Watch Trump Team's 1.5-Minute Video Recapping Dems' Past Calls for Impeachment

Former President Donald Trump's legal team is arguing that Trump is being improperly tried on an impeachment charge for an unprecedented second time because of Democrats' deep-seated dislike of the former reality TV show star. To kick off Tuesday's trial they showed their own montage straight from reality television to back them up.

"The impeachment article should be treated as a nullity and dismissed based on the total lack of due process in the House," Trump attorney David Schoen said as Trump's trial got underway on Tuesday. "It should be dismissed because the trial in the Senate of a private citizen is not be permitted, let alone with the conflicts just described."

Shortly after Trump took office in January 2017, several Democrats called for his removal and raised questions about the legitimacy of his election.

Trump's legal team used clips of several of those pro-impeachment remarks as proof that Democrats have long been opposed to his presidency and have looked for ways to publicly rebuke him.

Six of the clips are from members speaking during Trump's first year in office, including one of Representative Maxine Waters, a California Democrat who has been among the most vocal critics of Trump, leading a chant of "Impeach 45!" during an event in November 2017.

Trump spokesman Jason Miller posted the full video to Twitter after it was shown on the floor.

To start the trial, the Democratic House impeachment managers also showed a video montage, but it was a 13-minute series of tense scenes from the Capitol on January 6, peppered with clips from Trump's earlier remarks and tweets while the riots were happening.

Five people were killed during the Capitol siege, including a Capitol police officer. Two additional officers have died by suicide in the weeks since the insurrection.

The House impeached Trump on a charge of "incitement of insurrection" a week after the Capitol riot, but the ensuing trial was delayed until after Trump left office on January 20.

Trump's lawyers are arguing that he cannot be impeached because he's no longer in office under the U.S. Constitution. But they're also attempting to cast doubt on the validity of the impeachment push because of Trump's acrimonious relationship with Democratic leaders—an argument also used when Trump was impeached in December 2019, after a whistleblower raised questions about whether remarks Trump made to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about Biden were inappropriate. Trump ultimately was acquitted on a near party-line vote of charges when the Ukraine case went to the U.S. Senate last year.

After showing the video of calls for impeachment during the trial Tuesday, Schoen accused House members of seizing on "political opportunity to score points against the outgoing then-President Trump."