Not All Of Them Will Be Lawyers

Quote of the day: “You can’t do an impeachment on the floor of the Senate with two f**king lawyers.” https://t.co/8ei4gu10kF

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) February 3, 2021

Start with the obvious:

Frank Bowman, a University of Missouri School of Law professor who has written extensively on the federal impeachment process, said witness testimony would probably not sway any Republicans who voted to dismiss the article last week. Nevertheless, it could be advantageous for Democrats if they are seeking to make an impression on those Americans watching the trial at home.

“The point of all that stuff is just to illustrate particular points for the TV audience — you just have to pick and choose which ones you want,” said Bowman, who suggested that Democrats could call some of the police officers whose actions were documented in viral video clips that day.

And while a source with knowledge of Democrats’ preparations said their presentation will rely heavily on existing evidence of Trump’s own words — including his January 6th rally speech — Trump allies are already threatening to turn the trial into a circus if Democrats attempt to use evidence to press a case.

Stay for the clown show:

One of Trump’s closest allies in the upper chamber, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, said on Monday during a Fox News appearance that if Democrats call even a single witness, it would be opening “Pandora’s box”. It would be inappropriate, he added, because of a House process that he slammed as an “affront to the presidency and due process” since Democrats impeached Trump in part based on a speech he delivered as president, and did so without holding hearings.

“If you open that can of worms, we’ll want the FBI to come in and tell us about how people pre-planned this attack and what happened with the security footprint at the Capitol,” Graham said.

For his part, Bowman called Graham’s threat “a joke.”

“Lindsey Graham is yammering about how they’re gonna drag this out until hell freezes over? Come on,” he said. “The idea that Republican Senators want the attention of the country for even the next minute to be on what happened between November 4th and January 6th is complete fantasy.”

Yeah, we knew that.  But this is the FUN part!

Another one of the ex-president’s remaining political advisers, Jason Miller, also used a Tuesday Fox News appearance to claim that Democrats were “putting free speech on trial” by punishing Trump for exercising his First Amendment right.

[paragraphs excerpted; see below]....

Like Graham, Miller also threatened retaliation if Democrats use Trump’s words against him.

“If they’re going to go after one individual, try to change the constitution to do that, you know what we’re going to do? We’re going to put the Democrats on trial. We’re going to put Chuck Schumer, we’re going to put Nancy Pelosi, we’re going to go and put Maxine Waters, we’re going to put them on trial next week, and the country and the entire world is going to see just how frivolous and vindictive the Democratic Party is,” he said.

But according to Bowman, such a threat is just more evidence of the weakness of Trump’s defense: “Anytime they start saying, ‘Oh, we’re… gonna beat up on Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi,’ you pretty much know that they're basically giving up on winning on substance… They’ve got nothing to say about the merits, so they’ve got to talk about something else.”

That part in bold?  "GOLD, JERRY!  GOLD!"  Gotta say, I want Miller to get Trump to take hold of his "defense" in the Senate and run that clown show for the Senators.  No, they won't decide against Trump because of that; but the damage Trump does to the GOP (and his legacy, such as it is) would be worth the price of admission.  "Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends...."  That song referred to a freak show, ya know.  With Biden at the Capitol paying respect for a slain officer in the riot that will be the centerpiece of this trial, the contrast between past and present would make a carnival freak show look like a Sunday School class.

*I'll drop Professor Tribe's comments on the First Amendment here, just for your satisfaction:

But Harvard Emeritus Professor Laurence Tribe — the author of the constitutional law textbook used at most law schools — said such a defense doesn’t hold water because Trump was speaking not as a private citizen, but as president of the United States.

“They're basically making what I would call the ‘Citizen Trump’ defense — he's a private citizen, so you can't do anything to prevent him from engaging in another coup like this… and he has all the free speech rights of a private citizen. But of course, he wasn't a private citizen, he was speaking from behind the presidential seal, he was speaking with all the power and authority of a president. And you can't take the oath as president and have all that power and none of the responsibility,” Tribe said. “You can't take an oath as president of the United States, and then urge people to burn down the Capitol.”