WASHINGTON — Confusion reigned in the final moments of Day 2 of former President Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial on Wednesday when an angry GOP Sen. Mike Lee insisted he had been misquoted by House impeachment managers.
As the Democratic lawmakers closed their first of two days of arguments, Lee (R-Utah) rose to his feet and demanded they strike from the record an account the House impeachment managers gave of a phone call Trump mistakenly placed to Lee during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
“They are not true! They were false!” Lee said of the House managers’ arguments. “I ask them to be stricken.”
Media reports citing unnamed sources saying Trump called Lee during the riot when he had been trying to reach freshman Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama were used during the trial.
According to the reports, as the siege was ongoing, Lee handed his phone to Tuberville and Trump urged the Republican to file additional objections to the Electoral College vote which Congress was certifying before the riot.
It’s unclear what exactly Lee was protesting but he became flustered as he repeatedly urged an equally confused Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who is presiding over former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, to strike the “false” remarks from the record.
After a kerfuffle over whether a roll call vote had been requested, and for what purpose that would have been, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) interceded.
After a few moments of off-mic discussion between the leader and the House team, lead impeachment manager, Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, agreed to strike the remarks saying they were “much ado about nothing” because it had “nothing to do with our case.”
“The impeachment manager Mr. Cicciline correctly and accurately quoted a newspaper account which the distinguished senator has taken objection to on the grounds that it is not true,” Raskin said.
“We are going to withdraw it this evening,” he said.
Schumer said the evidence could be debated again on Thursday.
Tuberville also refuted that he had spent 10 minutes on the phone with Trump during the historic insurrection.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever talked to President Trump. You don’t get many words in,” Tuberville told reporters outside the chamber on Wednesday evening.
“But he didn’t get a chance to say a whole lot because I said, ‘Mr. President, they just took the vice president out. I’ve got to go.'”
Democratic prosecutors Wednesday presented previously-unseen dramatic video footage of the deadly siege during their first full day of presentations on Wednesday.
The trial continues at noon on Thursday.