutional offenses by asserting that the Senate lacks 
jurisdiction over him as a former official. That argument is wrong. It is also dangerous. The period 
in which we hold elections and accomplish the peaceful transfer of power is a source of great pride
in our nation. But the transition between administrations is also a precarious, fragile time for any
democracy—ours’ included. The Framers anticipated these risks and emphasized that presidential 
abuse aimed at our democratic process itself was the single most urgent basis for impeachment. It is 
unthinkable that those same Framers left us virtually defenseless against a president’s treachery in his 
final days, allowing him to misuse power, violate his Oath, and incite insurrection against Congress
and our electoral institutions simply because he is a lame duck. There is no “January Exception” to 
impeachment or any other provision of the Constitution. A president must answer comprehensively 
for his conduct in office from his first day in office through his last. Former President John Quincy 
Adams thus declared, “I hold myself, so long as I have the breath of life in my body, amenable to 
impeachment by [the] House for everything I did during the time I held any public office.”208
As the Senate itself concluded in the trial of Secretary of War William Belknap, and as nearly 
every legal expert has affirmed, President Adams had the right idea. The Constitution does not 
allow officials to escape responsibility for committing impeachable offenses by resigning when 
207 Jonathan Zittrain, Impeachment Defense, the Constitution, and Bill of Rights, Just Security (Jan. 13, 2021). 208 Cong. Globe, 29th Cong., 1st Sess. 641 (1846) (statement of Rep. Adams). 

49
caught, or by waiting until the end of their term to abuse power, or by concealing misconduct until 
their service concludes. Experts from across the ideological spectrum, including a co-founder of the 
Federalist Society and Ronald Reagan’s Solicitor General, agree that “[t]he Constitution’s text and 
structure, history, and precedent make clear that Congress’s impeachment power permits it to 
impeach, try, convict, and disqualify former officers, including former presidents.”209 Even 
Professor Jonathan Turley (who seems to have changed his long-held views on the subject less than 
a month ago) previously argued that impeaching former presidents for abuses in office is authorized 
by the Constitution and can serve as “a reaffirmation of the principle that, within this system, ‘no 
man in no circumstance, can escape the account, which he owes to the laws of his country.’”210 
It is particularly obvious that the Senate has jurisdiction here because President Trump was 
in office at the time he was impeached. There can be no doubt that the House had authority to 
impeach him at that point. So the question is not whether a former official can ever be impeached
by the House—though, as we will explain, this is indeed authorized. The only issue actually
presented is whether the Senate has jurisdiction to conduct a trial of this impeachment. And Article
I, Section 3, Clause 6 provides a straightforward answer to that question: “The Senate shall have the 
sole Power to try all Impeachments” (emphasis added). As Professor Michael McConnell, a former 
Court of Appeals judge appointed by President George W. Bush, explains: “The key word is ‘all.’ 
This clause contains no reservation or limitation. It does not say ‘the Senate has power to try 
209 See Constitutional Law Scholars on Impeaching Former Officers (Jan. 21, 2021), available at 
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000177-2646-de27-a5f7-3fe714ac0000; see also Congressional Research Service, The 
Impeachment and Trial of a Former President 1-2 (Jan. 15, 2021) (“[I]t appears that most scholars who have closely examined 
the question have concluded that Congress has authority to extend the impeachment process to officials who are no 
longer in office.”). 210 Jonathan Turley, Senate Trials and Factional Disputes: Impeachment As A Madisonian Device, 49 Duke L.J. 1, 96 
(1999); see also Jonathan Turley, The Executive Function Theory, the Hamilton Affair, and Other Constitutional Mythologies, 77 N.C. 
L. Rev. 1791, 1827 (1999). 

50
impeachments against sitting officers.’ Given that the impeachment of Mr. Trump was legitimate, 
the text makes clear that the Senate has power to try that impeachment.”211
Accordingly, the Senate should not turn aside from centuries of its own practice and 
understanding. President Trump is personally responsible for inciting an armed attack on our seat 
of government that imperiled the lives of the Vice President, Members of Congress and our families, 
and those who staff and serve the Legislative Branch. The Nation cannot simply “move on” from 
presidential incitement of insurrection. If the Senate does not try President Trump (and convict 
him) it risks declaring to all future Presidents that there will be no consequences, no accountability, 
indeed no Congressional response at all if they violate their Oath to “preserve, protect and defend 
the Constitution” in their final weeks—and instead provoke lethal violence in a lawless effort to 
retain power. That precedent would horrify the Framers, who wrote the Presidential Oath of Office 
into the Constitution and attached no January Exception to it. President Trump must therefore 
stand trial for his high crimes and misdemeanors against the American people.
A. Former Officials in England and the Early American States Were Subject to 
Impeachment and Disqualification for Abuses Committed in Office
As revolutionaries who overthrew a king, the Framers obsessed over protecting their young 
Republic from the abuse of power. Based on the history of impeachment in England and the early 
American states, they would have considered it self-evident that a former official like President 
Trump could be impeached and tried for high crimes and demeanors he had committed in office. 
211 Quoted in Eugene Volokh, Impeaching Officials While They're in Office, but Trying Them After They Leave, The 
Volokh Conspiracy (Jan. 28, 2021), https://reason.com/volokh/2021/01/28/impeaching-officials-while-theyre-in￾office-but-trying-them-after-they-leave/ 

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When the Framers gathered in Philadelphia in 1787, they did not invent the impeachment 
power from scratch. As Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist No. 65, they looked to English 
history, which provided “the model from which the idea of this institution has been borrowed.”212
The Framers were also influenced by “several of the State constitutions.”213 Id. And it was firmly 
established in both England and the early states that former officials were subject to impeachment 
for abuses in office. This was not a remotely controversial view. It was widely accepted. By vesting 
Congress with the power of “impeachment,” the Framers incorporated that history and meaning. 
Looking to the unwritten British constitution confirms that former officials were subject to 
impeachment. In fact, “Parliament impeached only two men during the 18th century, both former 
officers.”214 In 1725, former Lord Chancellor Macclesfield was impeached and convicted for acts of 
bribery committed during his tenure in office.215 And while the Framers deliberated in Philadelphia 
in 1787, they knew that Warren Hastings faced charges in Parliament arising from abuses he had 
committed as the former Governor General of Bengal.216 Those charges were championed by no 
less a figure than Edmund Burke, a great and founding figure of conservative political theory. 
Early American states followed English practice in this respect. The impeachment of former 
officials was thus “known and accepted” under early state constitutions.217 Five states—including 
Virginia and Pennsylvania—specifically authorized such impeachments.218 In some states, only
former officials (not current officials) could be impeached, which confirms the centrality of the 
212 The Federalist No. 65, at 397 (Alexander Hamilton) (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1961). 213 Id. 214 Keith Whittington, Yes, the Senate Can Try Trump, Wall Street Journal (Jan. 22, 2021). 215 See Brian C. Kalt, The Constitutional Case for the Impeachability of Former Federal Officials: An Analysis of the Law, 
History, and Practice of Late Impeachment, 6 Tex. Rev. L. & Pol. 13, 26 (2001) (hereinafter, Former Officials). 216 See id. at 26-27. 217 Id. at 27. 218 Id. at 29-31. 

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disqualification remedy to early American thinking about impeachment and the oddity of any 
suggestion that former officials can never be impeached.
219 Looking to the state constitutions that 
allowed impeachment but did not expressly address former officials confirms that impeaching 
former officials was indeed consistent with American legal traditions.220 And no state constitution 
expressly prohibited such impeachments.221 Moreover, the precept that former officials could be 
impeached was acted upon: in 1781, for instance, the Virginia General Assembly subjected Thomas 
Jefferson to an impeachment inquiry after he completed his term as governor.222 
As defined by British and early American practice, the phrase “impeachment” was thus 
understood as covering former officials. That was the rule on both sides of the Atlantic. 
Prohibiting former official impeachments would have been a marked departure from common legal 
usage and tradition—the kind of departure that we might expect to trigger heated debates and
considerable writing. But as explained below, there were no such debates and there were no such 
writings. If anything, the Framers’ deliberations confirm adherence to the tradition they inherited. 
Throughout this early period, disqualification was recognized as essential to achieving the 
core purposes of impeachment. “Especially in an age of long, varied careers, it was very significant 
that an impeachment conviction said not only ‘get out!’ but added an emphatic and irreversible ‘and 
stay out!’”223 Removal alone was not enough to protect the public from corrupt and abusive 
officials, who might later seek reelection or reappointment—and whose misconduct could create 
dangerous precedents if not decisively repudiated. Disqualification gave teeth to impeachment. The 
219 See id. 220 See id. at 34-35. 221 See id. 222 See id. at 29. 223 Id. at 73-74.  

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threat of disqualification deterred officials from abusing their power by reminding them that “their 
political existence depends upon their good behavior.”224 It allowed legislatures to convene 
inquests—and to hold public trials—that “served as a vehicle for exposing and formally condemning 
official wrongdoing, or for a former officeholder to clear his name.”225 Finally, it protected society 
from those who dishonored their offices and might do so again, whenever their abuse of power may 
have occurred or been discovered. These purposes defined the impeachment power as it was 
known to the Framers, who wrote it into the Constitution as a safeguard against presidential abuse. 
B. The Framers Adhered to the Tradition That Former Officials Were Subject to 
Impeachment, Conviction, and Disqualification for Misconduct in Office 
The records of the Constitutional Convention and a close study of the Constitution’s text 
confirm that a former official like President Trump remains subject to impeachment and trial for 
high crimes and misdemeanors. History, originalism, and textualism thus leave no doubt that the 
Senate has jurisdiction—and a constitutional duty—to decide this case on the merits.
As Justice Robert Jackson wisely observed, “the purpose of the Constitution was not only to 
grant power, but to keep it from getting out of hand.”226 Nowhere is that truer than with regard to
the presidency. As Edmund Randolph warned, “the Executive will have great opportunitys of 
abusing his power.”227 Impeachment was the Framers’ final answer to this threat. Their goal was 
not to criminally punish presidents for abuse or corruption; that they left to prosecutors and courts.
The Framers had a much greater purpose in mind: the preservation of the Republic itself. 
224 See Whittington, Yes, the Senate Can Try Trump. 225 Id. 226 Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 640 (Jackson, J., concurring). 227 2 Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, 67 (1911) 

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To achieve that purpose, the Framers vested Congress with the power to investigate, 
impeach, and convict officials for constitutional offenses. The Framers then provided two separate 
remedies, both focused on an offender’s ability to seek and exercise government power: removal 
from office and disqualification from future officeholding. As confirmed by their deliberations at 
the Constitutional Convention, as well as the text and structure of the Constitution, the Framers 
adhered to British and early state practice in authorizing impeachment for any high crimes and 
misdemeanors against the American people—whenever committed and whenever discovered. 
That is not surprising. The Framers were too savvy to make up a new rule, at odds with 
centuries of historical practice, that would allow officials to escape accountability by resigning at the 
last minute, or by waiting until near the end of their tenure in office to commit abuses, or by 
concealing misconduct until after they left public service. This would create extremely dangerous 
and perverse incentives, especially for Presidents who sought to retain power by subverting election 
results in their final days. In designing the Constitution, the Framers aimed to ensure that the 
President could never become a King; they did not leave the Nation unprotected against abuse 
surrounding the transfer of power from one administration to the next. 
To that end, the Constitution establishes a clear framework. The House has the sole power 
to impeach. The Senate has the sole power to try impeachments. These grants of jurisdiction over 
impeachment are categorical and include no statute of limitations. Any person who commits an 
extraordinary abuse of power in office may face impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors. 
If they are currently a civil officer and are convicted, they must at least be removed from office. 
And in all events, the Senate’s judgment in an impeachment case cannot extend further than 
disqualification from holding any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States. These 
rules arise directly from the history, text, and structure of the Constitution. 

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1. The Constitutional Convention 
The Framers were familiar with the history of impeachment. They understood that the 
Constitution’s references to “impeachment” incorporated centuries of prior practice. In certain very 
specific respects, they decided to vary from that history—for instance, by requiring a two-thirds 
supermajority in the Senate to convict. But nobody at the Constitutional Convention suggested 
departing from the existing practice that former officials could be impeached (and disqualified from 
future officeholding) for their abuses while in office. If anything, the opposite is true. Four aspects 
of the Framers’ deliberations signal their intent to follow historical practice.
First, in debating the standard for impeachable offenses, George Mason explicitly raised the 
ongoing case of Warren Hastings—and did so to describe when impeachment should occur. Were
anybody present at the Convention opposed to authorizing the impeachment of former officials, 
this would have been an obvious opportunity to speak up. “If Mason and the Framers knew 
anything about the Hastings case,” it was that he faced an impeachment proceeding in Parliament 
after he had left his position as Governor General of Bengal.228 Yet nobody objected. “Given the 
prominence of the Hastings’s impeachment to the framers, the absence of debate on the question at 
the federal or state ratifying conventions . . . speaks volumes.”229
Second, and highly relevant here, many Framers described efforts to overturn or corrupt 
elections as the paradigm case for impeachment. Gouverneur Morris explained that “the Executive 
ought [] to be impeachable for … Corrupting his electors.”230 William Davie favored impeachment 
228 Kalt, Former Officials, at 47. 229 Laurence H. Tribe, The Senate Can Constitutionally Hold An Impeachment Trial After Trump Leaves Office, New 
York Times (Jan. 13, 2021). 230 2 Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention, at 69. 

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for a President who spared “no efforts or means whatever to get himself re-elected.”231 And Mason 
intended impeachment for a President “who has practiced corruption & by that means procured his 
appointment in the first instance.”232 By necessity, this kind of misconduct would usually occur near 
the end of a President’s term in office.233 Given their intense focus on danger to elections and the 
peaceful transfer of power, it is inconceivable that the Framers designed impeachment to be virtually 
useless in a President’s final days, when opportunities to interfere with the peaceful transfer of 
power would be most tempting and dangerous. Moreover, it would have made no sense for the 
Framers to allow impeachment if a President succeeded in winning re-election through corrupt 
means, but to prohibit any Congressional response if his efforts to corrupt the election fell short. A 
President who tried and narrowly failed to retain power improperly could easily try again. He would 
still warrant disqualification, both to protect the nation from his future wrongdoing and as a 
deterrent to anybody else contemplating last-ditch attacks on the electoral process. 
Indeed, “a singular concern of the Framers in devising our constitutional system was the 
danger of a power-seeking populist of the type they referred to as a ‘demagogue.’”234 Madison and 
Hamilton repeatedly warned against this ancient threat to the young Republic.235 Yet “the Framers 
further understood that the source of such a person’s power does not expire if he or she is expelled 
from office; so long as such a person retains the loyalty of his or her supporters, he or she might 
return to power.”236 Accordingly, “the Framers devised the disqualification power to guard against 
231 Id. at 64. 232 Id. at 65. 233 See Jed Shugerman, An Originalist Case for Impeaching Ex-Presidents: Mason, Randolph, and Gouverneur Morris, 
Shugerblog (Jan. 16, 2021) (“[T]he Framers supported a broad impeachment process for presidential misconduct at the 
end of their terms, especially with respect to re-election abuses [and] corrupting or contesting electors . . .”). 234 Letter from Constitutional Law Scholars on Impeaching Former Officers. 235 See Jeffrey Rosen, American is Living James Madison’s Nightmare, The Atlantic (October 2018). 236 Letter from Constitutional Law Scholars on Impeaching Former Officers. 

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that possibility, and would surely disagree that a person who sought to overthrow our democracy 
could not be disqualified from holding a future office of the United States because the plot reached 
its crescendo too close to the end of his or her term.”237
Third, those who wrote and ratified the Constitution saw that impeachment was meant to 
deter abuse of office—which it could not achieve if wrongdoers knew they could easily escape any 
inquiry or trial. At the Convention, Davie described impeachment as “an essential security for the 
good behaviour of the Executive.”238 In Massachusetts, Reverend Samuel Stillman warned, “With 
such a prospect [of impeachment], who will dare to abuse the powers vested in him by the 
people.”239 In North Carolina, future Justice James Iredell stated, “[Impeachment] will be not only 
the means of punishing misconduct, but it will prevent misconduct.”240 And in Federalist No. 64, 
future Chief Justice John Jay wrote, “so far as the fear of punishment and disgrace can operate, that 
motive to good behavior is amply afforded by the article on the subject of impeachments.”241
If all it took to evade impeachment were quitting—or delaying misconduct until the end of a 
term—then Davie, Stillman, Iredell, and Jay badly misjudged its deterrent effect. The Framers did 
not commit such a glaring blunder. To protect the Republic, they designed the impeachment power 
to cover anyone who engaged in abuse or corruption while entrusted with public office—thereby 
ensuring that any wrongdoer’s “infamy might be rendered conspicuous, historic, eternal, in order to 
prevent the occurrence of likely offenses in the future.”242 
237 Id. 238 2 Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention, at 64. 239 2 Jonathan Elliot, ed., The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 169 
(1861) 240 4 id. at 32. 241 Federalist 64 242 Belknap Proceedings at 203 (Mr. Manager Knott)  

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Fourth, and finally, the Framers saw themselves not as restricting the impeachment power in 
comparison to the states, but rather as broadening it. Federalist No. 39 illustrates the point. There, 
Madison compared the state and federal governments. Turning to impeachment, he first remarked 
that “several of the States” did not allow impeachment of “the chief magistrate,” adding that “in 
Delaware and Virginia he is not impeachable till out of office.”243 In contrast, he noted, “the 
President of the United States is impeachable at any time during his continuance in office.”244 Read 
in isolation, this may suggest that only a current official can be impeached, but in context it reflects 
Madison’s pride that the President is subject to a broader impeachment power than in states that 
confined impeachment only to former officials. Hamilton confirmed this point in Federalist No. 69. 
While discussing impeachment, he wrote: “[T]he President of Confederated America would stand 
upon no better ground than a governor of New York, and upon worse ground than the governors 
of Maryland and Delaware.”245 Here, too, the upshot is that the President is even more accountable 
than state officials—including in states, like Delaware, that provided for the impeachment of former 
governors. Neither Hamilton nor Madison suggests any departure from the rule that a former 
official can be impeached for their abuses in office; instead, they celebrate the extension of the 
impeachment power to also encompass (and permit the removal of) current officeholders.
All these sources confirm that the Framers intended the impeachment power to reach both 
current and former officials who engaged in gross abuse of their office. The text and structure of 
the Constitution that emerged from their debates reflect—in fact, require—that conclusion. 
243 Federalist No. 39 244 Id. 245 Federalist No. 69. 

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2. Constitutional Text and Structure 
The Constitution contains several provisions addressing impeachment. A careful review of 
the Constitution’s text and structure permits only a single conclusion: that the Senate has jurisdiction
to hear this trial against President Trump for the constitutional offenses that he committed against 
the American people while he was entrusted with our highest political office. 
The Constitution’s impeachment provisions are properly understood by reference to the 
overarching constitutional plan. Senator John H. Mitchell of Oregon thus explained during the 
Belknap trial that each provision’s “particular location in the Constitution” must “receive 
consideration in giving construction to its purpose.”246 So that is how we will approach them. 
Article I of the Constitution defines the powers of the Legislative Branch. Here, the 
Constitution uses unqualified language to vest the House and Senate with jurisdiction over all 
impeachments. That grant of authority does not contain any statute of limitations or any other 
language limiting Congress’s impeachment jurisdiction over people who committed high crimes and 
misdemeanors while in office. Article I also provides for two separate possible judgments in any 
impeachment case: removal and disqualification. Nowhere does the Constitution suggest that an 
impeachment is permitted only when both judgments can be imposed. Instead, it treats them as 
distinct penalties, mandating only that the Senate not exceed them in rendering judgment. The 
separate availability of disqualification—without any suggestion that it must necessarily follow 
removal—confirms that former officials like President Trump can be tried by the Senate. Finally, 
Article I refers to a “Person” and a “Party” (but not a “civil Officer”) in describing the accused in an 
impeachment. This broader word choice plainly encompasses former officials. 
246 Belknap Proceedings at 347 (Senator Mitchell). 

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Whereas Article I addresses the Legislative Branch, Article II concerns the Executive 
Branch. It refers to impeachment only twice—and on both occasions it restrains the Executive’s 
power to resist an impeachment: first by confirming that the President’s pardon power cannot 
defeat impeachments; and second by requiring at least the removal of any current officer convicted 
of an impeachable offense. Neither of these provisions limits the jurisdiction of the Senate over 
President Trump or makes the possibility of removal a requirement of impeachment. 
a. Article I of the Constitution 
Article I sets up the Legislative Branch of the federal government. In Section 2, it vests the 
House with the “sole Power of Impeachment.” This is an “express, distinct, positive, absolute and 
unqualified grant of jurisdictional power to the House of Representatives to impeach.”247 And as 
explained above, the phrase “Power of Impeachment” had a well-defined, well-developed meaning 
in the 1780s that the Framers understood to encompass former officers. Whenever the House 
exercises its “sole Power of Impeachment,” the Senate has comprehensive, exclusive jurisdiction 
under Article I, Section 3, which vests it with “the sole Power to try all Impeachments.” 
These are the only provisions anywhere in the Constitution that affirmatively vest and define 
the jurisdiction of the House and Senate in matters of impeachment. Both of them provide broad 
authority, with no statute of limitations, no restriction based on whether a person is still in office, 
and no other caveats based on when the accused committed their high crimes and misdemeanors. By 
its plain and categorical language, the Constitution vests the Senate with full jurisdiction to hear any 
valid impeachment case brought by the House for high crimes and misdemeanors. And it makes 
247 Id. at 338 (Senator Mitchell).  

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perfectly clear that the Senate is empowered to “try all Impeachments,” which at bare minimum 
must include jurisdiction where the House impeached an official while he was still in office. 
As a result, any claim that Congress lacks authority to impeach and convict a former official 
must arise not from jurisdictional language in the text itself, but from supposed implications of the 
text. Yet a careful study of the Constitution instead confirms that the Framers intended 
impeachment to reach anyone who abused power while in office.
This is clear from Article I, Section 3, Clause 7: “Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not 
extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of 
honor, Trust or Profit under the United States” (emphasis added). In interpreting this language, we 
must assign meaning to every word. Following that rule, this provision can only be read as “fixing a 
minimum and maximum penalty.”248 As Professor McConnell explains, “the clause does not say 
that both sanctions are required; it says that the judgment may not go beyond imposition of both 
sanctions.”249 Therefore, “the clause does not require removal; it just precludes the Senate from 
imposing penalties like fines, imprisonment or death.”250 This language limits the possible remedies 
as compared to British impeachment, “in which the full range of criminal penalties was available.” 251
Under Clause 7, when the Senate convicts, it (1) may remove the accused if they are in office 
and (2) separately, it may impose disqualification. What it may not do is impose judgments that 
“extend further” than those options. Critically, “these ‘judgments’—removal and disqualification—
248 C.S. Potts, Impeachment As A Remedy, 12 St. Louis L. Rev. 15, 23 (1926). 249 Quoted in Eugene Volokh, Impeaching Officials While They're in Office, but Trying Them After They Leave, The 
Volokh Conspiracy (Jan. 28, 2021), https://reason.com/volokh/2021/01/28/impeaching-officials-while-theyre-in￾office-but-trying-them-after-they-leave/ 250 Brian Kalt, The Constitutional Case for Allowing Late Impeachment Trials, The Hill (Jan. 29, 2021), 
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/536487-the-constitutional-case-for-allowing-late-impeachment-trials 251 Id. 

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are analytically distinct and linguistically divisible.”252 The text does not say “removal from Office, 
and then disqualification” or “removal from Office, followed by disqualification.” It simply identifies 
two separate possible sentences and provides that the Senate cannot exceed them. “[T]he inclusion 
of both present removal and future disqualification as penalties for impeachment suggests that they 
are two separate penalties that may be separately applied.”253
In fact, given how the Senate has historically structured its proceedings, it is impossible for the 
Senate to impose disqualification on a current official: it can disqualify only a former official. If the 
accused is currently in office, and is convicted by the Senate, they are removed upon conviction. By 
the time Senators separately vote on disqualification, they are considering what penalty to inflict on 
someone who is at that point a former officer. In this respect, removal and disqualification must be 
separate penalties—and disqualification must be available for former officials—because 
disqualification “is itself necessarily a vote about a former (as opposed to current) officer.”254
Impeachment thus has “two aspects”—and the Constitution “must be read so as to give full 
effect to both aspects of this power.”255 It provides for removal from office, and it separately 
provides for disqualification from future officeholding. Consistent with that understanding, “of the 
eight officers the Senate has ever voted to remove, it subsequently voted to disqualify only three of 
them—reinforcing that removal and disqualification are separate inquiries.”256
Ultimately, neither removal nor disqualification is itself the purpose of impeachment. They 
both serve the deeper purpose of protecting public against officials who have proven themselves a 
252 Tribe, The Senate Can Constitutionally Hold An Impeachment Trial After Trump Leaves Office. 253 Michael J. Gerhardt, The Federal Impeachment Process: A Constitutional and Historical Analysis 79-80 (1996). 254 Stephen I. Vladeck, Why Trump Can Be Convicted Even as an Ex-President, New York Times (Jan. 14, 2020). 255 Letter from Constitutional Law Scholars on Impeaching Former Officers. 256 Vladeck, Why Trump Can Be Convicted Even as an Ex-President. 

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threat to our Constitution. And that purpose would be obstructed if Clause 7 were distorted by an 
interpretation that precluded the impeachment of former officials. This would create incentives for 
a President “to behave only early in his term, to conceal his wrongdoing long enough to run out the 
clock, and to skip out of office if congressional action becomes a serious issue.”257 To ensure that 
the impeachment power promotes integrity in office, the Constitution must be given its natural 
reading—one that treats the judgment of disqualification as a distinct remedy that can be imposed 
on both current and former officials following conviction by the Senate. 
Although President Trump may argue that Clause 7 limits impeachment only to cases where 
removal can occur, that view is mistaken. As explained, it clashes with the text of the Constitution. 
Further, it rests on a logical fallacy. Clause 7 bars the Senate from imposing any sentence beyond
removal or disqualification. But “a prohibition against doing more than two things cannot be turned 
into a command to do both or neither.”258 “It certainly will not be seriously maintained that, when a 
statute prescribes two punishments, one of which has become impossible, the offender is thereby 
exempted from the other.”259 Such analysis collapses upon scrutiny: in authorizing two possible 
penalties upon conviction, and saying the Senate may not exceed them, the Constitution did not 
confer a right on the accused to escape trial entirely because one of the penalties is unavailable. If a 
defendant made that contention in court, her argument would be rejected out of hand. 
That position is especially untenable because it would give abusive officials total control over 
their own impeachment proceedings. Any official “who betrayed the public trust and was 
impeached could avoid accountability simply by resigning one minute before the Senate’s final 
257 Kalt, Former Officials, at 71-72. 258 Belknap Proceedings at 277 (Senator Edmunds). 259 Id. at 193 (Mr. Manager Hoar). 

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conviction vote.”260 Needless to say, there is an overwhelming presumption against “a proposition 
that makes the jurisdiction of the Senate depend upon the will of the accused,” and that “would 
practically annihilate the power of impeachment in all cases of guilt clearly provable.”261 The 
Framers did not design the Constitution’s mightiest safeguards to be so easily undermined. As 
House Manager James Proctor Knott of Kentucky explained to the Senate during the trial of 
Secretary Belknap, the ultimate question is simply stated: “Whether you exercise the functions 
devolved upon you today as the highest court known to our Government by virtue of a 
constitutional power, or merely at the will and pleasure of the accused.”262
To ask that question is to answer it. The Framers authorized disqualification for a reason. 
They knew that in especially grievous cases, a failure to impeach and disqualify could imperil the 
nation—both by setting a dangerous precedent and by allowing an official to repeat his misconduct. 
It is implausible that the Framers structured impeachment to allow abusive officials, at their own 
discretion, to readily escape trial, judgment, and disqualification. Instead, the Framers adhered to 
established English and state practice. And they used language in Article I, Section 3, Clause 7 that 
very clearly treats removal and disqualification as separate possible judgments upon conviction. It is 
therefore wrong to assert that “removal from office is the sole object of impeachment,” since “the 
Constitution authorizes a sentence of disqualification that may be as properly pronounced against 
the man who has left office as against him who clings to it.”263
That conclusion is confirmed (and independently required) by the language used in the 
impeachment provisions of Article I, Section 3, Clauses 6 and 7:
260 Letter from Constitutional Law Scholars on Impeaching Former Officers. 261 Id. at 247 (Senator Thurman). 262 Id. at 144 (Mr. Manager Knott). 263 Id. at 250 (Senator Thurman). 

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The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When 
sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When 
the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall 
preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence 
of two thirds of the Members present.
Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to 
removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office 
of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party
convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, 
Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.
(emphasis added). 
The word choice here is significant, especially in contrast to Article II, Section 4 of the 
Constitution, which provides that “all civil Officers of the United States” must be removed from 
office upon conviction for impeachable offenses. Unlike that provision, Article I—which creates 
the impeachment power and vests Congress with jurisdiction—does not refer to “civil Officers.”
Instead, in describing who may be subject to impeachment, it uses broader language: “Person” and 
“Party.” The Framers chose their words carefully. They could have written “civil Officers” in 
Article I to describe who can be impeached, yet they did not do so. It follows that there must be a 
“Person” or “Party” subject to impeachment who is not a “civil Officer[].” But in order to face 
impeachment, a person must commit high crimes and misdemeanors, which by definition only a 
government official can do. That leaves only a single possible explanation for why the Framers used 
“Person” and “Party” rather than “civil Officers” in Article I, Section 3: they wanted to ensure that 
the text of the Constitution covered the impeachment, conviction, and disqualification of former
officials for high crimes and misdemeanors committed while they were in office.264
264 Id. at 403-404 (Senator Bayard). 

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b. Article II of the Constitution 
Article II defines and limits the authority of the Executive Branch. As a review of its plain 
text confirms, Article II “contains no grant of power” to any branch of government on the subject 
of impeachment.265 Instead, it addresses impeachment only twice and, significantly, only to constrain
the Executive Branch. Although President Trump may attempt to rely on language in Article II to 
contest the Senate’s jurisdiction over him, any such reliance would be misplaced. 
First consider Article II, Section 2, which provides that the President “shall have Power to 
grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment” 
(emphasis added). This rule reflects a critical feature of the Constitution’s design: because 
impeachment “is a great check upon misconduct in the executive branch . . . the power of 
impeachment and conviction is placed as far as possible beyond the influence of or interference by 
the executive branch or any member therefore.”266 An impeachment proceeding is not subject to a 
Presidential veto. It does not depend upon support from federal prosecutors (who serve in the 
Executive Branch). It can override the President’s ordinarily sweeping discretion to select his own 
officers. And a President cannot use his pardon power to prevent Congress from impeaching and 
convicting anyone who has committed a great and dangerous offense. These aspects of 
impeachment are essential to its role in the separation of powers. The jurisdiction and authority of 
Congress in matters of impeachment are not subject to control by the Executive Branch; after all, a 
major purpose of the impeachment power is to restrain the Executive Branch.
265 Id. at 299-300 (Senator Wright). 266 Id. at 402 (Senator Bayard). 

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This principle confirms that former officials must be subject to impeachment for any and all 
abuses committed while in office. Under the Appointments Clause—which appears in Article II of 
the Constitution—the President enjoys a broad “removal power.”267 This allows him to fire many 
officials within the Executive Branch. If only current officials could be impeached for high crimes 
and misdemeanors, the President could easily stop impeachments by firing officials accused (or 
suspected) of high crimes and misdemeanors. That would prevent Congress from getting to the 
bottom of what happened. It would also weaken the deterrent effect of impeachment, and allow the 
President to block the Senate from convicting and disqualifying officials who deserve it. 
Again, the Framers were not foolish. The Constitution does not enable the President to 
accomplish through his removal power the very same interference with impeachment that it forbids 
by expressly limiting his pardon power. As explained above, it allows the impeachment of former 
officials for abuses committed in office, thus ensuring that the President’s power to fire officials 
cannot halt an impeachment. This rule also avoids another awkward result: if only current officials 
could be impeached, a President might face a choice between leaving a scofflaw in office (so that an 
impeachment process could unfold) or immediately firing him to protect the public (which would 
also stop the impeachment and make it impossible for the Senate to impose disqualification, even if 
fully warranted).268 As a matter of constitutional text and structure—not to mention common 
sense—Article II, Section 2 strongly supports the conclusion that former officials remain subject to 
impeachment and trial for grievous abuses committed during their tenure in office. 
267 Seila Law LLC v. C.F.P.B., 140 S. Ct. 2183, 2197 (2020) 268 See Kalt, Former Officials, at 78. 

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So does Article II, Section 4: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the 
United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, 
Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” President Trump may cite this provision to 
argue that only current officials can be impeached, but that argument has no basis in the text. 
Article II, Section 4 states a straightforward rule: whenever a civil officer is impeached and 
convicted for high crimes and misdemeanors, they “shall be removed.” Absolutely nothing about 
this rule implies, let alone requires, that former officials—who can still face disqualification—are 
immune from impeachment and conviction. That is unsurprising, since this provision is contained 
in a part of the Constitution addressed only to current officers, whereas the impeachment provisions 
set forth in Article I use broader language and emerge from a tradition that covers former officials. 
Indeed; it would be strange for a provision concerning what happens when a civil officer is 
convicted to somehow indirectly control the Senate’s power under Article I to try all impeachments.
As Professor McConnell observes, Article II, Section 4 “does not limit the power of the Senate to 
try, which comes from Article I, Section 3, Clause 6. It merely states that removal from office is 
mandatory upon conviction of any sitting officer. No lesser sanction will suffice.”269
It is therefore a mistake to read Article II, Section 4 as somehow providing protection to 
officials who abuse their power but escape impeachment while in office (e.g., by committing abuse in 
their final days, or by concealing wrongdoing, or by resigning at the last minute). Like the rule that 
pardons cannot defeat an impeachment, the rule set forth in Section 4 is meant to restrain the 
Executive Branch—and it does so by establishing a baseline requirement that officials at least be 
removed if convicted of impeachable offenses. Thus, whereas the first half of Section 4 concerns 
269 Quoted in Volokh, Impeaching Officials While They’re In Office But Trying Them After They Leave.  

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itself generally with the requirements for conviction (high crimes and misdemeanors), the second 
half speaks only about the consequences of convicting a current officer (removal from office). 
President Trump may argue that Article II, Section 4 makes removal the primary purpose of 
any impeachment, and that it is strange to imagine an impeachment trial that cannot result in 
removal. Yet that misreads both Section 4 and Article I. “The fact that the Constitution empowers 
the Senate to disqualify, as well as remove from office, would, it seems, be a perfect answer to the 
assumption that the sole purpose of impeachment is the removal from office.”270 The Senate’s own 
practice reflects this: “Senators vote ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty.’ Their formal verdict is not ‘remove’ or 
‘don’t remove.’”271 Further, the purpose of impeachment is to protect the nation by deterring 
official misconduct and ensuring accountability for those who abuse power. Removal and 
disqualification are each methods of achieving that purpose, which would be hindered rather than 
furthered if officials knew they could escape any reckoning through resignation or by waiting until 
their last days in office. “It certainly makes no sense for presidents who commit misconduct late in 
their terms . . . to be immune from the one process the Constitution allows for barring them from 
serving in any other federal office or from receiving any federal pensions.”272
In the alternative, President Trump might contend that the reference to “civil Officers” in 
Article II means that only government officials—and not private citizens—can ever be subject to 
impeachment. The flaw in this argument is obvious: “[P]residents and the other officials who are 
subject to impeachment are not like the rest of us. Once they leave office and return to their private 
lives, they are still ex-presidents and former officials who may have committed impeachable offenses 
270 Id. at 350 (Senator Mitchell). 271 Brian Kalt, The Constitutional Case For Allowing Late Impeachment Trials. 272 Michael J. Gerhardt, The Constitution’s Option for Impeachment After a President Leaves Office, Just Security (Jan. 8, 
2021). 

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in office.”273 In other words, impeaching a former official for their official acts while they were a 
“civil Officer[]” is not the same as impeaching a private citizen. The Constitution “demands of all 
its officials purity, honesty, and fidelity, and it is plain enough and strong enough to enforce its 
demands at all times and upon every class of those who enjoy its high places.”274 There is thus no 
basis for President Trump to object to the Senate’s jurisdiction over him (or to raise related Bill of 
Attainder Clause concerns). The trial of a former official for abuses he committed as an official—
arising from an impeachment that also occurred while he was in office—poses no risk of subjecting 
private parties to punitive legislative action targeting their private conduct. 
Next, President Trump may argue that it somehow matters that Chief Justice Roberts is not 
presiding over this trial. It does not. Under Article I, Section 3, “When the President of the United 
States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside.” But under Article II, there is only ever a single person 
at a time who is “the President of the United States.” That person is now Joseph R. Biden, Jr. As a 
former official, President Trump does not trigger the requirement that the Chief Justice preside. 
Moreover, the reason the Chief Justice is summoned is to ensure the Vice President does not preside 
over a trial where conviction would result in her becoming the President; obviously, that concern is 
not implicated in the trial of a former president. The normal rules for a Senate trial therefore apply—
including those governing who presides (which allow the President pro tempore to do so).275 
273 Id. 274 Belknap Proceedings at 255 (Senator Wallace). 275 President Trump may separately contend that the Constitution does not permit a person to be disqualified 
from seeking the Presidency. But as the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel concluded under President Obama, “The 
President surely ‘hold[s] an[] Office of Profit or Trust.’” See David J. Barron, Applicability of the Emoluments Clause and the 
Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act to the President’s Receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize, 33 Op. O.L.C. 1, 4 (2009). Indeed, this is the 
only conclusion consistent with the text of the Constitution, which repeatedly refers to the President as holding an 
“Office”—including in the Natural Born Citizen Clause, the Presidential Oath Clause, and the Twelfth, Twenty-Second, 
and Twenty-Fifth Amendments. See Saikrishna Prakash, Why the Incompatibility Clause Applies to the Office of the President, 4 
Duke J. Const. L. & Pub. Pol’y Sidebar 143 (2009). 

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Finally, President Trump may assert that finding jurisdiction here will invite the House to
undertake a slew of other impeachments, dusting off old issues and pursuing tired grudges. But 
history disproves such slippery slope concerns. For centuries, the prevailing view—bolstered by the 
Blount and then Belknap precedents—has been that former officials are subject to impeachment. 
Yet only in Belknap’s case did the House take that step. In the vast majority of cases, including that 
of President Richard Nixon, the House has properly recognized that an official’s resignation or 
departure abated any need for the extraordinary remedy of impeachment. That remains true today: 
“There is no likelihood that we shall ever unlimber this clumsy and bulky monster piece of 
ordinance to take aim at an object from which all danger has gone by.”276 But President Trump’s 
case is exceptional. The danger has not “gone by.” The threat to our democracy makes Watergate 
pale in comparison—and remains with us to this day. Here is the rare case in which love of the 
Constitution, and commitment to our democracy, required the House to impeach President Trump. 
And for the same reasons, the Senate can and must take jurisdiction.
C. Congressional Precedent Supports Jurisdiction over President Trump 
Prior practice of the House and Senate point the same way as a careful study of the 
Constitution. Indeed, the case for exercising jurisdiction over President Trump—and convicting 
him of high crimes and misdemeanors—is even stronger than in any of these precedents. 
1. Senator William Blount
The Nation’s very first impeachment trial concerned an ex-official: Senator William Blount, 
who had plotted to give the British control over parts of Florida and Louisiana (which were then 
276 Belknap Proceedings at 198 (Mr. Manager Hoar).  

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controlled by Spain and France, respectively).277 After President Adams provided the House with 
evidence of this betrayal, the House impeached Blount on July 7, 1797. One day later, by a vote of 
25 to 1, the Senate expelled him from its ranks. This was not the end of the matter, however. The 
House concluded that Blount should also be disqualified from future officeholding, so it proceeded 
with its investigation and adopted five articles of impeachment on January 29, 1798.278 Despite 
Blount’s refusal to appear in person, the Senate commenced an impeachment trial with Thomas 
Jefferson presiding. Ultimately, it dismissed the case on the ground that Members of Congress are 
not subject to the impeachment power at all. But notably, Blount had also asserted that the Senate 
lacked jurisdiction over him as a former official—and the Senate did not dismiss on that basis.279
2. Secretary of War William Belknap 
Nearly eighty years later, in 1876, the House Committee on Expenditures discovered that 
Secretary of War William Belknap was involved in an elaborate kickback scheme.280 Hours before 
the committee released its report, Belknap “rushed to the White House in an unholy panic to tender 
his resignation,” which President Ulysses Grant accepted on the spot.281 Two hours later, fully 
aware that Belknap had resigned, the House voted unanimously to impeach him.282
The ensuing Senate trial is “the single most important precedent” on the question whether a 
former official is subject to impeachment.283 Belknap strenuously argued that the Senate lacked 
jurisdiction because he had resigned before the House impeached him. The Senate heard “[m]ore 
277 See Bowman & Kalt, Congress Can Impeach Trump Now And Convict Him When He’s Gone. 278 Eleanore Bushnell, Crimes, Follies, and Misfortunes: The Federal Impeachment Trials 30 (1992). 279 See id. at 32-41. 280 See Kalt, Former Officials, at 94. 281 Ron Chernow, Grant 821 (2017). 282 Kalt, Former Officials, at 95. 283 Id. at 94. 

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than two weeks of wide-ranging arguments on the question . . . followed by two weeks of [S]enators’ 
reciting their own conclusions.”284 After this exhaustive presentation—which covered virtually all of 
the points likely to be raised here—the Senate voted 37 to 29 that it had jurisdiction over the case. 
It proceeded to a full presentation of argument and evidence over a two-month period and 
ultimately acquitted Belknap, though only after plenary consideration of the merits of the case. 
3. Judges Robert Archbald & George English 
Two cases from the early 1900s further support the Senate’s jurisdiction here. The first 
involved Circuit Judge Robert Archbald, who was impeached in 1912. Of the thirteen articles of 
impeachment that the House approved, six addressed conduct in his former role as a district judge. 
In the end, Judge Archbald was convicted on five articles relating to his tenure as a circuit judge; on 
that basis, he was removed from office and disqualified from future officeholding. The Senate 
acquitted him of two articles relating to his circuit judgeship, as well as the articles concerning his 
conduct as a district judge. It is clear from the public record, however, that the case against Judge 
Archbald relating to his earlier role failed on the merits—and that “a majority of the [S]enators 
voting saw no problem” with impeaching Judge Archbald for conduct in his former office.285 Once 
again, the arguments for jurisdiction over former officials commanded a clear majority in the Senate. 
Fourteen years later, the House impeached District Judge George English for corrupt 
conduct on the bench. Six days before his Senate trial, Judge English resigned. In light of that 
decision—and given his advanced age—the House resolved that it did “not desire further to urge 
the articles of impeachment.”286 In a filing with the Senate, however, the House Managers pointedly 
284 Id. at 96. 285 Id. at 103. 286 Quoted in id. at 104. 

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stated that “the resignation of Judge English in no way affects the right of the Senate, sitting as a 
court of impeachment, to hear and determine [the case].”287 Further, “No [S]enator suggested that 
it would have been impossible or unconstitutional to proceed if the House had not ‘desired’ to do 
otherwise.”288 To the contrary, several Senators stated that the Senate in fact retained jurisdiction. 
Senator William C. Bruce of Maryland remarked, “I deeply regret the conclusion that the House of 
Representatives has reached.”289 And Senator Duncan Fletcher of Florida wanted it “distinctly 
understood” that the case was not precedent for the idea that resignation terminates a trial.290 Thus, 
the proceeding against Judge English supports the Senate’s jurisdiction over former officials, since 
“the House and the Senate felt that they could have proceeded with [that] case.”291
In fact, as noted above, the case for jurisdiction here is stronger than in any of the precedents
just mentioned. Unlike Senator Blount, who was held accountable through expulsion, President 
Trump will escape responsibility for his betrayal of the Constitution unless this body tries and 
convicts him. Unlike Secretary Belknap, who resigned before the House could act, President Trump 
was impeached by the House while he was still in office. Moreover, whereas Secretary Belknap and 
Judge English left office in disgrace, President Trump insists that his constitutional offenses were 
perfectly acceptable—and so the precedent set by a failure to try him would pose an astronomically 
greater threat to the Republic. Finally, unlike in the case of Judge Archbold, the evidence against 
President Trump is overwhelming. His is personally responsible for an attack that unleashed death 
and mayhem at the Capitol amid the transfer of power. For Congress to stand aside in the face of 
287 Quoted in id. 288 Id. at 105. 289 Quoted in id. 290 Quoted in id. 291 Id. at 106.  

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such conduct would be a grave abdication of its constitutional duty, and an invitation for future 
Presidents to act without fear of constraint during their final months in office. 
* * * * *
Constitutional history, text, and structure, as well as prior Congressional practice, all confirm 
that the Senate has jurisdiction to try President Trump. So does common sense. While sworn to 
faithfully execute the laws—and to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution—President 
Trump incited insurrection against the United States government. His conduct endangered the life 
of every single Member of Congress, jeopardized the peaceful transition of power and line of 
succession, and compromised our national security. This is precisely the sort of constitutional offense 
that warrants disqualification from federal office. President Trump has proven his willingness to 
break and brutalize the law in his quest for power. The Senate must establish beyond doubt, for all 
time, and for officials of all political parties that President Trump’s behavior was intolerable.
CONCLUSION
President Trump falsely asserted that he won the 2020 election and then sought to overturn 
its results. He and his supporters filed dozens of lawsuits nationwide—including before judges he 
had appointed—but their claims uniformly failed to persuade. He also tried to convince state and 
federal election officials and law enforcement personnel to attempt to reverse the election outcome. 
These attempts failed, too. The only honorable path at that point was for President Trump to
accept the results and concede his electoral defeat. Instead, he summoned a mob to Washington, 
exhorted them into a frenzy, and aimed them like a loaded cannon down Pennsylvania Avenue. As 
the Capitol was overrun, President Trump was reportedly “delighted.” And rather than take
immediate steps to quell the violence and protect lives, President Trump left his Vice President and 
Congress to fend for themselves while he lobbied allies to continue challenging election results.  

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As will be shown at trial, President Trump endangered our Republic and inflicted deep and 
lasting wounds on our Nation. His conduct resulted in more than five deaths and many more 
injuries. The Capitol was defiled. The line of succession was imperiled. America’s global reputation 
was damaged. For the first time in history, the transfer of presidential power was interrupted. And 
the threat of violence remains with us: as President Biden was inaugurated and even now, the 
Capitol more closely resembles an armed camp than the seat of American democracy.
President Trump’s incitement of insurrection requires his conviction and disqualification 
from future federal officeholding. This is not a case where elections alone are a sufficient safeguard 
against future abuse; it is the electoral process itself that President Trump attacked and that must be 
protected from him and anyone else who would seek to mimic his behavior. Indeed, it is difficult to 
imagine a case that more clearly evokes the reasons why the Framers wrote a disqualification power 
into the Constitution. The need for conviction and disqualification is further supported by Section 3 
of the Fourteenth Amendment, which bars from government service those who “having previously 
taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection 
or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”292 President Trump’s 
conduct offends everything that the Constitution stands for. The Senate must make clear to him 
and all who follow that a President who provokes armed violence against the government of the 
United States in an effort to overturn the results of an election will face trial and judgment. 
Many have suggested that we should turn the page on the tragic events of January 6, 2021. 
But to heal the wounds he inflicted on the Nation, we must hold President Trump accountable for 
his conduct and, in so doing, reaffirm our core principles. Failure to convict would embolden future 
292 U.S. Const. Amend. XIV § 3. 

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