‘The unconstitutional impeachment is underway’: How far-right media covered the first day of Trump’s trial

Now facing legal pressure, networks that amplified election fraud claims play a bigger role in a story central to the trial they’re covering

The night before Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial opened on the floor of the US Senate, Dan Ball told his audience on the One America News Network that “many conservatives” believe the proceedings echo the Soviet Union’s mass killings of political enemies.

“Stalin cancelled anyone who opposed his views,” said Mr Ball, host of the far-right network’s Real America programme. “The Stalin show trials all seem a little bit too familiar, and seem to be exactly what the Democrats are doing.”

The network and its far-right counterpart Newsmax – both tailored to the former president’s brand of liberal-triggering pugilism – have served as platforms for a whirlwind of misleading claims to defend the president against his critics, prompting legal notices and lawsuits for airing election conspiracies promoted by the former president and his legal team.

Mr Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives last month on a charge of inciting a deadly insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January, fuelled by his persistent lie that the results were stolen from his supporters.

Read more:Follow live updates from Trump's second impeachment trial

Now facing legal pressure from defamation warnings, the networks that amplified those claims have become a larger part of the story that is central to the trial they’re covering.

Legal threats from voting machine companies aimed at right-wing cable networks, including Fox News, have redrawn the mis- and disinformation campaigns emerging from the former president and recycled on social media and on television.

On 2 February, Newmax host Bob Sellers walked off set after MyPillow CEO and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell spouted election conspiracies that got him removed from Twitter.

Last week, OAN issued a massive disclaimer before airing what the network advertised as Mr Lindell's three-hour-long “never-before-seen report breaking down election fraud evidence” and showing "the unprecedented level of voter fraud” – but the network was named in a recent court filing that suggests OAN could be next in line for a defamation lawsuit.

In their coverage of the first day of the trial on 9 February, the networks derided evidence presented by Democratic impeachment managers, drew false equivalences between the Capitol riot to overturn election results with Black Lives Matter and Trump inauguration protests, and suggested the former president and his supporters are victims of a “cancel culture” movement in Congress.

Their coverage revealed their grievances in a mess of contradictions – the trial is a distraction from a “radical far-left agenda” from Joe Biden and members of Congress, but also a dereliction of the president’s responsibilities to respond to the crises he promised to address. It’s “political theatre” signalling the left’s authoritarian rebuke to “malign” the Trump faithful over their “legitimate” election integrity concerns, despite his lead impeachment counsel admitting on the floor of the Senate that he lost that election.

On OAN, the network repeatedly compared the insurrection inside the halls of Congress to overturn election results to “violent and disturbing scenes” in Washington DC for Trump’s inauguration in 2017, as well as Black Lives Matter demonstrations “turning cities like Portland and Seattle into war zones".

Before the trial began, Pennsylvania congressman Guy Reschenthaler told Newsmax that the proceedings are a distraction from the president’s “far left radical agenda” – including a minimum wage hike that he falsely claimed would force people out of their jobs “the day that hits.”

Newsmax host John Bachman suggested the trial “makes it easier” for Democrats to avoid addressing Americans’ “economic pain” during the coronavirus pandemic, despite the House of Representatives introducing a massive relief package that right-wing media has also criticised for moving forward without significant Republican support.

As other news networks carried uninterrupted coverage of the trial, Newsmax broke away from remarks from the Senate floor 45 minutes into opening arguments, after remarks from Democratic impeachment managers Jamie Raskin and Joe Neguse and a harrowing 10-minute video compiling violent footage from Capitol assault.

“We apologise for folks tuning in – obviously some strong language in there,” said host John Bachman.

Reporter Emerald Robinson said that the “long, selectively edited” video did not include timestamps.

“The unconstitutional impeachment is underway in front of a sceptical Senate,” announced Newsmax host Chris Salcedo, arguing that “everyone knows when you impeach someone, you impeach them out of office.”

On OAN, right-wing columnist Raheem Kassam disputed the timeline of events that led to the insurrection.

“The way this is characterised now is going to be used to malign people,” he said, adding that the trial is an attempt to “lump responsibility on one side” and argue “that conservatives can’t exercise moral responsibility.”

In the middle of a meandering opening statement from Trump’s lead counsel Bruce Castor, a confused Newsmax host Heather Childers broke away from the trial and asked former Trump impeachment attorney Alan Dershowitz what the argument was.

"There is no argument,” Mr Dershowitz said. “I have no idea what he is doing.”

Ms Childers also previewed a segment before cutting to commercial break: “Coming up: What is President Trump doing today?”