Trump lawyers to House Dems: Um, you’re wrong

[RgrF]

[AllGold]

Some lawyer on a cable news channel helpfully pointed out that they impeached a sitting president, not a former president. They just did not complete the trial while he was still in office.

[samintx]

Fire fire FIRE FIRE FIRE

My right to yell FIRE wherever and whenever I like miley-rpg028:

[pdq]

Trump’s defense team also denied that he sought to pressure state election officials to overturn Biden’s victory.

Srsly?

Since the Dems now have (a very narrow) control of the Senate, not only should this time around include evidence, they ought to call Raffensberger as a witness and play the tape. The whole damn tape. After an hour of that, ask him if he thought Trump was asking him to overturn Georgia's vote.

I mean, "recalculate and find me 11,780 votes." You need bizarro world reasoning to not see that as what it was.

[Ted King]

When President Trump was repeatedly calling for his followers to not accept the results of the election using blatant lies to rally them to his cause, was he acting as a private citizen or as President?

As a private citizen, he would have had to be indicted and would/should be exclusively held to the standards of legal definitions and practices of crimes involving incitement.

But the House isn't charging him as a private citizen, they are charging as President. A president that took an oath of office: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." The House and the Senate were following the Constitution by having the votes required by the Constitution on January 6. What Constitutional purpose was Trump performing in having a rabble go to the Capital? He clearly sent them there to disrupt a Constitutional process. And not just any process, but the Constitutional process that would lead to the peaceful transfer of power. That is an absolutely necessary thing for our democracy to continue. Trump broke his oath of office in a fundamentally unconstitutional way by sending that mob to the Capital and that is why he should be convicted.

Never-the-less, Trump's lawyers will try to make it the case that in an impeachment, the charges should only be framed in the same definitions and legal practices as if he were an indicted private citizen.

Most Republican Senators just want to put it behind them without saying something ridiculous or ticking off the base so they were totally primed to take the "it's not constitutional" off ramp. Leadership got a famous lawyer to meet with the caucus and tell them that, "oh yeah, it's totally unconstitutional" and then they could hardly wait to jump on the Rand Paul bandwagon and ride it to the off ramp.

[Ted King]

pdq wrote:

Trump’s defense team also denied that he sought to pressure state election officials to overturn Biden’s victory.

Srsly?

Since the Dems now have (a very narrow) control of the Senate, not only should this time around include evidence, they ought to call Raffensberger as a witness and play the tape. The whole damn tape. After an hour of that, ask him if he thought Trump was asking him to overturn Georgia's vote.

I mean, "recalculate and find me 11,780 votes." You need bizarro world reasoning to not see that as what it was.

I get that, I'd love it, too, but there's never going to be enough Senators to convict and making the trial longer could badly hinder the work that Biden needs to get done with Senate cooperation. It's important that this trial happens and I think the House impeachment managers made the right choice to say that there is no need for investigation or witnesses - the evidence was laid out to us before our very eyes. And then proceed to show what our eyes saw in a narrative where the climax is Trump sending his mob off to disrupt an essential Constitutional process. They can make their case that way and the onus will be on the Senators to tell history what they did about Trump's outrageous attack on the Constitution and it's duly elected representatives.

[AllGold]

Republicans don't seem to be smart enough to realize they have a golden opportunity to exercise Trump and take back their party.

[mrbigstuff]

AllGold wrote:
Republicans don't seem to be smart enough to realize they have a golden opportunity to exercise Trump and take back their party.

I don't think they'll ever get trump to exercise!