Regarding the Impeachment Trial

So far, the ex-president's defense looks weak at best and otherwise ridiculous. Regardless, it will be sufficient to provide cover for republican Senators to vote against conviction. Maybe a possible public backlash might change some fascist GOP minds. But maybe not.

The first defense argument throws the coup attempters under the bus. The attorney urges prosecution of all of them. But otherwise the defense ignores the coup attempt and talks about all sorts of things other than what happened on Jan. 6. Here, the ex-president shows his loyalty to himself before loyalty to those deceived and misguided supporters who went out on a limb for him.

The next argument was expected. It says that there is no basis for impeachment now because the ex-president is out of office. Those arguments were not convincing. The House managers were convincing that there is a basis to impeach now. The House managers also pointed out that the ex-president's lawyers simply ignored two arguments in the House legal brief. That evinces the legal weakness of the defense.  

The House raised an emotional allegation 'snap impeachment' and an erratic rush to impeachment. The fear mongering there is that the Senate should not to set such a damaging precedent. Again, the defense raised no evidence that they claim was overlooked. Not one shred. All of the evidence I am aware since the House impeachment vote is against the ex-president, not for him.

On top of that, the ex-president's defense is riddled with lies and crackpot legal reasoning. The Washington Post writes: 

Former president Donald Trump will probably be acquitted in the Senate impeachment trial that is set to begin Tuesday.

But just because Trump’s defense is likely to succeed — by giving at least 34 senators a reason not to vote to convict — that doesn’t mean it’s good. On the eve of the trial, the defense team reinforced just how haphazard and strained its efforts have been.

Trump’s defense has rested on arguments that do little to address his culpability for allegedly inciting the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. It has argued that the proceedings themselves are unconstitutional and that Trump has a right to free speech — without focusing much on the established limits on such speech, which include incitement.

While making their constitutionality argument, for instance, Trump’s attorneys repeatedly cite constitutional law professor Brian Kalt’s analysis — no fewer than 15 times, in fact. They note that Kalt has cited the words of founders such as Alexander Hamilton, saying that “Hamilton seemed to believe that removal was a required component of the impeachment penalty, which suggests that he viewed late impeachment as impossible.”

As Kalt has noted, though, the 2001 analysis they cite actually argued in favor of an impeachment and trial after an official was out of office. Kalt merely cited the evidence for both sides and then disputed arguments such as the one above.

When lawyers have a weak hand, they have to make weak arguments. That's all they can do. But in court they cannot lie. Lying is what the ex-president's lawyers did. But they will probably face no ethics or other repercussions because they are talking to the US Senate. Lying to senators in an impeachment trial is apparently just fine and dandy.

Another WaPo article points out another whopper from the ex-president and argued in his legal brief:

President Donald Trump was “horrified” when violence broke out at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, as a joint session of Congress convened to confirm that he lost the election, according to his defense attorneys.

Trump tweeted calls for peace “upon hearing of the reports of violence” and took “immediate steps” to mobilize resources to counter the rioters storming the building, his lawyers argued in a brief filed Monday in advance of Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate. It is “absolutely not true,” they wrote, that Trump failed to act swiftly to quell the riot.

But that revisionist history [lies] conflicts with the timeline of events on the day of the Capitol riot, as well as accounts of multiple people in contact with the president that day, who have said Trump was initially pleased to see a halt in the counting of the electoral college votes. Some former White House officials have acknowledged that he only belatedly and reluctantly issued calls for peace, after first ignoring public and private entreaties to do so.

But the decision by Trump’s attorneys to also assert a claim about Trump’s reaction that day in a footnote to their legal brief could give the House impeachment managers an opening as they prosecute their case. Among the possible witnesses who could rebut the contention that Trump moved quickly to rein his supporters are Republican senators who will now sit as jurors in the impeachment trial — some of whom have spoken publicly about their failed attempts to get the president to act expeditiously when his supporters invaded the Capitol.

That same day, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) told conservative radio broadcaster Hugh Hewitt that it was “not an open question” as to whether Trump had been “derelict in his duty,” saying there had been a delay in the deployment of the National Guard to help the Capitol Police repel rioters.

“As this was unfolding on television, Donald Trump was walking around the White House confused about why other people on his team weren’t as excited as he was as you had rioters pushing against Capitol Police trying to get into the building,” he said, indicating that he had learned of Trump’s reaction from “senior White House officials.”

In real legal proceedings, lies like that are rejected and the lawyers making them are subject to ethics violations. But again, this is a political proceeding in a US Senate impeachment. Apparently, lies are acceptable in that venue.

And then, there is this from WaPo about the validity of the impeachment:

“This is not a trial of a president but of a private citizen. … This proceeding … violates the Constitution.” — Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), in remarks on the Senate floor, Jan. 26, 2021

“The theory that the impeachment of a former official is unconstitutional is flat-out wrong by every frame of analysis: constitutional context, historical practice, precedent and basic common sense. It’s been completely debunked by constitutional scholars from all across the political spectrum.” — Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), in remarks on the Senate floor, Jan. 26, 2021

Scores of law professors, historians and pundits have weighed in as the Senate begins its trial of former president Donald Trump, who was impeached by the House for allegedly inciting insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Our 2019 fact check was prompted by a tweet from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), a Trump ally who said that “you actually can impeach former presidents” and suggested former president Barack Obama get the treatment. (This came during Trump’s first impeachment, over his dealings with Ukraine.)

Now the shoe is on the other foot. In recent weeks, some of the same scholars we spoke to in 2019 about the Obama claim have firmed up their views when asked about Trump. For his part, Gaetz is now giving kudos to the “brilliance” of Paul’s floor remarks, in which the senator argued that impeaching former officials is unconstitutional. Go figure.

No need to go figure. This is a political proceeding, not a legal one. The GOP is hell-bent on making that as clear as possible. The ex-president's lies and crackpot reasoning and GOP senators taking it seriously make that obvious.