NATION
Tuesday, January 21, 2020
East Oregonian
A7
Thousands rally at Virginia Capitol for gun rights
By ALAN SUDERMAN
AND SARAH RANKIN
Associated Press
RICHMOND, Va. —
Thousands of gun-rights
activists rallied peacefully at
the Virginia Capitol on Mon-
day under a heavy police
presence, protesting plans by
the state’s Democratic lead-
ership to pass gun-control
legislation.
The size of the rally and
the expected participation
of white supremacists and
fringe militia groups raised
fears that the state could see
a repeat of the violence that
exploded in 2017 in Charlot-
tesville. But the rally con-
cluded uneventfully around
noon, and attendees spilled
into the streets, chanting and
waving signs.
A spokesman for the
Capitol police said that as
of 11 a.m. (EST) there had
been no reports of arrests or
injuries.
The Richmond protesters,
who were mostly white and
male, came out in the thou-
sands despite the chilly tem-
perature to send a message to
legislators, they said.
“The government doesn’t
run us, we run the govern-
ment,” said Kem Regik, a
20-year-old private security
AP Photo/Sarah Rankin
Demonstrators are seen during a pro-gun rally on Monday in Richmond, Va. Thousands of
pro-gun supporters were expected at the rally to oppose gun control legislation like univer-
sal background checks that are being pushed by the newly elected Democratic legislature.
offi cer from northern Vir-
ginia who brought a white
fl ag with a picture of a rifl e
captioned, “Come and take
it.”
Gov. Ralph Northam was
a particular focus of the pro-
tester’s wrath. One poster
showed his face superim-
posed on Adolf Hitler’s body.
Many of the protest-
ers wore camoufl age. Some
waved fl ags with messages
of support for President Don-
ald Trump.
Trump, in turn, tweeted
support for their goals.
“The Democrat Party in
the Great Commonwealth of
Virginia are working hard to
take away your 2nd Amend-
ment rights,” he tweeted.
“This is just the beginning.
Don’t let it happen, VOTE
REPUBLICAN in 2020!”
The Virginia State Police,
the Virginia Capitol Police
and the Richmond Police had
a strong presence, with offi -
cers deploying on rooftops,
others patrolling in cars and
on bicycles.
Authorities were looking
to avoid a repeat of the vio-
lence that erupted in Char-
lottesville during one of the
largest gatherings of white
supremacists and other far-
right groups in a decade.
Attendees brawled with
counterprotesters, and an
avowed white supremacist
drove his car into a crowd,
killing a woman and injuring
dozens more. Law enforce-
ment offi cials faced scathing
criticism for what both the
white supremacist groups
and anti-racism protesters
said was a passive response.
In contrast to Charlot-
tesville, there was little sign
of any counterprotesters
challenging the gun-rights
activists.
Police limited access to
Capitol Square to only one
entrance, and a long line
formed to get into the rally
zone. Thousands more stood
outside on nearby streets.
PJ Hudson, 31, a truck
driver from Richmond, wore
an AR-15 and posed for
pictures.
“I love this. This is like
the Super Bowl for the Sec-
ond Amendment right here,”
said Hudson, whose shirt
said “Black guns matter.”
An RV festooned with
Trump material and selling
Trump merchandise parked
in front of the line to the
square, but was booted by
a police offi cer shortly after
it parked Monday: “You
got two minutes before it’s
towed. Clock’s ticking.”
Advocates also fi lled the
hallways of the building that
houses lawmakers’ offi ces.
One couple, Jared and Marie
March, traveled from Floyd
County, over three hours
west of Richmond, to meet
with lawmakers.
“Guns are a way of life
where we live,” said Marie
March, who was concerned
about a proposed red-fl ag
law that she said would
allow citizens to be stripped
of their guns due to “sub-
jective criteria.” A proposal
to establish universal back-
ground checks amounted to
“more Big Brother,” she said.
“We just feel like we need to
push government back into
their rightful spot.”
Monday’s rally was orga-
nized by an infl uential grass-
roots gun-rights group, the
Virginia Citizens Defense
League. The group holds
a yearly rally at the Cap-
itol, typically a low-key
event with a few hundred
gun enthusiasts listening
to speeches from a hand-
ful of ambitious Republican
lawmakers. But this year,
many more attended. Second
Amendment groups have
identifi ed the state as a rally-
ing point for the fi ght against
what they see as a national
erosion of gun rights.
Trump’s lawyers urge dismissal of ‘fl imsy’ impeachment case
By ZEKE MILLER, ERIC
TUCKER AND LISA
MASCARO
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Pres-
ident Donald Trump’s legal
team asserted Monday that
he did “absolutely nothing
wrong,” urging the Senate to
swiftly reject an impeachment
case that it called “fl imsy”
and a “dangerous perversion
of the Constitution.” The law-
yers decried the impeachment
process as rigged and insisted
that abuse of power was not a
crime.
The brief from Trump’s
lawyers, fi led before argu-
ments expected this week
in the Senate impeachment
trial, offered the most detailed
glimpse of the lines of defense
they intend to use against
Democratic efforts to convict
the president and oust him
from offi ce over his dealings
with Ukraine. It is meant as
a counter to a fi ling two days
ago from House Democrats
that summarized weeks of
testimony from more than a
dozen witnesses in laying out
the impeachment case.
The 110-page fi ling from
the White House shifted the
tone toward a more legal
response. It still hinged on
Trump’s assertion he did
nothing wrong and did not
commit a crime — even
though impeachment does
not depend on a material vio-
lation of law but rather on
the more vague defi nition of
“other high crimes and misde-
meanors” as established in the
Constitution.
“It is a constitutional trav-
esty,” the lawyers wrote.
The prosecution team of
House managers was spend-
ing another day on Capitol
Hill preparing for the trial,
which will be under heavy
security. Before the fi ling,
House prosecutors made their
way through crowds of tour-
ists in the Rotunda to tour the
Senate chamber.
In their own fi ling Monday,
House prosecutors replied to
Trump’s not guilty plea by
making fresh demands for fair
trial in the Senate, where the
Republican majority aligned
with Trump has not yet dis-
closed the rules.
“President Trump asserts
that his impeachment is a par-
tisan ‘hoax.’ He is wrong,”
the prosecutors wrote in their
reply.
They wrote that the pres-
ident can’t have it both ways
— rejecting the facts of the
House case but also stone-
walling congressional sub-
poenas for witnesses and tes-
timony. “Senators must honor
their own oaths by holding a
fair trial with all relevant evi-
dence,” they wrote.
The White House docu-
ment Monday, much more
fulsome than its weekend
pleading, says the two arti-
cles of impeachment brought
against the president — abuse
of power and obstruction of
Congress — don’t amount
to impeachment offenses. It
asserts that the impeachment
inquiry, centered on Trump’s
request that Ukraine’s presi-
dent open an investigation into
Democratic rival Joe Biden,
was never about fi nding the
truth.
“Instead, House Democrats
were determined from the out-
set to fi nd some way — any
way — to corrupt the extraor-
dinary power of impeach-
ment for use as a political tool
to overturn the result of the
2016 election and to interfere
in the 2020 election,” Trump’s
legal team wrote. “All of that
is a dangerous perversion of
the Constitution that the Sen-
ate should swiftly and roundly
condemn.”
The impeachment case
accuses Trump of abusing
power by withholding mili-
tary aid from Ukraine at the
same time that he was seeking
an investigation into Biden,
and of obstructing Congress
by instructing administra-
tion offi cials not to appear for
testimony or provide docu-
ments, defying congressional
subpoenas.
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