Anything having to do with Donald Trump is filled with irony and contradiction on the face of it, because the man is fundamentally a confused joke. He doesn’t know whether he’s coming or going, never has, he’s just on his way to the next whacky deal, the next grift, the next aggrandizement of ego, leaving wreckage behind him. That’s how he operates.
The latest ridiculousness is that Trump is having his lawyers argue later on today that it’s unconstitutional to prosecute a former president — and at the same time, he does not concede that he is in fact a former president. His lawyers are not allowed to refer to him as such. Rather, they refer to him as “president” or the “45th president.”
Compound that with the fact that the lawyers are doing revisionist history and claiming that not only did Trump not incite the January 6 riot, he was shocked, I tell you, shocked that it occurred. Bess Levin, Vanity Fair
In the run up to Donald Trump’s second Senate impeachment trial, which kicks off on Tuesday, the ex-president’s lawyers have been busy making the unbelievable—as in, no one actually believes it—argument that Trump never intended for an angry mob of his supporters to lay siege on the Capitol building. Last week, for instance, the legal team trotted out the extremely bold claims that Trump never “intended to interfere with the counting of Electoral votes,” when he clearly intended for exactly that to happen, and that when he told an armed mob to “fight like hell” or “you’re not going to have a country anymore,” he merely meant for them to fight for “election security in general.” Now, having apparently saved the big guns for Impeachment Eve, President Violent Coup’s lawyers have come out with this: Trump was “horrified” by what he witnessed unfolding at the Capitol on January 6, and anyone suggesting otherwise can simply go to hell.
He was so horrified that he did nothing about it, just watched it unfold on TV. All the world’s a movie starring Trump and all the people merely extras. And watch it like a movie he did.
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Trump reportedly watched the whole thing unfold on TV like it was a pay-per-view special he’d been looking forward to for months and couldn’t take his eyes off, not even to stop the violence (Per the Washington Post: “He was hard to reach, and you know why? Because it was live TV. If it’s TiVo, he just hits pause and takes the calls. If it’s live TV, he watches it, and he was just watching it all unfold”);
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He “initially rebuffed and resisted requests to mobilize the National Guard,” and the only reason they were called in was because Mike Pence gave the go-ahead;
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As the riot raged, instead of worrying about the safety of lawmakers and other people in the Capitol, Trump called Senator Tommy Tuberville to convince him to make “additional objections to the Electoral College” to block Congress’s certification of Joe Biden’s win (the call was reportedly cut off “because senators were asked to move to a secure location,” on account of the whole insurrection that was unfolding);
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It was hours before he released a video telling the rioters to “you have to go home now,” in an address that extremely conspicuously did not condemn the violence and also included the lines “We love you. You’re very special,” and “I know how you feel.” (Additionally, he reportedly only decided to release a message out of fear of being prosecuted or removed from office);
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In his last Tweet before being banned from the site, he basically insisted the violence was justified and that something beautiful had occurred, writing: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”
And this argument of justifiable insurrection is scheduled to take place today, if we are to believe Rand Paul. Paul was on TV Sunday and he told Chris Wallace that Trump’s lawyers were going to play videos of Democrats saying things, which apparently to Paul, equate to Trump inciting a riot.
“I think you’re going to see the Trump defense play video of Maxine Waters telling crowds to mob Trump administration [officials] in restaurants and attack them. They’ll probably show clips of Cory Booker saying get up in their face of these congress people. You’ll probably see comments from [Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN)] wishing and celebrating the violence that happened to me when I had six ribs broken and part of my lung removed. I think you’re going to see all of this and people are going to have to judge for themselves.”
“Are we going to impeach and potentially criminally prosecute people for political speech when they say get up and fight for your country, let your voices be heard?” he continued. “Has nobody in this country heard of figurative speech?”
Paul argued: “You can’t just criminalize Republican speech and ignore all the Democrats who incited violence.”
I remember Maxine Waters’ speech but I do not recall hordes of armed citizens marching down the street afterwards, smashing glass and killing people. But Rand Paul would have you believe that these two incidents are the same and he would probably have you believe that shoplifting a loaf of bread is the same level of crime as murder, if that sophistry suited him that day.
In all events, the both sider trial will commence in a few hours, and you’ll see what desperate defense attorneys do with a losing dog of a case. Anything is possible.
And if you doubt that Trump sees this as a TV show and nothing more, read this from Politico Playbook:
As Republicans get ready to beat back a DONALD TRUMP impeachment conviction for the second time, sources close to the former president say he’s already imagining his comeback.
“He’s compared it to that time in between seasons of ‘The Apprentice,’ building anticipation and wonderment for what’s to come,” one adviser told us of the period between his White House exit, eventual acquittal and his second act.
This is who he is. And the GOP has let him make the government and all of America’s institutions into performance art, at immense cost to both.
He’s a stupid, stupid little orange toad
The GOP made this monster and have enabled and covered for him for the past four plus years.
You’d think they’d want him out of the way so they don’t have to deal with him in 2024.
Maybe they plan to not vote to convict (so as not to piss off the Trombies) and let the Democrats take care of banning him from future elections without them having to get their hands dirty.
The thing is, they have to deal with him now. He currently has a strangle hold on the republican party. But, whatever, they seem to always kow tow to the maga base.
So, what channel is the trial on? Just kidding, since I don’t watch Faux Noise not a problem.
Over/under that Trump’s Lawyers throw some poop on the walls? Okay, sucker bet. But do these idjuts try forcefully to tell the American people 45 is still president and the election was stolen?
Gonna need a lot of polish and some good rags for them turds. IMHO
streaming live on CNN
Taking bothsiderism to it’s breathtaking final conclusion.
They incited an armed insurrection to overturn the legitimate legal election, in the process of which people were killed, some for just doing their job.
‘But but the dems once said something…’
They really have no shame.
Castor might have to whistle for his fee – apart from a couple of instances, he mainly referred to ‘the former president’.
I knew the defense had nothing fairly early on. The House Managers gave a master class on the Constitution and the thought processes of our founders who wrote and advocated its ratification. When the first Trump guy got into free speech and the Bill of Rights, he tripped over his crank or maybe Trump’s too long necktie. The amendments in the Bill of Rights are NOT and were NEVER intended to be a list by order of importance. The Bill of Rights was only added as a condition to some states to secure ratification, and in writing it various issues that had been raised and (some felt) not adequately addressed in the main body of the Constitution were drafted into a set of proposed amendments. Again, NOT in order of importance but by simply starting at the beginning of the Constitution and working through the various issues to codify in the Bill of Rights as they came up in the text. In fact, the original list was longer and as I like to point out to gun fetishists who like to cite the second amendment being in place right after the first (freedom of speech and assembly) that in the original list it was NOT the second at all! It only move up there because other proposed amendments didn’t make the cut when time came to ratify them.
Hey, I happen to believe that without the first amendment we wouldn’t have a country, or at least the one that was envisioned. Ok, so we’ve never actually been the country we were supposed to be but we’ve lurched towards getting there in fits and starts, albeit with some setbacks along the way too but you get what I mean. As a matter of history however our cherished first amendment isn’t first because the founders considered it the most important right to guarantee, but rather because of where the issue that some wanted clarified happened to be in the original text of the Constitution which happened to be nearer the beginning than any of the other matters some states wanted to be in the Bill of Rights.
Anyway, when someone in that position either doesn’t know history they really should know if they are going to argue points of the Constitution or is ignoring it it tells me he/they “got nothin.”
p.s. This second dude is downright lame, if not pathetic.
True that – try telling any gun-happy idiot that the first amendment is more important than the second (heck – try telling him ANYTHING is more important than that)
Shouldn’t the “strict constitutionalists” argue that the Second Amendment of the right to bear arms would only be the muskets?
…or a sword or pike
Then again, a strict interpretation of ‘carry and bear’ would limit the amount that could be owned – carrying and bearing a small arsenal is obviously problematic