WASHINGTON: Senators are poised to vote on whether Donald Trump will be held accountable for inciting the horrific attack at the Capitol after a speedy trial that laid bare the violence and danger to their own lives and the fragility of the nation’s tradition of a peaceful transfer of presidential power.
Barely a month since the deadly riot, closing arguments are set for the historic impeachment trial as senators arrive for a rare Saturday session, all under the watch of armed National Guard troops still guarding the iconic building.
The outcome of the quick, raw and emotional proceedings are expected to reflect a nation divided over the former president and the future of his brand of politics in America.
“What’s important about this trial is that it’s really aimed to some extent at Donald Trump, but it’s more aimed at some president we don’t even know 20 years from now,” said Sen. Angus King, the independent from Maine, weighing his vote.
The nearly weeklong trial has been delivering a grim and graphic narrative of the Jan. 6 riot and its consequences for the nation in ways that senators, most of whom fled for their own safety that day, acknowledge they are still coming to grips with.
Acquittal is expected in the evenly-divided Senate, a verdict that could heavily influence not only Trump’s political future but that of the senators sworn to deliver impartial justice as jurors as they cast their votes.
House prosecutors have argued that Trump’s rallying cry to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell” for his presidency just as Congress was convening Jan. 6 to certify Joe Biden’s election was part of an orchestrated pattern of violent rhetoric and false claims that unleashed the mob. Five people died, including a rioter who was shot and a police officer.
The defense attorneys countered in a short three hours Friday that Trump’s words were not intended to incite the violence and impeachment is nothing but a “witch hunt” designed to prevent him from serving in office again.
Only by watching the graphic videos — rioters calling out menacingly for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence, who was presiding over the vote tally — did senators say they began to understand just how perilously close the country came to chaos. Hundreds of rioters stormed into the building, taking over the Senate and some engaging in hand-to-hand, bloody combat with police.
While it is unlikely the Senate would be able to mount the two-thirds vote needed to convict, several senators appear to be still weighing their vote. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell will be widely watched for cues, but he is not pressuring his GOP side of the aisle and is telling senators to vote their conscience.
Many Republicans representing states where the former president remains popular doubt whether Trump was fully responsible or if impeachment is the appropriate response. Democrats appear all but united toward conviction.
Trump is the only president to be twice impeached, and the first to face trial charges after leaving office.
Unlike last year’s impeachment trial of Trump in the Ukraine affair, a complicated charge of corruption and obstruction over his attempts to have the foreign ally dig up dirt on then-rival Biden, this one brought an emotional punch over the unexpected vulnerability of the nation’s tradition of peaceful elections. The charge is singular, incitement of insurrection.
On Friday, Trump’s impeachment lawyers accused Democrats of waging a campaign of “hatred” against the former president as they wrapped up their defense, sending the Senate toward a final vote in his historic trial.
The defense team vigorously denied that Trump had incited the deadly riot and played out-of-context video clips showing Democrats, some of them senators now serving as jurors, also telling supporters to “fight,” aiming to establish a parallel with Trump’s overheated rhetoric.
“This is ordinarily political rhetoric,” declared Trump lawyer Michael van der Veen. “Countless politicians have spoken of fighting for our principles.”
But the presentation blurred the difference between general encouragement politicians make to battle for health care or other causes and Trump’s fight against officially accepted national election results, and minimized Trump’s efforts to undermine those election results. The defeated president was telling his supporters to fight on after every state had verified its results, after the Electoral College had affirmed them and after nearly every election lawsuit filed by Trump and his allies had been rejected in court.
Democratic senators shook their heads at what many called a false equivalency to their own fiery words. “We weren’t asking them ‘fight like hell’ to overthrow an election,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut
Democrats say that Trump was the “inciter in chief” whose monthslong campaign against the election results was rooted in a “big lie” and laid the groundwork for the riot, a violent domestic attack on the Capitol unparalleled in history.
“Get real,” lead prosecutor Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said at one point. “We know that this is what happened.”
The Senate has convened as a court of impeachment for past presidents Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and now twice for Trump, but the unprecedented nature of the case because he’s no longer in the White House has provided Republican senators one of several arguments against conviction.
Republicans maintain the proceedings are unconstitutional, even though the Senate voted at the outset of the trial on this issue and confirmed it has jurisdiction.
Six Republican senators who joined Democrats in voting to take up the case are among those most watched for their votes.
Early signals came Friday during questions for the lawyers. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, asked the first question, the two centrists known for independent streaks. They leaned into a point the prosecutors had made asking exactly when did Trump learn of the breach of the Capitol and what specific actions did he take to bring the rioting to an end?
Democrats had argued that Trump did nothing as the mob rioted.
Another Republican who voted to launch the trial, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, asked about Trump’s tweet criticizing Pence moments after having been told by another senator that the vice president had just been evacuated.
Van der Veen responded that at “no point” was the president informed of any danger. Cassidy told reporters later it was not a very good answer.
Trump’s speedy impeachment trial heads toward Senate vote
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Trump’s speedy impeachment trial heads toward Senate vote
- Barely a month since the deadly riot, closing arguments are set for the historic impeachment trial as senators arrive for a rare Saturday session
- The nearly weeklong trial has been delivering a grim and graphic narrative of the Jan. 6 riot and its consequences for the nation
London mayor Khan wins historic third term as Tories routed in local polls
In the West Midlands, where Tory incumbent Andy Street is bidding for his own third term, votes were reportedly being recounted and too close to call
LONDON: London’s Labour mayor Sadiq Khan on Saturday secured a record third term, dealing the Conservatives another damaging defeat in their worst local election results in recent memory months before an expected general election.
Khan, 53, easily beat Tory challenger Susan Hall to scupper largely forlorn Tory hopes that they could prise the UK capital away from Labour for the first time since 2016.
The first Muslim mayor of a Western capital when first elected then, he had been widely expected to win as Labour surge nationally and the Conservatives suffer in the polls.
In the end, he saw his margin of victory increase compared to the last contest in 2021.
It adds to a dismal set of results for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, as his Tories finished a humiliating third in local council tallies after losing nearly 500 seats in voting Thursday across England.
With Labour making huge gains, the beleaguered leader’s Conservatives lost crunch mayoral races in Manchester, Liverpool, Yorkshire as well as the capital and elsewhere.
In the West Midlands, where Tory incumbent Andy Street is bidding for his own third term, votes were reportedly being recounted and too close to call.
An unexpected Tory defeat there could leave Sunak with only one notable success: its mayor winning a third term in Tees Valley, northeast England — albeit with a vastly reduced majority.
Writing in Saturday’s Daily Telegraph, Sunak conceded “voters are frustrated” but insisted “Labour is not winning in places they admit they need for a majority.”
“We Conservatives have everything to fight for,” Sunak argued.
Labour, out of power since 2010 and trounced by Boris Johnson’s Conservatives at the last general election in 2019, also emphatically snatched a parliamentary seat from the Conservatives.
It seized on winning the Blackpool South constituency and other successes to demand a national vote.
“Let’s turn the page on decline and usher in national renewal with Labour,” party leader Keir Starmer told supporters Saturday in the East Midlands, where the party won the mayoral race.
Sunak must order a general election be held by January 28 next year at the latest, and has said he is planning on a poll in the second half of 2024.
Labour has enjoyed double-digit poll leads for all of Sunak’s 18 months in charge, as previous Tory scandals, a cost-of-living crisis and various other issues dent the ruling party’s standing.
On Thursday, they were defending nearly 1,000 council seats, many secured in 2021 when they led nationwide polls before the implosion of Johnson’s premiership and his successor Liz Truss’s disastrous 49-day tenure.
With almost all those results in by Saturday afternoon, they had lost close to half and finished third behind the smaller centrist opposition Liberal Democrats.
If replicated in a nationwide contest, the tallies suggested Labour would win 34 percent of the vote, with the Tories trailing by nine points, according to the BBC.
Sky News’ projection for a general election using the results predicted Labour will be the largest party but short of an overall majority.
Its by-election scalp in Blackpool — on a mammoth 26-percent swing — was the Conservatives’ 11th such loss in this parliament, the most by any government since the late 1960s.
Speculation has been rife in Westminster that restive Tory lawmakers could use the dire local election results to try to replace him. But that prospect seems to have failed to materialize.
However, it was not all good news for Labour.
The party lost control of one local authority, and suffered some councillor losses to independents elsewhere, due to what analysts said was its stance on the Israel-Hamas war.
Polling expert John Curtice assessed there were concerning signs for the opposition.
“These were more elections in which the impetus to defeat the Conservatives was greater than the level of enthusiasm for Labour,” he noted in the i newspaper.
“Electorally, it is still far from clear that Sir Keir Starmer is the heir to (Tony) Blair.”
A British-Palestinian doctor was denied entry to France for a Senate meeting about the war in Gaza
- Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta was placed in a holding zone in the Charles de Gaulle airport and will be expelled, according to French Sen. Raymonde Poncet Monge
- Abu Sitta posted on social networks that he was denied entry in France because of a one-year ban by Germany on his entry to Europe
PARIS: A well-known British-Palestinian surgeon who volunteered in Gaza hospitals said he was denied entry to France on Saturday to speak at a French Senate meeting about the Israel-Hamas war. Authorities wouldn’t give a reason for the decision.
Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta was placed in a holding zone in the Charles de Gaulle airport and will be expelled, according to French Sen. Raymonde Poncet Monge, who had invited him to speak at the Senate.
‘’It’s a disgrace,’’ she posted on X.
Abu Sitta posted on social networks that he was denied entry in France because of a one-year ban by Germany on his entry to Europe. Germany denied him entry last month, and France and Germany are part of Europe’s border-free Schengen zone. He posted Saturday that he was being sent back to London.
The French Foreign Ministry, Interior Ministry, local police and the Paris airport authority would not comment on what happened or give an explanation.
Abu Sitta had been invited by France’s left-wing Ecologists group in the Senate to speak at a colloquium Saturday about the situation in Gaza, according to the Senate press service. The gathering included testimony from medics, journalists and international legal experts with Gaza-related experience.
Last month Abu Sitta was denied entry to Germany to take part in a pro-Palestinian conference. He said he was stopped at passport control, held for several hours and then told he had to return to the UK He said airport police told him he was refused entry due to “the safety of the people at the conference and public order.”
Abu Sitta, who recently volunteered with Doctors Without Borders in Gaza, has worked during multiple conflicts in the Palestinian territories, beginning in the late 1980s during the first Palestinian uprising. He has also worked in other conflict zones, including in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
France has seen tensions related to the Mideast conflict almost daily since the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas incursion into Israel. In recent days and weeks police have cleared out students at French campuses holding demonstrations and sit-ins similar to those in the United States.
Afghanistan’s only female diplomat resigns in India after gold smuggling allegations
- Zakia Wardak, the Afghan consul-general for Mumbai, announced her resignation on her official account on the social media platform X
- According to Indian media reports, she has not been arrested because of her diplomatic immunity
ISLAMABAD: Afghanistan’s diplomat in India, who was appointed before the Taliban seized power in 2021 and said she was the only woman in the country’s diplomatic service, has resigned after reports emerged of her being detained for allegedly smuggling gold.
Zakia Wardak, the Afghan consul-general for Mumbai, announced her resignation on her official account on the social media platform X on Saturday after Indian media reported last week that she was briefly detained at the city’s airport on allegations of smuggling 25 bricks of gold, each weighing 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds), from Dubai.
According to Indian media reports, she has not been arrested because of her diplomatic immunity.
In a statement, Wardak made no mention of her reported detention or gold smuggling allegations but said, “I am deeply sorry that as the only woman present in Afghanistan’s diplomatic apparatus, instead of receiving constructive support to maintain this position, I faced waves of organized attacks aimed at destroying me.”
“Over the past year, I have encountered numerous personal attacks and defamation not only directed toward myself but also toward her close family and extended relatives,” she added.
Wardak said the attacks have “severely impacted my ability to effectively operate in my role and have demonstrated the challenges faced by women in Afghan society.”
The Taliban Foreign Ministry did not immediately return calls for comment on Wardak’s resignation. It wasn’t immediately possible to confirm whether she was the country’s only female diplomat.
She was appointed consul-general of Afghanistan in Mumbai during the former government and was the first Afghan female diplomat to collaborate with the Taliban.
The Taliban — who took over Afghanistan in 2021 during the final weeks of US and NATO withdrawal from the country — have barred women from most areas of public life and stopped girls from going to school beyond the sixth grade as part of harsh measures they imposed despite initial promises of a more moderate rule.
They are also restricting women’s access to work, travel and health care if they are unmarried or don’t have a male guardian, and arresting those who don’t comply with the Taliban’s interpretation of hijab, or Islamic headscarf.
Russia puts Ukraine's Zelensky on wanted list, TASS reports
- Russia has issued arrest warrants for a number of Ukrainian and other European politicians
MOSCOW: Russia has opened a criminal case against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and put him on a wanted list, the state news agency TASS reported on Saturday, citing the Interior Ministry's database.
The entry it cited gave no further details.
Russia has issued arrest warrants for a number of Ukrainian and other European politicians since the start of the conflict with Ukraine in February 2022.
Russian police in February put Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, Lithuania's culture minister and members of the previous Latvian parliament on a wanted list for destroying Soviet-era monuments.
Russia also issued an arrest warrant for the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor who last year prepared a warrant for President Vladimir Putin on war crimes charges.
A Chinese driver is praised for helping reduce casualties in a highway collapse that killed 48
- Reacting swiftly, Wang, a former soldier, positioned his truck to block the highway, effectively stopping dozens of vehicles from advancing into danger
- His wife got out of the truck to alert other drivers about the situation
BEIJING: A Chinese truck driver was praised in local media Saturday for parking his vehicle across a highway and preventing more cars from tumbling down a slope after a section of the road in the country’s mountainous south collapsed and killed at least 48 people.
Wang Xiangnan was driving Wednesday along the highway in Guangdong province, a vital economic hub in southern China. At around 2 a.m., Wang saw several vehicles moving in the opposite direction of the four-lane highway and a fellow driver soon informed him about the collapse, local media reported.
Reacting swiftly, Wang, a former soldier, positioned his truck to block the highway, effectively stopping dozens of vehicles from advancing into danger, Jiupai News quoted Wang as saying. Meanwhile, his wife got out of the truck to alert other drivers about the situation, it said.
“I didn’t think too much. I just wanted to stop the vehicles,” Wang told the Chinese news outlet.
Wang’s courageous actions not only garnered praise from Chinese social media users but also recognition from the China Worker Development Foundation.
The foundation announced Friday that in partnership with a car company it had awarded Wang 10,000 yuan ($1,414). A charity project linked to tech giant Alibaba Group Holding also gave an equal amount to Wang, newspaper Dahe Daily reported. Wang told the newspaper he would donate the money to the families of the collapse victims.
Local media also reported that another man had knelt down to prevent cars from proceeding on the highway.
The accident came after a month of heavy rains in Guangdong. Some of the 23 vehicles that plunged into the deep ravine burst in flames, sending up thick clouds of smoke.
About 30 people were hospitalized. On Saturday, one was discharged from the hospital, state broadcaster CCTV reported. The others were improving, but one remains in serious condition.
On Saturday, the Meizhou city government in Guangdong said in a statement that authorities would conduct citywide checks on expressways, railways and roads in mountainous areas. A team led by the provincial governor is investigating the cause of the collapse, Southcn.com reported.
The Chinese government had sent a vice premier to oversee recovery efforts and urged better safety measures following calls by President Xi Jinping and the Communist Party’s No. 2 official, Premier Li Qiang, to swiftly handle the tragedy.
The dispatch of Zhang Guoqing, who is also a member of one of the ruling Communist Party’s leading bodies, illustrates the concern over a possible public backlash over the disaster, the latest in a series of deadly infrastructure failures.
