Ex-Cruz spokesperson says this is Trump’s most damning riot tweet ahead of impeachment trial

Amanda Carpenter, a former spokesperson for Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz, has said that former President Donald Trump's most damning tweet ahead of his second impeachment trial was a message saying "These are the things and events that happened when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away from great patriots," that was tweeted by Mr Trump around 6 pm on 6 January after the storming of the Capitol.

Mr Trump added in the tweet that the "patriots" had "been badly and unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love and in peace. Remember this day forever!"

The former Cruz communications director said the tweet was "celebratory".

"It’s all there. Essentially, yep, this is what happens when you don’t re-elect me. He pushes the big election lie some more and wraps the mob in love. What more do we need to see here," she tweeted.

Mr Trump is charged in the impeachment trial with inciting the insurrection on 6 January but is unlikely to be convicted as there doesn't seem to be 17 votes for it on the Republican side of the aisle that's required for conviction. 45 of the 50 Republican Senators previously voted for a resolution that said that the impeachment trial of a former president was unconstitutional.

New York Magazine reported that “most of Cruzworld is pretty disgusted” with Mr Cruz for choosing to back Mr Trump's baseless claims of widespread voter fraud.

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“The biggest conversation I’ve had with fellow Cruz supporters is, ‘Was he always this way or did he change?’" Ms Carpenter told New York Magazine, adding that she “could have never imagined that he could have gone down this road” and that his career could “culminate in a stand to potentially cancel votes in a way that defied any standards of federalism and constitutionalism".

"The old Ted Cruz is the one I worked for and supported," Ms Carpenter told CNN in early January. "The new Ted Cruz, post-Trump, is one I don't recognize. I can surmise that he thinks he is a very smart lawyer who can parse his way out of this and perhaps in his mind, he has some rationale, but that's just not believable. He has to come to terms with the fact that he, through his actions directly played into the hands of the mob... It is so horrifying to watch someone descend into this and not be able to admit what happened when you worked for him and believed in him. It's really hard to watch," Ms Carpenter said.

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