House impeachment managers filed a brief on Tuesday morning, formally kicking off a Senate trial in the charge of “incitement of insurrection” against former President Donald Trump. The nine impeachment managers held Trump “singularly responsible” for the violent mob that he aimed like a “loaded cannon” at the Capitol building on January 6th and that his actions were a, “grievous betrayal of his Oath of Office.” The brief described how, on the morning of the attack, “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.’” Additionally, House impeachment managers wrote, “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.” Trump’s lawyers filed their first response to the impeachment charge focusing on a claim that because he is no longer in office, the Senate trial is unconstitutional. This was the advice that Trump loyalists in Congress gave the former president, allowing both them and the impeachment legal team to avoid discussing the substance of the charge.  

Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Monday in a live Instagram video described her harrowing experience as the Capitol was overrun by the Trump mob. During her raw testimony she also revealed that she had once been sexually assaulted and that the new traumas opened up old wounds. She described eventually hiding in the office of fellow Democrat Katie Porter who confirmed in an interview on MSNBC just how grave the situation was as both lawmakers feared for their lives. Meanwhile, many rioters have been tracked down via social media sleuths and reported to authorities. On Monday journalist Ronan Farrow, writing in the New Yorker, profiled one mother of 8 from Pennsylvania named Rachel Powell, who was among the thousands whipped into an angry frenzy by Trump and who with a battering ram and bullhorn helped break into the Capitol building. At least 6 out of the approximately 170 people who have now been charged in connection to the Capitol riot squarely blame Trump for inciting them to attack. 

In addition to Trump’s impeachment, Democrats are taking steps to censure Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene by stripping her of committee assignments. Greene’s past statements calling for violence and murder against Democrats and spreading dangero...