“Donald Trump told those people to come to Washington to stop the certification of the election. Then when they all got to the White House, invited by him, he told them to march up Pennsylvania Avenue and to stop the count and he had all kinds of references to violence and everything else. So, they’re all guilty,” DeGette told MSNBC Sunday.
“We can’t let this go,” she reiterated several times.
DeGette was tapped by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to lead the prosecution in the Senate, and she now said it’s time to “finish the job” and convict Trump on the charge of “incitement of insurrection,” following the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6. She said her years working as a defense attorney enabled her to see the case against Trump clearly. “I was a criminal defense lawyer for a long time and I’ll tell you what—if you commit a crime, you’re guilty, and the person who told you to do it is guilty,” the Colorado congresswoman said Sunday.
DeGette, who Pelosi touted for being able to “control the passions on the floor,” alleged that Trump, some Republican members of Congress, and the violent protesters are all part of the wider “criminal conspiracy” at the heart of the impeachment case. She blasted Trump and others for their attempts to walk away from the Capitol riots with no blame.
“And they can’t now point the finger at each other and say, ‘Well he said it, so I’m not guilty.’ It’s part of the criminal conspiracy. And the whole conspiracy was designed to undermine our democratic process and our democracy. It’s mind-boggling to think about what a serious threat that was from our own sitting president of the United States,” DeGette added.
On the day of the Capitol attacks, Trump and his son Donald Jr. riled up their supporters in Washington D.C. with speeches which warned the churning crowds, “you have to show strength” and “you’ll never take back our country with weakness.” The president told his most fanatical followers to immediately take action to save the country “under siege” by his various political opponents.
MSNBC host Ali Velshi noted that many of the Trump supporters present on the day of the Capitol riots are making the legal argument that “they were here [in Washington D.C.] because the president told them to be here.”
Last Wednesday, Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives that included the majority-led Democrats as well as 10 GOP members. He became the first president in U.S. history to be impeached twice.
Newsweek reached out to DeGette’s office and the White House for additional remarks Sunday afternoon.
