I just listened to the Senate Trial Presentations and have a few thoughts. Others will disagree, even violently. Listen to my thoughts, and then I’ll listen to yours...
The “House Managers” just refuted what I thought were preposterous Republican arguments that the Constitution won’t even allow for a trial of impeached ex-president Trump. I come away more than ever impressed with the Constitutional importance of what is now at stake.
This is not a ridiculous impeachment over lying about sex, or a hearing over the tragedy in Benghazi. This is about taking a stand against an out-of-control lame-duck President who tried to keep himself in office. This trial is about dealing with an attack on our whole democratic electoral system, on the Capitol itself. It is about re-asserting the power of Congress to stand against a mad President.
I personally have sometimes dreamt of seeing the impeachment and conviction of Presidents (of both parties) who lied and led us into murderous and totally unnecessary overseas military adventures. Of course these impeachments never happened. Yet now in D.C., in the heartland of our Republic and “empire,” political marketing and “America First” demagogy has succeeded ... in dividing the minds and hearts of Americans ... rather than Iraqis, Russians or Chinese.
Many of our own obsessions as a nation led to Jan. 6th, and its shadow will lie over our Republic for a long time. I think if this Senate doesn’t make an example of our most dangerous and outrageous recent demagogue we will be guaranteeing further more serious political mob action and even coup adventures in the future.
This is not a “show trial.” Well, just perhaps it will go down in history as a “show trial” ... if our people and politicians treat it as one. If few Republicans rise to the occasion and do their duty, if Donald Trump is not repudiated in the most severe Constitutional manner possible, then we are “showing” that we treat our great Republic and its institutions as crap.
It’s our Republic ... if we can keep it.
Too much evidence against Trump. He's guilty as hell. What was especially striking, is the fact that the defense was complaining about a lack of evidence, yet, when Raskin invited Trump to testify to clear his name, the lawyers said no. LOl! The prosecution reserves the right to present their evidence in the absence of the very witness that can supply the evidence. Trump and his dunce team of lawyers gave themselves away;
If there's so much evidence, why did the impeachment managers resort to using falsified evidence?
There was no falsified evidence. That's something you made up in your head.
The impeachment managers used an edited video as their number one piece of evidence: the "goods" as they called it.
"Edited video?" You mean added video not see before don't you?
No, I mean edited video. The impeachment managers introduced false evidence.
You haven't proven it to be false. We are waiting.
It's sad, but predictable that you don't know this:
Former President Donald Trump's highly anticipated second impeachment trial began on Tuesday, just a little more than a month following the riot at the U.S. Capitol Building during Congress' certification of the 2020 election results.
www.google.com
LOl! The defense said Trump mentioned peace one time, and fight twenty times. The defense isn't hiding that. They don't need to. Trumps own rhetoric to fight twenty times, never give up, never concede, then never stopping the riot, is indisputable evidence of an insurrection to riot as terrorists, and that's what they did.
They edited the video. You must now admit the impeachment managers lied.
“
They edited the video. You must now admit the impeachment managers lied.”
Typical stupidity. No lying here at all. The video in question, the main video shown over and over again by the House Managers, was just over
13 minutes long and featured mostly scenes of the riot itself, including violent mob scenes not before made public. It was overwhelmingly
not about Trump’s speech at all. Trump’s speech was
around an hour long, so it was
obvious to all that the parts about his speech were edited — and only there to give a flavor for what he had been saying generally and how the crowd subsequently reacted.
Moreover, the House Managers discussed numerous times Trump’s many months of false claims and incitements, his more recent outrageous conduct and nonsense claims after he lost.
They also
explicitly discussed his tweets that eventually called for his violent thugs to “
remain peaceful.”
Of course they were already anything but peaceful by that time and Trump knew it. Trump masterfully brought this particular crowd together in order to break up the reading of the already confirmed electoral votes, which is what they accomplished. Trump was all along trying to stay in power
by any means. Jan. 6th was just his final absurd and dangerous throw of the dice.
Trump was the singular individual responsible for the deaths that occurred. For
everything that occurred. Nothing like it could have occurred without him.
This is what I was thinking as I listened to the president’s defense lawyers make their petty arguments.
***
In another key moment, Senator Bernie Sanders asked if Mr. Trump had actually won the election. Impeachment manager Stacey Plaskett said it was clear Mr. Trump had lost the election, but van der Veen dodged, saying "in my judgment ... Who asked that?" Sanders answered "I did" and van der Veen responded "my judgment is irrelevant."
Sanders then said from his desk: "You represent the president of the United States!"