The Daily Fuckup

The Senate’s impeachment trial of Donald Trump hit a brief procedural snag on February 10, 2021, after Sen. Mike Lee objected to House managers’ description of a call involving Trump and Sen. Tommy Tuberville. The managers had used the call to argue that Trump was still focused on delaying the certification of the 2020 election while the Capitol attack was underway. When Lee said the account was false, the managers withdrew the challenged language. ([congress.gov](https://www.congress.gov/117/crec/2021/02/10/CREC-2021-02-10-pt1-PgS615-4.pdf))

The exchange came in the middle of the House case, which was built around the claim that Trump helped incite the Jan. 6 attack and then failed to act to stop it. In their presentation, managers said Trump called Tuberville about an hour after the siege began and pressed him to delay certification. They also played Rudy Giuliani’s voicemail to Tuberville, in which Giuliani said he was calling to discuss how the certification hearing was being rushed and asked Republican allies to help slow it down. ([congress.gov](https://www.congress.gov/117/crec/2021/02/10/CREC-2021-02-10-pt1-PgS615-4.pdf))

Lee’s objection turned on a narrower point: he said the managers had put words in his mouth when they described the phone traffic connected to the call. After a short back-and-forth on the floor, the managers said they were happy to withdraw the quote. The Senate then moved on, with the disputed material left out of the record for the moment and the broader trial still centered on Trump’s conduct before and during the attack. ([congress.gov](https://www.congress.gov/117/crec/2021/02/10/CREC-2021-02-10-pt1-PgS615-4.pdf))