Trump Is Guilty

White house

There’s no doubt who must be held responsible for attacking the Capitol and trying to overturn the results of the election

If you fail to hold him accountable, it can happen again.

This is the heart of the prosecution’s argument in the ongoing impeachment trial of Donald Trump. It is a plea for the senators charged with rendering a verdict not to limit their concerns solely to the events of Jan. 6, when a mob of Trump supporters sacked the U.S. Capitol, but also to act with an eye toward safeguarding the nation’s future.

To excuse Mr. Trump’s attack on American democracy would invite more such attempts, by him and by other aspiring autocrats. The stakes could not be higher. A vote for impunity is an act of complicity.

It is unfortunate that the country finds itself at this place at this moment, American pitted against American. But there is no more urgent task than recentering the nation’s political life as peaceful and committed to the rule of law.

Mr. Trump stands charged with incitement of insurrection. For three days this week, House managers laid out a devastating case for conviction. Methodically, meticulously they detailed the former president’s effort to undermine and overturn a free and fair election, culminating with his fomenting an attack on Congress that resulted in the deaths of five people, and very nearly more. Mr. Trump spun lies and conspiracy theories to defraud and destabilize his followers. He told them that their votes had been stolen. He made them believe that everyone had betrayed them, from local officials to the media to the Supreme Court. He convinced them that the only way to save their nation was to “fight like hell.” Mr. Trump whipped his loyalists into a rage, summoned them to Washington, pointed them at Congress and then retreated to the safety of the White House to enjoy the show.

The prosecution had a glut of supporting evidence. The nine House managers, led by Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, came armed with a cache of tweets and other social media posts. These included incendiary messages sent by Mr. Trump during the riot, as well as entreaties from other Republican officials for him to call for an end to the violence. Republicans recognized his power over the mob in the moment, even if some of their Senate colleagues are unwilling to acknowledge that reality today.

The managers also presented corroborating news accounts, snippets of Mr. Trump’s speeches and interviews and, of course, video of the siege, some of it posted online by the rioters themselves. Dozens of graphic video clips were woven together in a tapestry of rage and madness. Police officers are seen being shoved, beaten, cursed at and crushed. Members of the mob smash windows and chant their desire to “hang Mike Pence!”

Previously unseen footage revealed just how close some lawmakers came to disaster — including Senator Mitt Romney, the Utah Republican and outspoken Trump critic, who would have run directly into the mob if not for an interception by Eugene Goodman, the Capitol Police officer who also drew a pack of rioters away from the Senate chamber.

Mr. Trump’s attorneys didn’t bother with a coherent defense. Their presentation was a slipshod, meandering, at times incomprehensible exercise in deflection and denial. Time and again, the defense team rejected the idea that Mr. Trump bore any responsibility for inciting his followers to violence. No reasonable person, the team argued, could have taken their client’s call to arms seriously, much less literally. All those rioters who asserted before, during and after the attack that they were following the former president’s will must have been confused. Once again, Mr. Trump has played his most devoted supporters for suckers and insulted the intelligence of the rest of the American people.

This shouldn’t be a close call. Yet nearly no one expects the Senate to convict. To do so would require a supermajority of 67 votes, meaning 17 Republicans would need to join forces with the Democrats and two independents. Only six Republicans voted this week to even recognize the constitutionality of trying a former president.