Posted on Feb 12, 2021
Trump’s formal impeachment defense is even worse than you imagined | Griffin Connolly
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Donald Trump attorney Michael van der Veen opened the ex-president’s formal impeachment defense on Friday by spraying 25 minutes of partisan acid rain on the Senate, dropping virtually every Trump-era conservative buzzword known to man.
An X’s-and-O’s masterpiece of whataboutism and intellectual dishonesty, Van der Veen’s presentation pelted Senators with classic conservative insults against Democratic politicians. For good measure, it also included outright falsehoods concerning both the makeup of the mob that attacked the US Capitol on January 6 and the nature of Trump’s speeches denouncing the 2020 election — both on the day of the insurrection and well before.
He falsely claimed, for instance, that the “first rioter” arrested by law enforcement in the wake of the Capitol riot was an “Antifa leader, not a Trump backer”. This was part of a broader (and factually preposterous) effort to mischaracterize the pro-Trump mob as consisting of “extremists of various different stripes and political persuasions.”
An X’s-and-O’s masterpiece of whataboutism and intellectual dishonesty, Van der Veen’s presentation pelted Senators with classic conservative insults against Democratic politicians. For good measure, it also included outright falsehoods concerning both the makeup of the mob that attacked the US Capitol on January 6 and the nature of Trump’s speeches denouncing the 2020 election — both on the day of the insurrection and well before.
He falsely claimed, for instance, that the “first rioter” arrested by law enforcement in the wake of the Capitol riot was an “Antifa leader, not a Trump backer”. This was part of a broader (and factually preposterous) effort to mischaracterize the pro-Trump mob as consisting of “extremists of various different stripes and political persuasions.”
Trump’s formal impeachment defense is even worse than you imagined | Griffin Connolly
Posted from independent.co.uk
Donald Trump
Washington
United States Senate
Posted 4 y ago
Responses: 3
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It just doesn’t matter. He, himself said it best: “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” Once you’re under his spell, there’s nothing he can do which is too much. 45 senators probably agree that he went too far this time, but will vote to acquit anyway.
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I think the “ informal impeachment defense “ team handed the Democrats their rear ends!
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LTC David Brown
MSgt Steve Sweeney - The problem was the impeachment involved only one charge, inciting a riot/insurrection . So I guess Democrats can inspire riots, challenge elections etc but Republicans can’t. The Impeachment was pure political theater. This had nothing to do with law so your claim of my non-informed legal opinion is a non-starter. Example, How could a legal case go before a judge who already condemned the accused? So the defense had two jobs. Both are purely political since, barring some overwhelming evidence Trump was NOT going to get convicted, and surprise, nothing new or over whelming was put forth, and that would be the legal requirement under the law for a criminal case, but this is a political case. The job for Trump’s defense was to provide cover for Republicans and they did, The second was to demonstrate that Trump didn’t say anything out of line beyond the extreme and they did that. Funny how Trumps first impeachment was not an issue during the election. It will be the same in 2022 election.
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Maj Chris Williams
MSgt Steve Sweeney - So, just because the verdict is not going to go the way you want it to...that makes the system broke? This is no way a criminal case...that has been said probably a couple thousand times in the past two weeks. This is entirely a political case with required political proceedings. The only smart one in the bunch was Justice Roberts by sending a letter saying he would not take part in the proceedings. The constitution is very vague in most areas surrounding the trial portion of the process and Justice Roberts sounded the alarm that this is not constitutional...an alarm that the democrats refused to listen to.
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i was hoping Trump's legal team would take the high road and not lower themselves to the selective editing that permeated the democrat's presentation. But alas, they failed and relied on the same unethical approach. At least this three ring circus will be over shortly and we can move on to commenting on other stupid things the politicians are doing, and let the historians battle among themselves to see if Trump has replaced Carter as the worst president in history.
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