Impeachment 3: The MF Has Been Impeached! The Trial Has Begun!

[GreyhoundFan]

"The White House doubles down on its dumbest impeachment defense"

Spoiler

Watching the White House put together its defense of President Trump in the impeachment trial that begins this week, one has to ask: Are they even trying?

After the Democratic House managers released a 111-page indictment providing copious detail on the events that led to impeachment, the nature of Trump’s misconduct and the constitutional basis for his removal, Trump’s attorneys responded with a six-page document that would have been shocking were it not just the kind of thing we’ve come to expect from this White House.

Indeed, it reads as though it was written by a ninth-grader who saw an episode of “Law & Order” and learned just enough legal terms to throw them around incorrectly. It makes no attempt to contest the facts, instead just asserting over and over that the president is innocent and the entire impeachment is illegitimate, calling it “unlawful” and “constitutionally invalid,” with no apparent understanding of what those terms mean. The articles of impeachment, Trump’s lawyers say, “fail to allege any crime or violation of law whatsoever, let alone ‘high Crimes and Misdemeanors,’ as required by the Constitution.” They then repeat this argument multiple times throughout a screed seemingly pitched to the Fox News hosts who will spend the coming days repeating its absurd claims.

The trouble, as any historian or constitutional scholar will tell you, is that just as there are crimes the president could commit that would not be impeachable (say, shoplifting a candy bar), there has never been any requirement that impeachment can only be used for violations of criminal law. Not only were the Framers deeply concerned about the potential of the president abusing his office, at the time the Constitution was written, there was no such thing as a federal criminal code.

Trump has found the one constitutional “expert” who will take such a position, however: Harvard professor emeritus and frequent Fox News guest Alan Dershowitz, whom Trump added to his defense team last week. “Criminal-like conduct is required” in order for a president to be impeached, Dershowitz now claims, to the puzzlement of pretty much everyone who knows anything about this topic.

Since hypocrisy is something of a job requirement for working for Trump, Dershowitz is naturally on video making exactly the opposite argument in 1998. “It certainly doesn’t have to be a crime if you have somebody who completely corrupts the office of president and who abuses trust and who poses great danger to our liberty,” he said at the time.

To illustrate how foolish the White House’s argument is, let me suggest a few things the president could do that would not violate any criminal statute but that pretty much everyone in both parties would consider grounds for impeachment:

• The president states in a news conference that if Russia wants to invade Alaska, that would be fine with him. Taking the opportunity, Vladimir Putin sends a force across the Bering Sea to occupy the state; the president refuses to deploy U.S. forces to repel them, then says, “To be honest, if anyone’s got their eye on Hawaii, I’m not going to stand in your way.”
• With a legal advisory in hand from the Department of Justice saying that anti-nepotism laws do not apply to the White House staff, the president fires every last member of that staff and replaces them with members of his extended family, including making his 18-year-old nephew, whose only work experience is manning the soft-serve machine at a Dairy Queen, the national security adviser.
• The president declares that his job has become tedious and says he’ll be spending the rest of his term in the White House residence getting drunk and playing “Grand Theft Auto.”

So why is the White House falling back on this argument when it’s so plainly wrong as a matter of both law and logic? There are a number of explanations. The most obvious is that they know the president is guilty of the central charge driving the impeachment, that he abused his power by trying to coerce a foreign government to help his reelection campaign by discrediting a potential opponent. So the last thing they want to do is argue about the facts of the case, except in the most perfunctory way (“I JUST GOT IMPEACHED FOR MAKING A PERFECT PHONE CALL!” the president tweeted last week)

Another reason they might have seized on the “no crime” defense is that despite being completely wrong, it has an intuitive appeal to it. If we’re calling this phase of impeachment a “trial” and the entire process bears some resemblance to a criminal proceeding, then there ought to be a criminal violation, right?

That makes sense as long as you don’t understand the facts or the law — or are willing yourself desperately to ignore them. That describes well Trump’s allies on Fox News and the audience they speak to, which is where his entire strategy is pitched. It’s why he assembled his legal team from people he sees frequently on Fox News and why running through all his arguments about impeachment is the false claim that the entire process is illegitimate and can therefore be dismissed out of hand, with as much indignation and whining about unfair treatment as possible.

That logic is also why Republicans will do everything they can to prevent witnesses from testifying in the trial. If you’ve convinced yourself that the process is illegitimate in every way, then at the stage when Republicans have control of it, what’s wrong with turning it into a sham, then shutting it down as quickly as possible?

To return to the question with which I began, it’s not quite that the White House isn’t trying to defend Trump in a serious way. It’s that they’ve decided they don’t really have to.

 

[Ozlsn]

52 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

The president declares that his job has become tedious and says he’ll be spending the rest of his term in the White House residence getting drunk and playing “Grand Theft Auto.”

Replace "Grand Theft Auto" with "golf" and we're pretty much there. 

I'm finding this whole process fascinating, and learning so much!

[fraurosena]

Snowball's chance in hell Barr will recuse himself. 

 

[fraurosena]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"McConnell lays out ground rules for Trump’s impeachment trial and compressed schedule to consider the charges"

Quote

BREAKING: In a four-page resolution, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the opening arguments would begin at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, with each side given 24 hours to present their case over a two-day period. The Senate will vote on the resolution Tuesday.

The question of witnesses would be decided after senators have 16 hours to question the two parties.

This story will be updated.

The White House argued in a legal brief filed Monday that the two articles of impeachment against President Trump are “structurally deficient,” decrying a “rigged process” and urging senators to “immediately” acquit the president of the charges that will be formally presented at his trial that starts in earnest this week.

The legal team, led by White House counsel Pat Cipollone, wrote that Trump “did absolutely nothing wrong” as it accused the House Democrats who impeached the president of attempting to overturn the results of the 2016 election and “to interfere in the 2020 election.”

“The only threat to the Constitution that House Democrats have brought to light is their own degradation of the impeachment process and trampling of the separation of powers,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in the 171-page legal brief filed Monday. “Their fixation on damaging the President has trivialized the momentous act of impeachment, debased the standards of impeachable conduct, and perverted the power of impeachment by turning it into a partisan, election-year political tool.”

The administration lays out two main points as it seeks a quick acquittal for Trump: that the articles of impeachment are “deficient” because they don’t involve any violations of law, and that the House’s charge of obstruction of Congress will damage the constitutional separation of powers.

House Democrats — in a separate filing that was also due Monday — disputed the White House’s argument, asserting that abusing the powers of his presidency was an impeachable offense and that Trump was the “Framers’ worst nightmare come to life.”

But the White House’s legal brief submitted to the Senate — offering the first detailed glimpse into its defense against the two impeachment charges — was adamant that Trump did nothing wrong, deploying a legalese version of the scorched-earth rhetoric commonly deployed in the president’s Twitter feed.

“This was not a search for the truth,” said a person working with the president’s legal team, who spoke with reporters on the condition of anonymity ahead of the brief’s filing on Monday. The White House believes that “this entire impeachment charade really has been illegitimate from the start.”

In its own 111-page brief filed Saturday, the House’s seven impeachment managers laid out the case against Trump they will present to senators later this week, arguing that the president’s conduct posed a national security threat and that he obstructed congressional efforts to obtain testimony and documents about his dealings toward Ukraine.

The House’s legal brief reiterated many of the findings and arguments that Democrats have laid out for months — including allegations that Trump withheld nearly $400 million in military aid for Ukraine and a coveted White House meeting with its leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, to pressure the country into conducting investigations into former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

The president’s lawyers argued in their filing, however, that House Democrats had no evidence to back up its accusation that Trump conditioned the aid and the White House visit on an investigation into a political rival. The attorneys also defended Trump’s conduct, saying a July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky that is at the heart of the House’s impeachment case was “perfectly appropriate” and that the Ukrainian leader has not indicated any impropriety with the conversation.

The lawyers pointed to a rough transcript of the call as proof that Trump did not seek a quid pro quo in his request for the probe of the Bidens and of a debunked theory alleging Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election.

In the call, Trump told Zelensky that “I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it.” Those favors do not involve Trump’s personal interests, argued the White House lawyers, who added: “The President cannot be removed from office because House Democrats deliberately misconstrue one of his commonly used phrases.”

That transcript of the call, Trump’s lawyers also said, shows that the president was speaking about issues of burden-sharing among European nations as well as corruption — two foreign policy issues that not only were in his purview as commander in chief but reflected his “longstanding concerns” about foreign aid.

The lawyers said it would have been “appropriate” and “entirely proper” for Trump to ask Zelensky about those issues, including about Hunter Biden, who served on the board of Burisma, Ukraine’s largest private gas company, whose owner came under scrutiny by Ukrainian prosecutors for possible abuse of power and unlawful enrichment. Biden was not accused of any wrongdoing.

In response to the White House’s argument that there was no underlying crime, Democrats are likely to cite an opinion issued after Trump’s impeachment from the Government Accountability Office that the administration’s withholding of aid was a violation of law. Trump’s legal team is expected to argue that senators must focus solely on the information relied upon by the House in its Dec. 18 vote to impeach the president.

As for the obstruction of Congress charge, the president’s legal team called it “frivolous and dangerous” because Trump had the right to assert certain executive branch privileges.

“Accepting that unprecedented approach [from Democrats] would fundamentally damage the separation of powers by making the House itself the sole judge of its authority,” the lawyers wrote in the brief. “It would permit Congress to threaten every President with impeachment merely for protecting the prerogatives of the Presidency.”

The filing came as the House’s designated impeachment managers conducted final preparations ahead of the trial proceedings that will begin Tuesday.

Earlier on Monday, the seven Democratic managers walked in procession, with their staff following behind, from the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to the Senate chamber a few minutes after 11 a.m. Reporters were not allowed to view the walk-through, as the doors to the third-floor galleries above the Senate chamber were locked, and aides said the lawmakers would not discuss the visit.

Upon leaving, the managers slipped into a Rules Committee room near Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) office. The area appears to be their workspace for the duration of the trial and was outfitted with two long tables — along which there are several computers set up — as well as a large elevated television screen.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) was not present for the managers’ meeting or the walk-through, though several of his staff were there.

 

[fraurosena]

7 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Upon leaving, the managers slipped into a Rules Committee room near Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) office. The area appears to be their workspace for the duration of the trial and was outfitted with two long tables — along which there are several computers set up — as well as a large elevated television screen.

Am I being too suspicious when the first thought I had when I read this was that I hope they were smart enough to check for bugs in the room and on the computers?

[GreyhoundFan]

Aw, the big, bad lawyer got his fee fees hurt: "Dershowitz calls CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Jeffrey Toobin ‘bullies’ for pressing him on impeachment flip-flop"

Spoiler

Those infuriating framers of the Constitution left behind only the thinnest inkling of their real thoughts about impeachment of the president and said nothing explicit about whether removal from office requires commission of a crime. Almost all the law professors who have researched the matter have concluded that the answer is no — no crime necessary.

It’s been the overwhelming consensus, impeachment scholar Philip C. Bobbitt of the Columbia Law School told The Washington Post on Monday. And among those who accepted it was Alan Dershowitz, the fabled defense lawyer, now Harvard Law School professor emeritus and part of President Trump’s impeachment defense team.

“It certainly doesn’t have to be a crime,” he said in a television interview in 1998, during the impeachment controversy surrounding President Clinton. “If you have somebody who completely corrupts the office of the president and abuses trust and who poses great danger to our liberty, you don’t need a technical crime.”

Now, he has a different view. “Without a crime there can be no impeachment,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, foreshadowing the formal brief presented Monday by Trump’s legal team to the Senate.

He got into one of his famous brawls on CNN on Monday night. Host Anderson Cooper and the network’s chief legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, confronted Dershowitz about his changed opinion. The resulting exchange wasn’t pretty.

“So you were wrong then,” Cooper said to Dershowitz.

“No, I wasn’t wrong. I have a more sophisticated basis for my argument,” he said, citing his research into the 1868 impeachment proceedings against President Andrew Johnson. “It’s very clear now that what you need is criminal-like behavior akin to bribery and treason.”

All this was once a bit academic. But now it’s a central element in Trump’s defense. He is charged in two articles of impeachment, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, neither of which is a crime. The answer is a big deal.

Toobin opened up on Dershowitz at the outset of the program.

“What is clear is that Alan was right in 1998 and he’s wrong now,” said Toobin. “I mean, the two statements cannot be reconciled. One is right or one is wrong and the one in 1998 was right … Look, every single law professor that has looked at this issue except you” believes that a crime is unnecessary.

Smart lawyer that he is, Dershowitz tried to make Toobin the defendant, accusing him of “lying” when he claimed “every single law professor” disagreed.

Triumphantly, Dershowitz identified one who agreed with him, Harvard Law School’s Nikolas Bowie. He referenced a December 2018 commentary by Bowie.

“Don’t make up stories about ‘every professor,’” said Dershowitz. “Please withdraw that argument that no professor said it.”

Toobin, smiling, modified his statement. “Okay, ‘virtually every’ professor.” Toobin noted that he was able to admit a mistake. Why couldn’t Dershowitz?

Cooper rejoined the fray and soon they were all talking at once.

“You were wrong,” Cooper told Dershowitz.

“I wasn’t wrong,” Dershowitz replied. “I am just far more correct now than I was then … I think your viewers are entitled to hear my argument without two bullies jumping on everything I say.”

“Oh come on,” said a bemused Cooper.

The viral television moment was one in a series of battles that have unfolded since Trump’s election between Dershowitz and Toobin, spiced up by the fact that Toobin was a Dershowitz student at Harvard Law School and has made no secret of his view that his former professor, once thought to be a liberal, has gone over the edge.

“Alan, I don’t know what’s going on with you,” he said of his longtime friend and mentor, during an argument on CNN in March 2018, in which Dershowitz blasted the appointment of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

“How has this come about that, in every situation over the past year, you have been carrying water for Donald Trump?” Toobin said later in the show. “This is not who you used to be, and you are doing this over and over again in situations that are just obviously rife with conflict of interest. And it’s just, like, what’s happened to you?”

“I’m not carrying his water,” Dershowitz responded in the 2018 exchange. “I’m saying the exact same thing I’ve said for 50 years. And, Jeffrey, you ought to know that, you were my student.”

On the question at hand, whether removal requires criminal behavior by the president, the Trump defense team argues as follows:

“By limiting impeachment to cases of ‘Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,’ the Framers restricted impeachment to specific offenses against ‘already known and established law.’ That was a deliberate choice designed to constrain the impeachment power. In keeping with that restriction, every prior presidential impeachment in our history has been based on alleged violations of existing law — indeed, criminal law.”

Since the framers mentioned only offenses that were crimes — bribery and treason — in the first part of the impeachment clause, it follows that the phrase “other high crimes and misdemeanors” also referred to crimes. Bribery and treason are crimes, therefore the other elements of the clause must also refer to crimes.

The scholarly consensus to the contrary is based in part on the 1787 context of that language — in English law, the Constitutional Convention, the ratification debates afterward and the Federalist.

It’s also backed by the principle that the interpretation of laws and the Constitution should, where possible, avoid ridiculous results.

Limiting impeachable offenses to crimes would have been an “absurdity,” Charles Black wrote in “Impeachment: A Handbook,” a Watergate-era book just updated by Bobbitt that’s been called a “bible” on the topic.

“Suppose a president were to move to Saudi Arabia, so he could have four wives, and were to propose to conduct the office of presidency by mail and wireless from there. This would not be a crime, provided his passport were in order.

“Is it possible that such gross and wanton neglect of duty could not be grounds for impeachment and removal?"

Another example from Black: “Suppose a president were to announce that he would under no circumstances appoint any Roman Catholic to office and were rigorously to stick to this plan …

“It would be absurd,” Black wrote, “to think that a president might not properly be removed for it.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Some good info: "Power Up: Republicans rally behind Trump as Senate impeachment trial begins today"

Spoiler

The Investigations

TRIAL BASIS: President Trump and his allies forged ahead with their strategy to deny and attack the charges against the president as his impeachment trial begins today in earnest in the Senate. 

The legal brief filed by the White House on Monday, an organizing resolution released by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and a desire to prevent former national security adviser John Bolton from testifying indicate a coordinated effort by the Republican Party to rally around Trump and push for his acquittal as quickly as possible -- with minimal public exposure. 

The resolution: The first day of the trial, which begins at 1 p.m. today, will be spent debating McConnell's ground rules that enraged Democrats for "shrouding testimony and rushing the trial," according to our colleagues Seung Min Kim and Karoun Demirjian. 

• A compressed timeline: McConnell's rules "offers each side 24 hours to make its opening arguments, starting on Wednesday but compressed into two session days. It is unclear whether Democrats would press to use all their time, which could push testimony past midnight."
• For comparison's sake: During President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial, the 24 hours of opening arguments were divided over the course of a four-day period.
• The questioning period: Senators will then be allowed to ask questions for 16 hours after House managers and Trump's lawyers argue their cases.
• "After that, the sides will debate for a maximum of four hours on whether to consider subpoenaing witnesses or documents at all, followed by a vote on whether to do so. If a majority of senators agree, then there will probably be motions from both sides to call various witnesses, with subsequent votes on issuing subpoenas."
• McConnnell's proposed 24 hours over two days for both sides all but ensures evidence will be presented late in the night, when many people may not be paying attention.

• Two other ground rules: "The resolution also allows Trump’s team to move to dismiss the charges at any time," Seung Min and Karoun report, though they would need 51 votes to do so, which they don't have.
• And "the Senate trial also won’t automatically admit evidence from the House process, according to GOP officials, a key difference from the impeachment trial of [Clinton] more than two decades ago. Though the material will be printed and made available to senators, it won’t be automatically admissible unless a majority of senators approve it."
• "It's clear Sen. McConnell is hell-bent on making it much more difficult to get witnesses and documents and intent on rushing the trial through," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement on Monday evening. "On something as important as impeachment, Senator McConnell's resolution is nothing short of a national disgrace."
• White House comment: “We are gratified that the draft resolution protects the president’s rights to a fair trial, and look forward to presenting a vigorous defense on the facts and the process as quickly as possible, and seeking an acquittal as swiftly as possible,” Eric Ueland, the White House’s director of legislative affairs, told Seung Min and Karoun.

The defense: Hours before McConnell circulated the ground rules, Trump's legal team submitted a 110-page brief calling on the Senate to "immediately" acquit the president and "swiftly reject" the impeachment charges. 

The team, led by White House counsel Pat Cipollone, argued that Trump did "nothing wrong," that his impeachment is politically motivated, and that articles of impeachment "allege no crime or violation of law." 

Lawyers, constitutional experts, and Democrats quickly shot back: 

• "In response to the White House’s argument that there was no underlying crime, Democrats are likely to cite an opinion issued after Trump’s impeachment from the Government Accountability Office that the administration’s withholding of aid was a violation of law," Seung Min and Karoun report.
• Lawfare's Bob Bauer responded to Alan Dershowitz's "constitutional argument" as a member of Trump's legal team that Trump's conduct is irrelevant because the articles of impeachment "do not allege impeachable offenses": "Under the Dershowitz view, a president who murdered her spouse would not have committed an impeachable offense. We would have in that instance a crime, and a very serious one, but just not the right type for purposes of impeachment or removal from office. The president would have to answer to the legal system, as would any murderer. Fortunately for the chief executive, the Office of Legal Counsel has opined that the accounting would be deferred to the end of her presidency when she once again joined the ranks of private citizens."
• "One Democratic aide working on the impeachment trial, who spoke to reporters in a briefing on the condition of anonymity, likened the brief to an 'extremely extended version of a presidential tweet,'" per Seung Min and Karoun.

The silence campaign: Behind the scenes, Trump's legal team and Senate GOP allies are quietly gaming out a plan B in case things don't go as planned.

Our colleagues Bob Costa and Rachael Bade report that if Democrats can corral enough votes to force witnesses to testify, "one option being discussed, according to a senior administration official, would be to move [John] Bolton’s testimony to a classified setting because of national security concerns, ensuring that it is not public."

If Bolton does not heed White House orders not to testify -- including the president potentially asserting executive privilege -- officials might "appeal to federal courts for an injunction that would stop Bolton if he refuses to go along with their instructions, according to a senior administration official, who, like others interviewed for this article, was not authorized to speak publicly and so spoke on the condition of anonymity."

Republicans should tread carefully on the topic of witnesses, per CNN's new poll on impeachment: 

• "Nearly seven in 10 (69%) say that upcoming trial should feature testimony from new witnesses who did not testify in the House impeachment inquiry," per CNN's Jennifer Agiesta. 
• "And as Democrats in the Senate seek to persuade at least four Republican senators to join them on votes over allowing witnesses in the trial, the Republican rank and file are divided on the question: 48% say they want new witnesses, while 44% say they do not."
• An overall look: "About half of Americans say the Senate should vote to convict [Trump] and remove him from office in the upcoming impeachment trial (51%), according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, while 45% say the Senate should vote against conviction and removal."

I can't believe they are giving more time to Collins, Jordan, Stefanik, Meadows, and the rest of their ilk.

[GreyhoundFan]

From Jennifer Rubin: "Trump and his Republican cronies have made three big mistakes"

Quote

A Democratic aide working on impeachment scorned the 110-page brief President Trump’s lawyers filed on Monday. “It’s an 110-page tweet. … Maybe the longest tweet in history,” the aide said. Another aide pointed out that the argument that abuse of power is not impeachable was rejected even by Jonathan Turley, the attorney called by Republicans during House proceedings.

The president’s argument comes down to the bald assertion that a president can abuse power by enlisting a foreign power to corrupt an election — a trifecta (abuse of power, betrayal of national security, election rigging) that the Framers saw as precisely the sort of conduct deserving of impeachment.

While the two aides agree with the reference from Trump’s attorneys on page 81 of their brief that the July 25 call was the most important piece of evidence, they remind us it is also the most damning. In that call, Trump, like a mob boss, makes Ukraine an offer it cannot refuse (“do us a favor though”): Trump will release aid the Congress deemed to be in our national security interest in exchange for investigating Burisma and former vice president Joe Biden. Put differently, Trump will endanger national security to get a foreign government’s help smearing an American political opponent.

Given the absence of factual evidence disputing key facts against the president, his defense boils down to the assertion that “what Trump did was okay,” one Democratic aide pointed out. Trump has attempted to use “national security as a sword” against a domestic political adversary. Now, Senate Republicans are being dragooned to approve that stunning proposition.

But Trump, his lawyers and the Republicans have made three critical errors. The first was White House counsel Pat Cipollone’s Oct. 8 letter in which the White House flatly refused to allow any witnesses to testify or documents to be produced. It was not a formal assertion of executive privilege but rather a more egregious version of obstruction that was the basis for President Richard M. Nixon’s third article of impeachment. This was blunder by Cipollone, in essence putting Trump’s obstruction in writing.

If permitted, any president could declare his impeachment unfair and hide (or destroy!) evidence. Acquittal on this article would mean that any future Republican Congress would have no recourse if, for example, a Democratic president committed treason and then covered his tracks by intimidating witnesses and/or shredding documents. It is a recipe for a totalitarian state in which the king can do whatever he deems necessary to stay in power.

Second, the Senate and Trump have been banking on a non-trial with no new witnesses or evidence. That is how they intend to spare Trump and the Senate from the humiliation of overwhelming, persuasive evidence of the president’s guilt. The problem is that Americans overwhelmingly think this is wrong.

As in prior surveys, CNN’s newest poll finds, “Nearly seven in 10 (69%) say that upcoming trial should feature testimony from new witnesses who did not testify in the House impeachment inquiry. And as Democrats in the Senate seek to persuade at least four Republican senators to join them on votes over allowing witnesses in the trial, the Republican rank and file are divided on the question: 48% say they want new witnesses, while 44% say they do not.”

To make matters worse, a significant majority of Americans already consider Trump guilty of the charges set forth in the articles. (“58% say Trump abused the power of the presidency to obtain an improper personal political benefit and 57% say it is true that he obstructed the House of Representatives in its impeachment inquiry,” the CNN poll finds.) In trying to whitewash his conduct by suppressing evidence, Trump, and by extension Republicans in the Senate, will look like they are engaged in a coverup. Trump might “win” acquittal (because Senate Republicans are spineless) and utterly lose in the court of public opinion. The more obvious the coverup, the more that 69 percent of Americans will come to see the trial as a fraud and Trump as guilty.

Third, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), apparently worried that Americans will watch every minute of the historic proceedings and anxious to exonerate Trump quickly, seeks to give each side 24 hours of argument over two days. Beginning at 1 p.m. and allowing for some breaks, McConnell’s preferred schedule would result in a trial in the dead of night. Nothing smells more like a coverup than a trial at 2 a.m.

Trump and his cronies seem so certain of acquittal that they are oblivious to the consequences of their tactics: In conducting a coverup in plain sight, they convince a substantial majority of Americans that Trump is guilty as sin, and his Senate accomplices are doing his dirty work.

 

[scoutsadie]

@GreyhoundFan and @fraurosena, I really appreciate all of this material that you are sharing! Thanks!

[scoutsadie]

Ugh - I thought we were done hearing from these loudmouth assholes, but apparently not... GOP Reps. Doug Collins and Jim Jordan have been added to Trump's impeachment team:

Spoiler

The White House announced Monday that it will add several House Republicans to President Donald Trump's Senate impeachment team in what appear to be largely ceremonial roles following an internal debate over whether they should be included.

The House members -- Reps. Doug Collins of Georgia, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Debbie Lesko of Arizona, Mark Meadows of North Carolina, John Ratcliffe of Texas, Elise Stefanik of New York and Lee Zeldin of New York -- are not expected to speak on the Senate floor, a source familiar with the legal team's plans told CNN.

Instead, the group will serve as outside advisers and surrogates, a separate source said. One option that had been discussed last week for any House members put on the team was advising Senate Republicans on questions to ask Chief Justice John Roberts during that 16-hour phase of the trial.

A number of the House members have already been meeting regularly with Trump's lawyers to help them prepare for the floor arguments.

The addition of House members in a limited capacity follows a struggle among White House aides and top Senate Republicans over the benefits and drawbacks of the move.

Trump -- who has long wanted his trial to feature a theatrical defense aimed at winning him vindication -- has pushed for his fiercest protectors to be included because he believes they will be the best at arguing against the two charges against him. Top Senate Republicans, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, however, had been advising him that bringing on GOP House members could frustrate efforts to keep Republicans as unified as possible during the trial.

"Repeating the House sideshow in the Senate will turn off the very members the President needs for a unified acquittal," said one Senate Republican aide.

The announcement comes just a day before the Senate trial starts in earnest when Republicans and Democrats are expected to battle over a resolution setting the rules for the trial and shortly after start opening arguments.

McConnell will propose a timeline for the trial that would break from the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton, according to a four-page organizing resolution obtained by CNN. He plans to give House impeachment managers and Trump's legal team each 24 hours divided over two days for their opening arguments, according to the resolution.

The move indicates that Senate Republicans are pushing to finish the trial as quickly as possible -- ahead of the President's February 4 State of the Union address.

@GreyhoundFan, sorry for repeating your point! Don't know how I missed it.

Edited January 21, 2020 by scoutsadie

[fraurosena]

So they have added 8 extra trumplicans to the 8-person legal team already defending Trump. Just goes to show they are truly desperate if they believe they need 16 defenders against the impeachment articles -- and 8 circus-clowns at that, ensuring the trial will be just such a spectacle of heated, screaming, stamp-footing denials of irrefutable facts as there was during the investigation. And they believe that this abrasive, caustic and hostile tactic -- you can bet they will be attacking the dems -- will win them the approval of the majority of the American public.

Sure, Faux and Sinclair will have their soundbites and showboat-quotes. But the people aren't stupid. They didn't believe the trumplicans during the investigation, and they won't believe them now. 

That said, I am rather dejected at the thought that we'll have to listen to their loudmouthed grandstanding lies again. I am so not looking forward to that. Sigh.

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

#MidnightMoscowMitch and #MidnightMitch are trending on Twitter.

[GreyhoundFan]

Auntie, as usual, hits the nail on the head:

 

[fraurosena]

6 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Auntie, as usual, hits the nail on the head:

 

Gym Jordan's tiny though...      

[GreyhoundFan]

I don't know if I can bear to watch the senate crap live. McConnell's voice causes me to have intense waves of nausea. I think I'll follow the WaPo's live updates.

[scoutsadie]

With Lev Parnas's* revelations last week regarding Pence (ie, that Pence knew exactly why his Kyiv trip was cancelled, and was a part of the "drug deal,"), I started wondering if he could be impeached, too.

I found this article which addresses the question of what happens if both the POTUS and the Veep are removed; it has a good dash of history in it:

https://thefederalist.com/2019/12/02/no-nancy-pelosi-wont-be-president-if-trump-and-pence-are-impeached/

"Under the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, that person would be Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. In this, at least, the plotters have read the law correctly. Unfortunately for them, most legal scholars believe it violates the Constitution."

 

*My sister and I continue to giggle every time he and Igor are referenced, calling them Flotsam and Jetsam, the evil henchman eels in The Little Mermaid (thanks to Stephen Colbert for this image).

 

Edited January 21, 2020 by scoutsadie

[scoutsadie]

FYI, Trump's team is now beginning the debate about McConnell's resolution on the process, arguing in favor of it. 

Edited January 21, 2020 by scoutsadie

[fraurosena]

Ha, I heard that we won't be hearing from the House Trumplicans after all -- at least not in the trial itself. They are just added as spokespeople to the media.. or something of the sort, according to a journalist on MSNBC. Phew!

I didn't hear McConnell, but did hear most of Schiff's argument against McConnell's resolution. I was impressed that he started, once again, summing up what Trump did and why he's been impeached for it, and only then pointing out how flawed and biased MoscowMitch's resolution is. I loved how he said that voting for or against removal wasn't going to be the most important thing the Senator's would be doing, but voting for or against holding a fair and impartial trial was. He pointed repeatedly to the oath they had taken (and signed for) to do impartial justice. 

Then dinner was ready and nobody wanted to hear the rest, and most certainly not Pat Cippolone's rebuttal...

Tuning in again now.

[fraurosena]

Oh wow! McConnell has revised his resolution, under pressure from within his own caucus it seems!

From MSNBC's live blog:

McConnell's revised rules for Trump's Senate impeachment trial

The new version of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's organizing resolution, read aloud on the Senate floor Tuesday, now gives both side 24 hours to make their case over three days, instead of the two initially proposed by McConnell on Monday.

The Kentucky Republican also tweaked another controversial provision that could have barred all the evidence against Trump gathered by the House Democrats' inquiry from being entered into the Senate record.

Under the resolution unveiled Tuesday, evidence now will be admitted automatically unless there's an objection, rather than requiring a pro-active vote to admit it.

[the whole document can be read under the link]

[front hugs > duggs]

It's probably my own cynicism, but is it possible this was kind of planned? So Moscow Mitch can appear to be compromising and senate republicans can appear reasonable? 

[fraurosena]

44 minutes ago, front hugs > duggs said:

It's probably my own cynicism, but is it possible this was kind of planned? So Moscow Mitch can appear to be compromising and senate republicans can appear reasonable? 

Yes, that's what I thought too. However, there is a counter argument: it makes McConnell look weak. Is he such a good strategist that he would be willing to seem to cave to pressure from within his caucus? Or did he indeed cave? The resolution was altered by penning it in, not typing it out. So I'm not entirely convinced it was all an act. But still, I cannot dismiss the idea off hand. 

To sum up: we don't know and can't know what the reasons for the compromise actually were. 

As I'm typing this, Loffgren is making the arguments for Schumer's amendments on the resolution. In doing so, she is educating anyone and everyone about all the evidence there is for the guilt of Trump. She is naming every single thing, in great detail, and she's using video's of the testimonies during the investigation: Sondland's, Vindman's, Hill's and more. In essence, she's introducing House evidence into the Senate. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Pelosi chose well in her selections for impeachment managers. Unlike the screeching jackholes on the red side of the house aisle, the impeachment managers are clear and calm, laying out the facts.

[fraurosena]

The counter-argument from Trump's side is to attack the process, again. They should have subpoenaed, why didn't they? Why can't they just use the evidence they have to make their argument, isn't that enough? Why does the Senate have to do the work for them?

The weird thing is, all these arguments were already pre-empted by Schiff earlier, so they sound rather petulant and inept.