Sen. Ted Cruz, after meeting with former President Donald Trump's impeachment legal team Thursday, said there is "no chance" the ex-leader will be convicted of inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
"There is no chance whatsoever there will be 67 votes to convict him," the Texas Republican said on "Fox News @ Night." "All 100 senators know that, the house managers know that, everyone in knows that."
But beyond that, there should not be votes to convict Trump because the House managers have "not proven their case" that Trump committed a high crime or misdemeanor, said Cruz.
"In two days and 16 hours of presenting their case, they haven't come remotely close to demonstrating that President Trump's conduct violated the law, that constituted incitement."
Cruz told show host Shannon Bream that he, along with Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, met for about an hour with Trump's attorneys to discuss the case, and that he suggested to the lawyers look at comments by Democrat leaders and compare them to Trump's speech on Jan. 6
"If you look at the comments of Bernie Sanders, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Maxine Waters, if you look at Kamala Harris, there is no coherent basis under the standard they put forward for concluding President Trump's comments were incitement and Kamala Harris' weren't," said Cruz.
Harris, he added, "went on national television on Stephen Colbert and said these riots will continue and they should continue...she raised money to bail out the violent criminals who had been arrested committing crimes of violence."
Cruz also argued that the First Amendment "allows robust, vigorous political debate from both sides, even when there is irresponsible or overheated rhetoric on either side," and pointed out the Democrat House managers, in their arguments, omitted parts about Trump encouraging peaceful protests.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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