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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 13, 2021)
A3 THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2021 Defense lawyers accuse Democrats of hatred for Trump US to secure 600M vaccine doses by July, Biden says By ERIC TUCKER, LISA MASCARO and MARY CLARE JALONICK Associated Press By ZEKE MILLER and JONATHAN LEMIRE Associated Press WASHINGTON — Law- yers for former President Donald Trump defended him against impeachment Fri- day by accusing Democrats of waging a campaign of “hatred” against the former president and manipulating his words in the lead-up to the deadly siege of the U.S. Capitol. Their presentation included a blizzard of their own selectively edited fi ery comments from Democrats. The Trump legal team characterized the impeach- ment case as a politically motivated “witch hunt” — an outgrowth, they said, of years of efforts to drive him from offi ce — and they sought to reduce the case to Trump’s use of a single word, “fi ght,” in a speech preceding the Jan. 6 riot. They played dozens of clips showing Democrats, some of them senators now serving as jurors, using the same word to energize sup- porters in speeches railing against Trump. “You didn’t do any- thing wrong” in using the word, Trump attorney David Schoen told the sen- ators. “But, please, stop the hypocrisy.” The Trump defense team left out that what Trump was doing in telling his support- ers to “fi ght like hell” was to undermine a national elec- tion after every state had ver- ifi ed its results, after the Elec- toral College had affi rmed them and after nearly every election lawsuit fi led by Trump and his allies had been rejected in court. Instead, they contended, he was telling the crowd to support primary challenges against his adver- saries and to press for sweep- ing election reform — some- thing he was entitled to do. The case is speeding BETHESDA, Md. — Pres- ident Joe Biden said Thursday that the U.S. will have enough supply of the COVID-19 vac- cine by the end of the sum- mer to inoculate 300 million Americans. Biden made the announce- ment at the sprawling National Institutes of Health com- plex just outside Washington, D.C., as he visited some of the nation’s leading scientists on the frontlines of the fi ght against the disease. He toured the Viral Pathogenesis Labora- tory that created the COVID- 19 vaccine now manufac- tured by Moderna and being rolled out in the U.S. and other countries. The U.S. is on pace to exceed Biden’s goal of admin- istering 100 million vaccine doses in his fi rst 100 days in offi ce, with more than 26 mil- lion shots delivered in his fi rst three weeks. “That’s just the fl oor,” Biden said. “Our end goal is beating COVID-19.” Biden announced on Thurs- day that the U.S. had secured contractual commitments from Moderna and Pfi zer to deliver the 600 million doses of vaccine by the end of July — more than a month earlier than initially anticipated. “We’re now on track to have enough supply for 300 million Americans by the end of July,” he announced. The pace of injections could increase further if a third coronavirus vaccine from drugmaker Johnson & Johnson receives approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Speaking with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infec- tious-disease specialist, Biden emphasized that his admin- istration is doing everything possible to increase the vac- cine supply and the country’s Senate Television Bruce Castor, an attorney for former President Donald Trump, speaks during the impeachment trial at the U.S. Capitol on Friday. toward a conclusion and near-certain acquittal, per- haps as soon as Saturday, with Trump’s lawyers mak- ing an abbreviated presenta- tion that used less than three of their allotted 16 hours. The defense arguments and the quick pivot to the Dem- ocrats’ own words defl ected from the central question of the trial — whether Trump incited the assault on the Capitol — and instead aimed to place impeachment man- agers and Trump adversaries on the defensive. After a two-day effort by Democrats to sync up Trump’s words to the vio- lence that followed, includ- ing through raw and emotive video footage, defense law- yers suggested that Demo- crats have typically engaged in the same overheated rhet- oric as Trump. But in trying to draw that equivalency, the defend- ers minimized Trump’s monthslong efforts to under- mine the election results and his urging of followers to do the same. Democrats say that long campaign, rooted in a “big lie,” laid the ground- work for the mob that assem- bled outside the Capitol and stormed inside. Five people died. Without Trump, who in a speech at a rally preceding the violence told supporters to “fi ght like hell,” the vio- lence would never have hap- pened, Democrats say. “And so they came, draped in Trump’s fl ag, and used our fl ag, the American fl ag, to batter and to blud- geon,” U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean, one of the impeach- ment managers and a Penn- sylvania Democrat, said Thursday as she choked back emotion. On Friday, as defense lawyers repeated their own videos over and over, some Democrats chuckled and whispered among them- selves as almost all of their faces fl ashed on the screen. Some passed notes. U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, threw up his hands, appar- ently amused, when his face appeared. U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, rolled her eyes. Most Republicans watched intently. During a break, some joked about the videos and others said they were a dis- traction or a “false equiv- alence” with Trump’s behavior. “Well we heard the word ‘fi ght’ a lot,” said U.S. Sen. Angus King, a Maine inde- pendent who caucuses with the Democrats. Evan Vucci/AP Photo President Joe Biden speaks during a visit at the National Institutes of Health on Thursday. capacity to deliver injections into arms. “It’s been a hell of a learn- ing process,” Biden said. Fauci predicts by April it will be “open season” for vac- cinations in the U.S., as supply boosts will allow most people to get shots for the virus. Speaking to NBC’s “Today Show” on Thursday, Fauci said the rate of vaccinations will greatly accelerate in the coming months. He credits forthcoming deliveries of the two approved vaccines, the potential approval of a third and moves taken by the Biden administration to increase the nation’s capacity to deliver doses. Biden, wearing a mask, used his remarks to criti- cize former President Don- ald Trump, saying he inherited “no plan to vaccinate most of the country.” “It is no secret that the vac- cination program was in much worse shape than my team and I anticipated,” he said. To date, the Biden admin- istration has deployed active- duty troops to help stand up mass vaccination sites in sev- eral states, as it looks to lay the groundwork for increasing the rate of vaccinations once more supply is available. The Viral Pathogenesis Laboratory is led by Dr. Bar- ney Graham, whose team made critical discoveries years ago that laid the ground- work for rapid development of that and other COVID- 19 vaccines. Before the pan- demic erupted, one of Gra- ham’s research fellows, Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, had been using those earlier fi ndings to develop a vaccine for MERS, a cousin of COVID-19. On the tour, Biden was shown the lab bench where researchers sequenced the virus and developed the pre- cursor of the Moderna vaccine. Armed with their prior research, Corbett and Graham had a head start when Chinese scientists shared the genetic map of the new coronavi- rus last January. 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