Impeachment Number Two

[clueliss]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"3 takeaways from Day Four of Trump’s impeachment trial"

Quote

Former president Donald Trump’s legal defense made its presentation Friday at his impeachment trial.

Below are some takeaways.

1. A heavy dose of whataboutism

The Trump team’s presentation early on was overwhelmingly focused on things that didn’t involve him. It was almost 100 percent whataboutism.

Democrats over the last three days have played lengthy videos of the insurrection at the Capitol, so Trump’s team played video of the unrest at racial justice protests across the country this summer.

Democrats have cited Trump repeatedly calling for his supporters to “fight,” so Trump’s team played lengthy videos featuring Democrats using that word.

Democrats have decried Trump’s challenge to the election results, so Trump’s team played clips of their fellow partisans in the past contesting the election of Republican presidents.

Democrats emphasized that Trump claimed even months before the 2020 election that if he lost, it would be stolen, so Trump’s team played videos of some Democrats claiming an election had been or could be stolen.

That last one gave away the game.

To rebut the argument from impeachment manager Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.) that Trump had laid a predicate for what became the Jan. 6 riot by predicting a stolen election, Trump’s legal team played videos that showed Democrats … not doing that. Some clips showed Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and 2018 Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams (D) claiming Abrams’s loss resulted from a stolen election, but those came after the election. Another showed Hillary Clinton saying in 2019 that you can run a great campaign and still have an election stolen. But this, too, came after the fact, and it cited a legitimate concern about Russia having swayed a tight 2016 election. Now-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) were played questioning the security of our elections in 2005. But none of the clips featured any of them predicting their side could only lose through fraud, as Trump did.

It was a complete non sequitur.

Trump lawyer Michael van der Veen at one point argued this wasn’t whataboutism.

“I am not showing you this video as some excuse for Mr. Trump’s speech,” van der Veen said. “This is not whataboutism. I am showing you this to make the point that all political speech must be protected.”

But the argument was clearly that lots of politicians do something similar to Trump. He might not have been saying Democrats should be culpable for anything, but saying “everyone does it” is certainly a form of whataboutism.

Cherry-picking is always possible in these settings. Trump’s comments about fighting, in a vacuum, were unremarkable in modern political life. He was hardly the first politician to contest an election or even claim it was stolen. And political violence has occurred before. Some of the comments played of Democrats were in poor taste or ill-advised.

The question before the Senate, though, is whether the combination of Trump’s actions — up to and including theories that were rebuked over and over again in courts, along with warnings that his rhetoric could lead to the kind of events we saw Jan. 6 — amounted to incitement.

If any of the Democrats claimed they couldn’t lose except through fraud, the comparison would be valid. If any of the clips of Democrats preceded actual violence by supporters who cited their encouragement (as is the case with Trump, repeatedly), it would be valid to question their culpability. And if any of them offered anywhere near the volume of completely baseless and debunked claims that Trump did before such violence, it would be even more valid. That’s just not the reality.

2. The free speech argument

The Trump team did address Trump’s role, in a way. It homed in on free speech. But rather than parse Trump’s comments and how they fit with established limits on speech, it asserted an extremely broad vision of what a president is entitled to say.

“The House managers argue that the First Amendment, and I quote, ‘does not shield public officials who occupy sensitive policymaking positions from adverse actions when their speech undermines important governmental interests,’ ” Trump lawyer Michael van der Veen said. “That is flat wrong.”

“Mr. Trump was elected by the people. He is an elected official. The Supreme Court says elected officials must have the right to freely engage in public speech. Indeed, the Supreme Court expressly rejected the House managers argument in Wood v. Georgia, holding that the sheriff was not a civil servant but elected an elected official who had core First Amendment rights which could not be restricted.”

We knew based upon briefs filed by that Trump team that it would lean on the free speech argument, but we didn’t know just how absolute it would assert that right is — especially given that there are well-established limits on such rights in public discourse, including defamation and incitement.

It turns out, very absolute.

But the key cases they cited, Wood and Bond v. Floyd, carry very limited applicability to Trump’s case.

Wood didn’t say an official’s “First Amendment rights … could not be restricted.” Instead, it said officials may speak freely with regard to grand jury proceedings except when their speech creates a threat to the proceedings. Bond dealt narrowly with whether a politician could be prevented from assuming an office to which they had been elected because of their statements about government policy.

None of the case law cited said a president or any official has anything amounting to an absolute right to free speech.

3. Lecturing on facts, while getting facts wrong

The Trump team got off to a rather inauspicious start. Their early presentation focused on the idea that Democrats had butchered the facts. And they had some points, including when it comes to the impeachment managers apparently attaching a blue check mark to a Twitter account whose tweet they had used.

But the Trump team didn’t exactly adhere to the facts themselves.

Early on, van der Veen sought to breathe life into the debunked claim that antifa was behind the Capitol attack. “One of the first people arrested was a leader of antifa,” van der Veen said. “Sadly, he was also among the first to be released.”

This appears to refer to John Sullivan, who was arrested and released in mid-January. There is no evidence Sullivan is anything amounting to a leader of antifa, despite the claims of Trump allies like Rudy Giuliani. As The Washington Post has reported, Sullivan has floated around many political movements, including the Black Lives Matter movement, but he’s widely regarded with suspicion among those activists.

Both van der Veen and fellow Trump lawyer David Schoen echoed a popular claim that Trump’s impeachment would effectively negate the votes of 75 million Americans. Schoen said those voters would be disenfranchised by a vote to convict, while van der Veen alleged such a vote would “cancel” his voters.

Trump actually got 74.2 million votes. That does not round up to 75 million, nor would convicting him invalidate those votes. This might seem like a small point, but it speaks to how much this effort was geared toward Trump’s fanciful claims — and apparently speaking to the “audience of one.”

Another rather remarkable contention came with regard to the tweet mentioned at the top. Not only did the Democrats apparently add a blue check mark to add heft to the user’s profile, but Schoen also accused them of misconstruing the user’s sentiment. While Democrats said the woman in the tweet had said Trump supporters were bringing the “cavalry,” instead she spelled the word “calvary.”

“The problem is the actual text is exactly the opposite,” van der Veen said. “The tweeter promised to bring the calvary — a public display of Christ’s crucifixion, a central symbol of her Christian faith — with her to the president’s speech — a symbol of faith, love and peace.”

It’s theoretically possible the woman did mean calvary, but this is also a common misspelling. What’s more, “the calvary is coming” is not an expression; “the cavalry is coming” most definitely is. The woman also tweeted during the Capitol riot telling people to go into the Capitol.

The claim was a case in point for the Trump team’s defense. They know they aren’t going to lose, no matter how far they go. So you might as well gear your defense toward what the client wants to hear, even if doesn’t really address or obscure the issues in the case.

 

[thoughtful]

Collins and Murkowski just sent up a question for Trump's lawyers, basically when did he know, and when (and if) he did anything trying to stop the riot.

ETA - shitty lawyer is not answering it - he just rambles about the accusations the Managers made.

Edited February 12, 2021 by thoughtful

[Shrubbery]

Counsel for the orange one does not like the question from senators Collins and Murkowski (republicans no less) about when the orange one found out about the capitol breach.

Mwahaha.

[SeekingAdventure]

were they just really answering with some bullshit about december and then that they were not able to prepare etc? WTF

 

PLEASE tell me that that was not the answer to the question when Trump found out about the jan 6th brech of the Capitol???

[Shrubbery]

1 minute ago, SeekingAdventure said:

were they just really answering with some bullshit about december and then that they were not able to prepare etc? WTF

 

PLEASE tell me that that was not the answer to the question when Trump found out about the jan 6th brech of the Capitol???

I think you have already put it more eloquently than them. „Mumble-mumble something due process,“  was the precise answer, I think.

[GreyhoundFan]

"A key part of Trump’s impeachment defense was already undercut by his own attorney"

Quote

Three-hundred seventy-seven times.

According to an automated transcription of the first two hours of presentations by Donald Trump’s defense attorneys at his impeachment trial Friday, that’s the number of times that the word “fight” was heard in the Senate chamber. Most of those came in the form of lengthy videos in which Democratic legislators were shown using the word in a political context: minutes-long barrages of various politicians saying “fight” “fight” “fight” over and over.

The idea offered by Trump’s team is that similar language is so common in politics that Trump’s repeated deployment of it on the morning of Jan. 6, shortly before the Capitol was overrun by his supporters, should be seen as something unremarkable. If people are so used to hearing that phrase deployed in a political context, the argument seems to go, why would they have suddenly seized upon it in this moment as a spur to violence?

As it turns out, that question has already been answered — by one of Trump’s attorneys.

In an interview on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program Tuesday, Trump attorney David Schoen speculated on the difference this time around. Schoen and Hannity were discussing examples of Democrats using the same word in different ways over the years, prompting Schoen to explain the difference.

“They’re using rhetoric that’s just as inflammatory, or more so,” he said of the Democrats. “The problem is, they don’t really have followers, you know, their dedicated followers and so — you know, when they give their speeches.”

We can read between the lines: The Democrats’ language was “just as inflammatory” but “the problem” they had — apparently preventing them from seeing their supporters lose control — is that they don’t have “dedicated followers.”

This probably isn’t really what Schoen was hoping viewers would take away from the discussion. He was on Hannity and probably just trying to score some points by dinging the Democrats for not having the same fervency in their base that Trump does. Which is broadly true, of course. No politician has a base as energetic and large as Trump’s — though probably no politician has worked as hard to rile up his base as has the former president.

But that’s the point, of course. The difference between Trump saying “fight” Jan. 6 was not that his supporters heard that particular word and, like an unwitting assassin in a bad action flick were suddenly triggered to push toward the Capitol. The problem was, instead, that Trump had actually conditioned his base of support for months to believe that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, and he insisted that morning that the final opportunity to avert that theft was at hand.

“All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical-left Democrats, which is what they’re doing, and stolen by the fake news media,” he said that morning.

“The Republicans have to get tougher,” he said at another point. “You’re not going to have a Republican Party if you don’t get tougher. They want to play so straight. … ‘Sir, yes, the United States Constitution doesn’t allow me to send them back to the States.’ Well, I say, yes, it does, because the Constitution says you have to protect our country and you have to protect our Constitution, and you can’t vote on fraud. And fraud breaks up everything, doesn’t it? When you catch somebody in a fraud, you’re allowed to go by very different rules.”

“I said something’s wrong here, something is really wrong, can’t have happened,” he concluded. “And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

That’s not just “fight.” That’s something else, said to a base who deeply believed that Trump’s victory had been snatched away — just as he said again that morning. Trump did have a base of support that was dedicated to his false argument, unlike those Democrats Schoen mocked and the Trump defense team quoted Friday.

As we’ve pointed out, there’s a difference in the meaning of words and phrases depending on context. The standard asterisk applied to the First Amendment is instructive: You can shout “fire” if you see a fire, but you can’t shout “fire” in a crowded theater when there isn’t one.

Likewise, you can say “we need to fight for our future” to a group of volunteers at a political rally shortly before an election because you understand that it’s unlikely anyone loosely familiar with the English language will then go start a physical fight with a political opponent. It is far riskier to cap off months of false claims about the core of American democracy being undermined by telling a group of angry, determined supporters that the last chance to avert that crime was at hand.

In other words, Schoen’s right. Democrats used language similar to that used by Trump — and the crucial difference lay in who heard it.

 

[thoughtful]

8 minutes ago, SeekingAdventure said:

were they just really answering with some bullshit about december and then that they were not able to prepare etc? WTF

 

PLEASE tell me that that was not the answer to the question when Trump found out about the jan 6th brech of the Capitol???

I think he just deflected, and acted like (pretended?) he didn't know the question was addressed to them, asking for facts. He went into some mumbleshit about what the managers had said about what Trump had said in the past.

It's like:
Mom: Who took the cookies out of the cookie jar yesterday?
Kid: Three months ago, Dad accused the dog of peeing on the rug.

Edited February 12, 2021 by thoughtful
grammar

[SeekingAdventure]

Also, why is BC junior just as much of an idiot as another junior we all know and.. well, you know..

Stacey Plaskett is awesome, though!

 

sure, they are doing it to shame 74 million people.. couldn't be  that there's an actual reason, that they have talked about? for 2 days.. jeez

[thoughtful]

The "when did the president know" question was just resubmitted by someone else. ?

ETA - it was now asked of the managers. I like that - it makes it clear that they are looking for facts, and did not get them on the first try.

Edited February 12, 2021 by thoughtful

[Shrubbery]

Haha the question just got asked again by two Democrat senators. And then there was silence ...

[SeekingAdventure]

Now they ask the question about when he found out about the breach again to democrats?

I hope they will that with the other question as well. why don't they give both the chance to answer each question right away?

[church_of_dog]

I hope someone will re-ask the previous question too, about "what's the point of this if he's already out of office" -- counsel gave jibberish answer but house managers can give the true reason.

[clueliss]

3 minutes ago, thoughtful said:

The "when did the president know" question was just resubmitted by someone else. ?

ETA - it was now asked of the managers. I like that - it makes it clear that they are looking for facts, and did not get them on the first try.

Claire had a comment about that question

 

[thoughtful]

1 minute ago, SeekingAdventure said:

Now they ask the question about when he found out about the breach again to democrats?

I hope they will that with the other question as well. why don't they give both the chance to answer each question right away?

I think the idea of asking when he knew of Trump's lawyers was a way of saying "hey, you're on his side - if you know something we don't know about his knowledge of it, or trying to stop it, please tell us - we're being fair."

And they had no answer - no new information, no affidavit from someone saying "not only was he not gleeful, he was horrified," etc.

[Shrubbery]

3 minutes ago, thoughtful said:

The "when did the president know" question was just resubmitted by someone else. ?

ETA - it was now asked of the managers. I like that - it makes it clear that they are looking for facts, and did not get them on the first try.

Ahhh I didn’t first catch they asked it of the managers, I was confused when Delegate Plaskett answered!

[SeekingAdventure]

I think I'm gonna get some snacks now..

Where's the popcorn?

[thoughtful]

3 minutes ago, clueliss said:

Claire had a comment about that question

 

I gave him more credit for being a sly lawyer, deflecting the question (however weirdly) than she did. Maybe Claire is right - maybe he's just that stupid.

[Shrubbery]

„The president did not know Mike Pence was in danger because house managers rushed through this impeachment.“

[thoughtful]

2 minutes ago, SeekingAdventure said:

I think I'm gonna get some snacks now..

Where's the popcorn?

I hate arguing - this makes me more sick to my stomach than eager to watch the show. Although I do cheer up when the idiots make a stupid mistake, or the managers make a good point.

I think listening to Trump's lawyers is going to make me feel like I need a shower by the end of the day. They just ooze.

[SeekingAdventure]

They could have impeached him for any crime. Well yeah, they could have.. but if they would have impeached him for every piece of shit he's done, Senate would never do anything else...

 

Also, how much preparation do they want. Literally everybody in that room was there that day.. THEY were there!

And the 'defense': Don't bitch about not being able to prepare well. That's due to the fact that Trump couldn't keep his first (and maybe second or third) team of lawyers and then had to pick these guys as last resort..?!

[thoughtful]

1 minute ago, Shrubbery said:

„The president did not know Mike Pence was in danger because house managers rushed through this impeachment.“

I know - what the actual fuck?

[SeekingAdventure]

2 minutes ago, thoughtful said:

I hate arguing - this makes me more sick to my stomach than eager to watch the show. Although I do cheer up when the idiots make a stupid mistake, or the managers make a good point.

I think listening to Trump's lawyers is going to make me feel like I need a shower by the end of the day. They just ooze.

Yeah, I am not really enjoying the nonsense his 'lawyers' give, but the house managers are still on fire

Edited February 12, 2021 by SeekingAdventure
can these be merged? sorry about the double post

[thoughtful]

Oh, how I wish the territories had votes in the Senate.

4 minutes ago, SeekingAdventure said:

Yeah, I am not really enjoying the nonsense his 'lawyers' give, but the house managers are still on fire

Hope you don't think I was being critical - I'm just a big baby about confrontation, even when I'm not involved.

People who dig in and can argue, watch others argue and learn how debate works, and even relish the experience, are very important in this world. That's where we get cool-headed politicians, who, working with the passionate emotional ones, can gain good things that society needs.

 

 

[thoughtful]

Hawley sent a question - gee, how do you come up with a question when you haven't paid any attention?

It's a theoretical, meant to be a gotcha, I guess - if the whole point of impeachment isn't to remove a president, could the senate disqualify a sitting president without removing him or her?

ETA - van der Veen is whining about something said previously, instead of answering it.

This was asked by someone on your side, idiot!

Edited February 12, 2021 by thoughtful