Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.
Trump attorney David Schoen was speaking, and I couldn’t help but to observe
aloud that “This guy must think we’re stupid.” Schoen claimed that the
Democrats were simply motivated by “hate” for Trump, but it is remarkably easy
to hate someone who thrives on hate, just as Trump’s supporters do—which is why
they “love” him so much.
After he was finished with the nonsensical,
hypocritical accusations about the
Democrats’ supposed motives, which was clearly aimed at pleasing Trump own
feverish self-victimization, Schoen showed the defense video to “prove” that
Trump was really just a “peaceful” guy, while cherry-picking entirely out of
context instances where Democrats had used the work “fight.” Democrats almost
always used the word “fight” in the context of “we are fighting for you,” but
Schoen mendaciously suggested the words were meant no more (or less) to induce
violent action by others than Trump’s own use of such words. But it was
clear that when Trump used the term “peaceful” as in “protest,” he always sounded
like he didn’t really mean it, and his supporters knew he didn’t “really” mean
it.
Trump was always much more “persuasive”
when he called for his supporters to “knock people out” for throwing a tomato,
or calling for “shooting” when the “looting starts,” which actually wasn’t “necessary”
for the shooting to start (see Kyle Rittenhouse). The anti-lockdown rioting in
several states—including the armed occupation of the Michigan state house—was
clearly helped along by Trump’s own refusal to lead on the issue, and the
Capitol Hill insurrection was clearly incited by months of Trump and his crackpot
lawyers and sycophants on Fox News knowingly making false claims about a
“stolen” election that Trump has “won” by a “landslide.” If Trump had simply
admitted that the people had spoken and the large majority had tired of him and
his antics and wanted him out, none of this would have happened.
Bruce Castor, who angered and
confused even Republicans and Fox News hosts with his meandering, nonsensical “defense”
arguments on Thursday, showed up again and claimed that “The majority party
promised to unify and deliver more COVID relief. But instead, they did this. We
will not take most of our time today, us of the defense, in the hopes that you
will take back these hours and use them to get delivery of COVID relief to the
American people.” Again, the hypocrisy is just too much in relation to the
words and actions of Trump and his Republican supporters, and the actions that
Biden administration has already taken.
Trump’s second impeachment trial ended
abruptly on Saturday, which was just as well since the ultimate verdict had
been telegraphed long ago. While it certainly should not come as a “shock” that
only seven Republican senators joined all 50 Democrats in voting to impeach Trump
on Saturday, in the “court of public opinion” it is clear that Trump was guilty
of inciting insurrection against the government of the United States, which is
frankly a treasonable offense—and all those Republican lawmakers who followed
him are guilty of enabling and abetting that offense, and as is everyone on Fox
News who also did so. History so judges, even if idiots still don’t “get it.”
It appears that two Republican
senators were persuaded to switch votes from declaring the proceedings “unconstitutional”
to finding Trump guilty after the revelation from Republican Rep. Jaime Herrera
Beutler—who was one of 10 Republicans in the House to vote for impeachment—that
exposed the “conversation” House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had
with Trump over the phone while the insurrection was underway. McCarthy
apparently wasn’t hearing what he wanted to from Trump as rioters were smashing
the windows to get into his office, shouting at Trump “Who the fuck do you
think you are talking to?” Herrera Beutler released the following statement
concerning the phone call:
When McCarthy finally
reached the president on January 6 and asked him to publicly and forcefully
call off the riot, the president initially repeated the falsehood that it was
antifa that had breached the Capitol. McCarthy refuted that and told the
president that these were Trump supporters. That’s when, according to McCarthy,
the president said: ‘Well, Kevin,
I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.’
It took several more hours of
destruction, mayhem and death before Trump released a tepid, insincere response
that he was forced to do by aides, even telling the insurrectionists that he “loved”
them. Mitch McConnell voted against impeachment, claiming that it was not “legal”
to impeach a president no longer in office, which is not legally correct; but he
did state that "Former President
Trump's actions that preceded the riot were a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction
of duty. Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events
of the day," adding that Trump is still liable for criminal
prosecution. This of course angered Lindsey Graham, who claimed this would be used
against Republicans in 2022. Actually, Graham’s own spineless behavior will be
used against him in the history books, and the more likely scenario is that it
will be Trumpists who will be damaged by Trump’s words and actions, not “traditional”
Republicans.
The
legacy of this impeachment trial, however, will be set in stone ironically by
Trump’s most violent defense attorney, Michael van der Veen, who used
disreputable attack terms that Trump would have approved, and apparently in the
hope that Trump will actually pay him for his “legal” work. He insanely claimed
that Antifa was the real “culprit,” the case was just a “shameful effort” to “smear,
censor, and cancel” Trump and his supporters, and that it was an “unjust and
blatantly unconstitutional act of political vengeance” that “further divides
our nation.” Again and again, the absolutely tone-deaf hypocrisy of these
people is beyond belief. Trump spent four+ years inciting division in this
country, ramping it up to the point where violence was its “logical” and foreseeable
result. And yet the Trump defense treats thinking people as if they are “stupid."
Van der Veen’s “constitutional”
argument cited a Supreme Court case from the early 1960s. Wood v. Georgia,
in which a sheriff named James Woods was charged and convicted of “obstruction”
for criticizing the calling of a grand jury investigating whether his
re-election had been aided by “suspicious” bloc voting by black voters, with
the suggestion that they had been “paid” to vote for Woods. Woods was accused of
“inciting” black voters to “riot.” The Supreme Court overturned Woods’
conviction. The importance of the case was that it brought up the question of “clear and present danger,” which Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes first
employed in his dissent in the case of Schenck v. United States, in
which he wrote
The
question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances
and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will
bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a
question of proximity and degree. When a nation is at war many things that
might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their
utterance will not be endured so long as men fight, and that no court could
regard them as protected by any constitutional right.
The “clear and present danger” here was
limited to sedition during wartime, but the term underwent several alterations
until it was replaced by the dictum of “imminent lawless action,” written by
Justice William J. Brennan (not to be confused with the William Brennan also on
Trump’s “legal” team):
The
constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State
to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or law violation except where such advocacy is directed to
inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or
produce such action.
Trump was clearly guilty of inciting “imminent lawless action” by
inciting in his most fanatical and violent supporters the need to violent
action to prevent a “stolen” election. Trump had proven himself time and time
again to be someone who does not concern himself either with acting or speaking
in a civil manner, or with the consequences of violent language in inciting
violent behavior from his most fanatical supporters; he knew who these people were,
and he not only knew how, but hoped that they would respond in the way they did—that
was proven by his “fascination” with the riot, and his refusal to do anything
even when a leading member of his own party begged him to do something to stop
it.
How many times have we heard Trump speak forcefully about actual physical action and threatening federal and state officials, urging his people to retake his
“victory,” while the few times that he has spoken about “peace” and “going
home,” it is said so weakly that it is clear he doesn’t really mean it? If
Trump didn’t know his words and actions would cause “imminent lawless
action,” then he is without question unfit before, now and in future from even
sniffing political office or influence.
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