Two Black lawmakers who are serving as impeachment managers in the historic second impeachment trial are making history of their own. Del. Stacey Plaskett is the first non-voting delegate to serve in the impeachment management role and Rep. Joe Neguse is the youngest.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointed nine congressional Democrats to serve as prosecutors in the impeachment trial currently underway in the US Senate. The House is making the case that Donald Trump incited the deadly violence and is culpable for what took place January 6.
Both Del. Plaskett and Rep. Neguse have become standout litigators, delivering moving arguments in the case against Trump.
Del. Stacey Plaskett represents the US Virgin Islands, which is a territory of the US and doesn’t have a vote in Congress. Plaskett, a Brooklyn-born daughter of immigrants from the Virgin Islands, studied at American University’s Washington College of Law under lead manager Rep. Jamie Raskin who complimented Plaskett on the Senate floor, remarking, she was an “A student then and she is an A+ student now.”
On Wednesday (February 10), Plaskett presented new footage from the riot of former Vice President Mike Pence and his family being escorted from the Capitol.
“You can hear the mob calling for the death of the vice president of the United States,” Plaskett noted. In her argument, Plaskett made the case that Trump’s rhetoric nearly got Pence and other officials killed. “They did it because Donald Trump sent them on this mission… President Trump put a target on their backs, and his mob broke into the Capitol to hunt them down,” the four-term Delegate said.
Plaskett is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc and was appointed to the Ways and Means committee. She is also a co-chair of the Congressional Caribbean Caucus and Taskforce on Infrastructure.
Plaskett ended her arguments urging the Senate to convict Trump.
“When the violence erupted as a response to his calls to fight against the stolen election, he did not walk it back,” she said. “He did not tell them no. He did the opposite. He praised and encouraged the violence so it would continue. He fanned the flame of violence and it worked.”
Rep. Joe Neguse is also the child of immigrants and represents Colorado’s 2nd District. He was first elected to Congress in 2018, becoming the first Eritrean-American to serve in Congress and also the first Black man to represent the state of Colorado. Rep. Neguse has introduced more bills than any other freshman in the 116th Congress, bringing 38 bills to the floor, four of which have been signed into law.
Neguse’s litigation mastery during the impeachment trial has also not gone unnoticed.The 36-year-old is a former private practice lawyer who argued Tuesday (February 9) that Trump’s actions were calculated, and directly connected to the violence that took place during the siege.
“As you’ll see during the course of this trial, that mob was summoned, assembled, and incited by the former president of the United States, Donald Trump,” Neguse said. “And he did that because he wanted to stop the transfer of power so that he could retain power, even though he had lost the election.”
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