Police arrest New Mexico man near US Capitol for alleged role in January 6 riot
Lead impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin said Sunday morning the article of impeachment will be sent to the Senate “soon,” as he also passionately argued that President Trump’s second impeachment was crucial for holding the President to account for his actions — even as the Maryland Democrat deals with his own family’s tragedy over the loss of their son to the illness of depression.
“I’m not going to lose my son at the end of 2020 and lose my country and my republic in 2021. It’s not going to happen,” Raskin told CNN on Sunday.
Raskin also addressed questions over the decision to pursue convicting a president of impeachment who is just days away from leaving office, arguing that Trump must be held accountable for his actions.
“I don’t think anybody would seriously argue that we should establish a precedent, where every president on the way out the door has two weeks or three weeks or four weeks to try to incite an armed insurrection against the union or organize a coup against the union, and if it succeeds, he becomes a dictator and if it fails, he’s not subject to impeachment or conviction because we just want to let bygones be bygones,” said Raskin, a constitutional law professor.
“Everything is due to his actions. And this was the most sweeping betrayal. The most terrible betrayal of a presidential oath of office in the history of the United States,” he added.
When asked if he and the House managers would seek witnesses, especially after the impeachment trial earlier this year featured none, Raskin would not answer.
“We’re putting together a trial plan, which is designed to get the truth of all of these events out,” Raskin said.
On the timing of when the articles would be sent to the Senate, Raskin stressed that decision would ultimately fall to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi but said that he thinks it would be “coming up soon.”
Raskin also described what he went through on Jan. 6.
“When we went to count the electoral college votes and it came under that ludicrous attack, I felt my son with me, and I was most concerned with our youngest daughter and my son in law, who’s married to our other daughter, who were with me that day who got caught in that room off of the House floor. In between them and me was a rampaging armed mob that could have killed them easily and was banging on the doors where they were hiding under a desk with my chief of staff Julie Tagen,” Raskin said.
Rep. Raskin speaks with Jake Tapper:
