S(ick) O(f) (This) S(hit)

Good Lord, Ken Starr is just a damn hopeless hack.#BullshitSenateHearing

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) December 16, 2020

Ken Starr says the 1-60 record is "procedural" and doesn't mean that the suits themselves were based on hogwash.#BullshitSenateHearing

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) December 16, 2020

Ken Starr should know better, but I seriously question whether he does.  Courts do not dismiss cases with prejudice for procedural errors.*  And standing is not a matter of procedure (i.e., court rules), it's a matter of jurisdiction (i.e., court authority).  Courts do not issue advisory opinions (recent Supreme Court decisions on covid and the 1st Amendment notwithstanding.  Mootness of the issue before the court should make any ruling advisory, but to a slim majority of the Court that's okay because now it's their opinion that counts.  Don't get me started.), so cases where they have no jurisdiction because the parties before them have no grounds for seeking relief (they are not, in general, the "injured" or "interested" parties) are cases dismissed for lack of standing.  That's not a procedural dismissal.  A procedural dismissal would be filing the wrong cause of action or seeking the wrong relief.  You can correct that with a corrected filing.  Lack of standing is jurisdictional:  you can't correct that because you can never have standing you didn't have before.  It's fundamental, not a matter of rules.  The court cannot resolve a case where the proper parties are not before it.  Lack of standing means you are not the proper party.  Lack of standing means the court has no authority to hear the case.

Sorry, that takes a bit to explain properly.  The suits that have gone to hearings (i.e., all of them) have been dismissed for lack of standing (jurisdiction) or lack of evidence.  You can seek information in a civil suit.  You can't file a civil suit just to look for information.  That's a "fishing expedition," and again, courts don't waste their resources on such matters.  Unless you have grounds (evidence) for a suit, you can't file a suit. All Trump & Co. have ever produced in court is affidavits by people who saw something they didn't understand, or were told by somebody about something somebody else heard happened, or the like.  Non-credible witnesses, hearsay witnesses, etc.  No admissable, credible evidence, IOW.  No evidence, you get dismissed on a motion to dismiss.  Again, not procedural:  hearings on motions to dismiss are basically mini-trials.  If you can present anything that might support your claim, that raises a question of fact which can only be decided in a trial.  Hearings are not trials.

Again, not trying to throw up a thicket of words, just trying to make the distinctions the court makes.  Dismissals are extremely hard to come by, because there's always a question of fact that the court would rather see resolved at trial/final hearing, not in a pre-trial hearing.  I worked on many motions to dismiss.  We never filed them unless we were sure we could win; and even then, we didn't expect to.  Courts prefer final hearings to dispose of cases, rather than early hearings to do it.  It strikes them as unfair, especially if they overlook a question of fact that means they shouldn't have dismissed the case.  Starr knows this.  He's playing with words, aware the audience in America (and who the hell is paying attention to this, besides me and people on Twitter?  And probably no more of them than I need one hand to count.) knows nothing about procedure, is making them think he's clever and nearly 60 hearings where cases were dismissed were run by fools, or worse, conspirators.  Notice he's careful never to say that; but it's what he wants you to hear.

Ken Starr really is a damn hopeless hack.  This kind of thing might be corrosive to democracy and all that, but I don't see anybody staying home from shopping or work to watch C-SPAN just now.  I'm not even sure many people care that the EC voted Monday.  Trump supporters on Twitter claim they represent "millions."  Yeah, sure they do.  There aren't 73 million in America paying attention to this right now, and half of those who are want Trump to shut up and go away.  Maybe more, maybe less; who really knows?

Or cares.

*Those dismissals are even harsher than the ones I describe here, and rarer.  A trial ends with prejudice to the losing party.  Stare decisis, and all that.  A dismissal with prejudice means the court heard enough, and doesn't need or want to hear more.  Courts don't do that unless they are quite sure they won't be reversed on appeal, because dismissal with prejudice ends your rights to seek redress.  It's considered quite drastic, but it's been used with greater frequency as theses cases have gone on.  The courts aren't dismissing because Trump's lawyers failed to follow an obscure rule of procedure.  They are disimissing with prejudice because they are sick of this shit.