Page:Trial Memorandum of the United States House of Representatives in the Second Impeachment Trial of President Donald John Trump.pdf/17

anymore! We hear you (and love you) from the Oval Office. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”^[1] 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”^[2]

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.”^[3] 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!”^[4] Days later, he declared that “these patriots”—who could easily have killed a busload of innocent campaign staff—“did nothing wrong.”^[5]

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1. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Jan. 5, 2021, 5:05 PM).
2. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Jan. 5, 2021, 5:12 PM).
3. Sheera Frenkel & Annie Karni, Proud Boys Celebrate Trump’s ‘Stand By’ Remark About Them At The Debate, New York Times (Sept. 29, 2020).
4. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Twitter (Oct. 31, 2020 8:14 PM).
5. 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).