Phoenix election office protests cited at Trump impeachment trial

PHOENIX – November protests at the Maricopa County Elections Office while votes were being counted inside were cited Wednesday during Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial.

The Phoenix protests, and Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs’ reaction to them, were brought up by House Democrats serving as prosecutors on the first full day of arguments.

Trump is charged with “incitement of insurrection” over the Jan. 6 deadly attack on the Capitol that took place while Congress was in the process of ratifying President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.

During his presentation Wednesday, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) argued that Trump provoked protests while votes were being counted in November the same way he incited the Capitol attack that left five people dead.

Castro initially presented examples of the former president telling his followers for months that the only way he could lose would be if the election was stolen. Castro said Trump’s “big lie” set the stage for post-election actions by the former president’s supporters.

“Despite President Trump’s pressure at the time, elections officials around the country continued to carry out their duties, and as votes were counted and his loss became more certain, he riled up his base further,” Castro said.

Castro then showed Nov. 5 tweets by Trump saying “STOP THE COUNT!” and “STOP THE FRAUD!”

“That’s what it looks like when Donald Trump wants people to stop doing something. … This is the commander in chief telling his supporters, ‘Your election is being stolen, and you must stop the counting of American votes.’” Castro said.

“And it worked. His words became their actions.”

Castro then segued into examples of election office protests he said were sparked by Trump, starting with the one in Phoenix.

“The same day as those tweets, around 100 Trump supporters showed up in front of a Maricopa County election center in Phoenix, some of them carrying rifles, literally trying to intimidate officials to stop the count, just as President Trump had commanded,” Castro said.

The Arizona protests actually started on Nov. 4, the day after the election and one day before the Trump tweets that Castro cited. The demonstrations continued for several days.

While Castro spoke, a slide was displayed showing several armed protesters in Phoenix, including one carrying a pitchfork and tiki torch.

“Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said the protesters were, quote, causing delay and disruption and preventing those employees from doing their job,” Castro said.

Castro also cited instances of Trump supporters trying to affect vote counting in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin, other swing states that Trump lost.

In those states, demonstrators wanted the counting to stop because Trump led in early results but fell behind as the backlog of early ballots were tabulated.

It was the opposite in Arizona, however, because Maricopa County had already counted most of the ballots turned in prior to Election Day and included them in the early returns. As such, Biden held a lead of around 70,000 votes early on, but it shrank as remaining ballots were counted.

The Phoenix protesters demanded that election workers keep counting, which is exactly what was already happening inside the Maricopa County Elections Office. Biden ended up winning Arizona’s 11 electoral votes by about 10,500 votes.

“President Trump’s months of inflaming and inciting his supporters had worked,” Castro said. “They believed it was their duty to quite literally fight to stop the count. So they showed up at election centers across the country to do just that.”

Castro said Trump continued riling up his followers until the Capitol insurrection.

“He told them to show up on Jan. 6 and march to the U.S. Capitol, to stop the certification of the election results, and he told them to come here and fight like hell,” Castro said.

“You will see clearly that this violent mob that showed up here on Jan. 6 didn’t come out of thin air. President Donald John Trump incited this violence.”

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