WASHINGTON (AP) — Legal briefs filed in the impeachment case against former President Donald Trump lay out radically different positions ahead of next week’s Senate trial. There are conflicting interpretations of his responsibility for the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and in the legality of even holding a trial. There’s a debate over the role played by the First Amendment and an assessment by Democrats that the riot threatened the presidential line of succession. Trump’s lawyers say the case is moot since he is no longer in the White House and the Senate therefore doesn’t have jurisdiction to try him, but House impeachment managers say there’s ample precedent.
