Home » “It wasn’t a real trial so it’s illegitimate and Trump is still guilty”…

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“It wasn’t a real trial so it’s illegitimate and Trump is still guilty”… — 36 Comments

  1. Sorry, Nancy.
    The charade is over.

    Alan Dershowitz: “Nancy Pelosi has pulled a real sharp one. She’s said even if he’s acquitted and vindicated he’s still impeached. That should not be how it is. Why? He did not have a fair trial. He was indicted. And what happens if a person is acquitted after indictment? The indictment disappears… And when you deny someone due process saying, “Well we’re only indicting him.” You can’t come back and say, “But he’s still indicted!” If he wins this I think no one should regard him as having been impeached anymore than you would regard someone who’s indicted as still being indicted if he won a unanimous twelve person jury.”

  2. The inside dope — Ted Cruz’s hot new podcast with Lindsey Graham as guest commentator: how they brought Lisa and Lamar along to the party: It’s Not Over Yet — Ep. 10

    Half hour youtube, well worth a listen. They credit Warren’s stupid question with helping to defeat the call for witnesses.

  3. This “he’s still impeached” thing is just another expression of what’s really underneath most of the anti-Trump hysteria.

    “We’re the ones in charge! We’re the ones who matter! We’re the ones who run things! WE’RE MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOU!”

    Mike

  4. The next “bombshell” should clock in some time on Monday. The idea being to neutralize any good feeling coming out of the state of the union address.

    I expect the NYT will inject a new virus into the body politic.

    The left, the dems, the MSM – all very toxic.

  5. https://libertyunyielding.com/2020/01/31/ah-so-if-trump-had-paid-ukraine-to-investigate-biden-he-would-have-committed-no-crime/

    This is the takeaway from the answer given to a question at yesterday’s Senate impeachment trial by House manager Hakeem Jeffries. The question, posed by a Republican senator, was whether the Clinton campaign’s use of the Steele Dossier in 2016 would be considered impeachable under the Democrats’ standard. Jeffries’s answer — that it would not because the Steele dossier “was purchased” — suggests an interesting legal precedent.

    In essence, if Donald Trump had offered cash money to Ukraine in exchange for resuming its investigation of corruption that touched on Joe Biden’s son — perhaps delivered on pallets in the middle of the night to add an element of intrigue familiar to the Democrats — no crime would have been committed. The Democrats would have needed another theory for their impeachment case.

    Speaking of which, it’s worth remembering that Jeffries, who is chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, was one of six impeachment managers who supported the impeachment of Donald Trump before the whistleblower complaint was filed.

  6. Sour grapes AND mind reading.

    https://www.thenewneo.com/2020/02/01/it-wasnt-a-real-trial-so-its-illegitimate-and-trump-is-still-guilty/#comment-2478978

    The Republican Impeachment Failure Isn’t About Witnesses
    More than a few GOP senators have indicated that they consider Trump unfit for office. None will vote to remove him. —
    By Jonathan Bernstein January 31, 2020, 5:28 AM MST

    I guess they’re still afraid Trump will put their heads on pikes.

    Alexander said he accepted that Trump was guilty of what he considered “inappropriate” actions, but that they didn’t rise to the level of removal and therefore there was no need to gather additional evidence. As such statements go, it could be worse. Alexander neither defied the obvious facts nor embraced some of the more extreme theories that the president’s lawyers embraced, theories that would in effect write impeachment and removal out of the U.S. Constitution. And his basic argument, that further evidence is unnecessary if he accepts the facts as laid out by the House managers prosecuting the case, is rational.

    If we had some bread we could make a ham sandwich, if we had some ham.

    That said, both the focus on witnesses and the focus on the four senators who have been the most likely to support calling them is misplaced. The real question is how senators will vote on removing the president from office, and the key senators haven’t been Alexander, Collins, Romney and Murkowski, or even the next-most-likely group of 10 or so. The key senators are the ones squarely in the middle of the Republican majority. They’re the ones who could have made removal a real possibility, and if some of them had taken Trump’s actions seriously then there’s little doubt that Alexander and the others would have joined them.

    At the end, Alexander and the others were casting symbolic votes only. That’s not to say that those who believe removal was fully justified should excuse Alexander’s choice, and yes, there could be some effects from somewhat different totals on the final votes to acquit. But it’s the other Republicans, especially those who have made it clear over the last few years that they consider Trump to be unfit for the office he holds, who are the real failures here.

    If unfitness were impeachable, we would have already had a very long list of convictions of past presidents.
    And just because the President isn’t doing what the opposition party, or opposing faction in his own party, wants is NOT the definition of “unfit.”

  7. The current Democrats/socialists/progressives are small children. If they lose an election, it was unfair, illegitimate and a threat to democracy.

    If you don’t believe what they do, you are an evil Nazi who deserves to be beaten, fired and ostracized. You are ignorant and can be openly ridiculed.

    Minorities who do not buy into their visions are Uncle Toms and traitors to their races. It is not their fault if things don’t go their way, grand nefarious schemes are behind them.

    As children who don’t get what they want, they throw tantrums and rage against those against them.

    They are the Terrible Twos who seem to never grow up.

  8. As neo said in an earlier post, they believe words make things real. To say a zone is gun free is to make it so.

    Nancy Pelosi gave it away when she said there is no way Trump can be un-impeached, he is impeached for all time. That was her goal and that of her party, to pin the label on Trump, because the label is real.

  9. This was basically a sham impeachment. They didn’t like what Trump did. They thought they could magnify it into something big. It only got legs because the MSM helped them and the GOP didn’t have the votes in the House.

    First, Trump held up aid because he doesn’t want to give aid to corrupt countries and he wonders why the Germans, French, and other wealthy European countries aren’t doing more to help Ukraine. Nothing corrupt about that at all.

    Secondly, he would like to know what Ukraine did to help Hillary during the 2016 election. He knows he had to let Manafort go because of info that DNC operatives got from Ukraine. He has heard that the DNC server might be in Ukraine. Like a lot of us, he would like to have the FBI examine it to see if it really was hacked by the Russians. Also, he has seen the video of Joe Biden bragging about getting the investigator who was investigating Burisma fired. He knows about Joe’s son, Hunter, being on the board of Burisma at an outlandish salary at the time Joe got the investigator fired. He thinks it bears further investigation. He asks as a favor to the country, if the Ukrainian President might look into these matters. There was no threat to withhold aid. And, in the end, Ukraine never announced or launched an investigation into any of these matters.

    Even if he had threatened to withhold aid in order to get Ukraine’s help in investigating the issues outlined above, it would not be impeachable. There were legitimate reasons of national concern to ask Ukraine to look into all the above questions. Aid is routinely leveraged as a way to get other countries to act in desired ways. All presidents in modern times have done so.

    Beyond that, the investigation into all this revealed that, of those witnesses who testified, only two (LTCOL Vindiman & Gordon Sondland) had direct knowledge of the phone call or had spoken with the POTUS about what he wanted Ukraine to do. In Vindiman’s case he disagreed with Trump’s policy decisions, but testified that the transcript was a true depiction of the phone call. In Sondland’s case, he asked POTUS what he wanted from Ukraine. (He “assumed” Trump wanted to trade aid for an investigation of Biden.) Sondland testified that Trump told him he wanted nothing from the Ukraine except to combat their corruption. There is nothing there that rises even to the level of a parking ticket. However, Schiff and company ignored the facts, and using hearsay, opinion, and speculation, tried to create a case for removing the POTUS. They failed and exposed themselves as being corrupt, lying scumbags of the first order.

    Now they will, with the aid of the MSM, claim that the trial wasn’t “fair.” Alinsky’s rule 5. Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. That’s what they’re doing – ridiculing the trial as not fair or just. It’s maddening, but it works and Schumer is a master. The battle continues.

  10. Democrats and the ‘Resistance’ movement in its various forms of acting out have accomplished the infantilization of politics and the abandonment of any respect for those few profound legal/political thinkers who have chosen to view the issues facing us in terms of whether or not it benefits us in the long run, as opposed merely to “who wins.”

    I’ve had several beefs with Rand Paul, but he recently explained to one of today’s typically over-their-heads reporters, calmly and logically, just why all the claims about having to ‘protect the whistle-blower’ is a farce.

    And of course he’s now being labeled a traitor. Not just by those who couldn’t qualify for law school if their life depended on it, but also by those who now have soiled their own educations and tossed out their once-held sound judgement in their zeal to get Trump.

  11. “This serves to set up the Democrats’ continual, perpetual bleat of “he’s guilty forever, he will never be unimpeached” neo

    Yes, we will hear that incessant perpetual bleat of “he’s guilty forever, he will never be unimpeached” forever. They mean to write the history books to reflect that narrative. Example; ‘You know, Gore didn’t really lose the election, it was stolen by a corrupt Florida Supreme Court and ballot stuffing by the republicans…’

    IMO, we underestimate the democrats if we assume that this is just petty, obsessive T.D.S. None of this is about an actual attempt to remove Trump.

    One of the most common human failings is to imagine that other people think like they do and are motivated by the same values and desires as their own.

    Since the dems would never have convicted Obama or a Pres. Hillary… they assume the same motivation from the republicans. The more sane among the democrats also ‘know’ that the Senate republicans will not vote to convict Trump without an undeniable ‘smoking gun’ and those dems know that such evidence either does not exist or is utterly beyond their grasp.

    So given all of that, what is the purpose of this charade? To increase their hold on the House and gain enough Senate seats by impressing upon enough of the gullible, ignorant public that Trump is not only unfit to be President but a danger and in the republican congress’ refusal to hold Trump accountable… their corruption is exposed. By doing so, they hope to emasculate Trump by limiting his second term to Executive Orders, which can be easily overturned by the next democrat President. That IMO is what this is all about.

  12. We have been on a journey into uncertain times, all sorts of common sense, morality and an even field of play for discussing ideas have been thrown to the wind. This is grade school crap, the Dems saying I don’t like you, your momma wears combat boots, your daddy is too fat (stupid, polack, hunky, honky, licks the seats on girls bicycles in the grade school bike rack, etc.) If the conservative is uncomfortable with the behavior of any group of people their behavior becomes a cause for justice. The media loves this stuff, it sells advertising and the experts can come in and tell each one of us why the lefties are right and we are not only wrong, we who might have a bit of common sense are evil, evil in a world that has not sin.

    No longer is there a common ground to meet and discuss differences, that ship has sailed. We are engaged in a wicked downward spiral that will lead to, as they say in a divorce, irreconcilable differences and where does that leave us middle of the road, common sense conservatives who just want to live a decent life, treat others with respect and be left alone.

    Perhaps this coming year with the election will reveal a large number of people who sat out the last time around and who will take Trump will all of his nutty crap over any other creature they can drag up out of their morass of candidates.

    To sum it all up, they made up crap, they did not allow any other evidence and out certainly flawed hero will walk, to run again.

  13. thx to sdferr for the link
    The inside dope — Ted Cruz’s hot new podcast with Lindsey Graham as guest commentator: how they brought Lisa and Lamar along to the party: It’s Not Over Yet — Ep. 10 …
    . . . oh, dear I don’t know how to make that a clickable link. Go up to 3rd comment and get link from sdferr. Good podcast to get from Lindsey (after 15 min in) the EXACT reason why Elizabeth Warren might have ruined her side by her need to seem smart.

  14. thx to sdferr for the link
    The inside dope — Ted Cruz’s hot new podcast with Lindsey Graham as guest commentator: how they brought Lisa and Lamar along to the party: It’s Not Over Yet — Ep. 10 …
    . . . oh, dear I don’t know how to make that a clickable link. Go up to 3rd comment and get link from sdferr. Good pod cast to get from Lindsey (15 min in) the EXACT reason why Elizabeth Warren might have ruined her side by her silly need to seem smart.

  15. The Verdict with Ted Cruz podcast series (now up to 10 episodes) on the Senate impeachment trial is really interesting, even if impeachment talk makes your eyes glaze over.

    A chilling point by Lindsey Graham in the last episode that I haven’t heard elsewhere: By trying to insert new Administration witnesses into Senate proceedings, Democrats were trying to force John Roberts into the unprecedented position of possibly having to make decisions on executive privilege in the Senate, bypassing the entire court system and all its protections. This effectively would thwart a president’s ability to assert executive privilege in future impeachments, thus radically altering balance of powers.

  16. Geoffrey Britain:

    I am very much in agreement with you.

    In addition, it is about calling Trump “illegitimate” if he manages to win a second term, and calling every judge he appoints “Illegitimate” as well.

  17. I agree that the link to Ted Cruz’s podcast was a good one. Lots of laughs and inside baseball.

    I hope Graham delivers on his promise to investigate the Biden affair and the Ukraine interference in the 2016 election.

  18. In Britain, the parties who opposed Brexit got slaughtered. Playing petty games and wasting time to prevent the inevitable did not go down well.

    Yet the Democrats think it will in the US?

  19. https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/01/31/devin-nunes-the-schiff-staff-wont-quit-an-impeachment-acquittal-wont-end-this-this-really-is-a-hoax/

    HPSCI Ranking Member Devin Nunes brings an uncomfortable dose of reality to a media discussion and he’s exactly correct. Appearing on Tucker Carlson Mr. Nunes highlights that a vote to acquit on the impeachment articles will not be the end of this fiasco.

    The Crossfire Hurricane hoax was constructed with an insurance policy to initiate the Mueller investigation, another hoax. This same network of political operatives, all of which know each-other and work together in various government factions, then morphed the Mueller hoax into the Ukraine hoax; it’s one long continuum and it will not stop with a Senate impeachment acquittal. WATCH:

  20. https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/02/01/the-biden-purpose-is-finished-watch-how-fast-he-plummets/

    Ukraine in general was an operational issue, an operational risk, and also an opportunity. Look at the timelines. Graft and scheme; a background investigative story starting to blossom; and then a 2019 Ukraine election. Biden steps into the race immediately after that outcome… while a non-endorsing Barack Obama says “you don’t have to do this Joe”.

    I contend that Impeachment 2.0 was contingent upon Joe Biden running for office. Why? Because without Biden as a “candidate” the entire premise of the impeachment narrative: “president Donald Trump investigating his political opponent”, doesn’t exist.

    Impeachment 2.0 was centered around a predictable Trump administration Ukraine investigation; much of which was likely being stirred by the coup plotters themselves; and was dependent on a political opponent. Hence, Joe Biden running for office was needed.

    “You don’t have to do this Joe”…. Indeed.

    The crew creating impeachment hoax 2.0 needed Biden, much in a similar way the same crew needed Robert Mueller for impeachment hoax 1.0.

    Factually, ironically, and perhaps purposefully, both of the figureheads have some similarity. Two old men; past their cognitive prime; doing something neither fully understood in the background; but both loyal to the overall “RESIST” ideology.

  21. J.J. on February 1, 2020 at 11:53 pm said:
    I agree that the link to Ted Cruz’s podcast was a good one. Lots of laughs and inside baseball.

    I hope Graham delivers on his promise to investigate the Biden affair and the Ukraine interference in the 2016 election.
    * * *
    A very well done show.
    Graham is very funny, and he & Cruz explain very clearly the issues they raised, and addressed, to the other Senators.
    Also, it was interesting to hear them make a distinction between how Graham looks at things as a trial lawyers addressing jurors, and Cruz as an appellate lawyer addressing judges. Makes for a good team.

  22. “I expect the NYT will inject a new virus into the body politic.”

    Speaking of viruses, has Trump been accused of causing and/or spreading the coronavirus yet? (I haven’t been following things for the past several days.)

    Oh, wait, here’s a possibility: By forcing the poor Chinese government (“government”?) to focus its energies on how to deal with the madman Trump, the Trump-confounded Chinese—like a cute, defenseless, little Bambi (or maybe “panda” would work better?) caught in Trump’s Pitch-Black, Super-Extra-Armored Hummer’s headlights, were unable to deal with the emerging coronavirus; which is now, because of Trump’s unfair, aggressive and egregious interference in that shamefully-treated country, infecting the entire world (and probably outer space as well). Trump! Trump! Trump! Enemy of the UNIVERSE!!!!

    Yeah, that just might do the trick….

  23. Chester Draws on February 2, 2020 at 12:19 am said:

    Yet the Democrats think it will in the US?
    Remember that the Dems think we’re all provincial yokels who don’t pay attention to foreign affairs and important sciency things. So, obviously, we have no connection with what has happened in Britain.
    They’re idiots in that way (among others).

  24. And Hillary should be POTUS, she won the popular vote nationally.

    The Democrats would improve their lot, and maybe have more success, by playing these games by the established rules.

    Schoolyard taunts, designed to make themselves feel less badly about losing.

  25. “…the established rules…”

    But isn’t that, um, the whole point?

    The Democrats make—and change, when necessary (which just happens to be rather often)—“the established rules”.

    Therefore, if the Democrats lose, then the only possible reason is—quite clearly—because rampant GOP cheating. And rampant GOP corruption. And rampant GOP hypocrisy. And rampant GOP racism. And rampant GOP illegality. And rampant GOP hysteria. And rampant GOP anti-Americanism. And rampant GOP evil. (And, worst of all, rampant GOP rampantness.)

    Which is why the country needs the Democratic Party to save it.

    (Not even sure why this point has to be made….)

  26. Impeachment was enough of a fair trial to make him guilty, but not enough to acquit him. Got it.

  27. “It wasn’t a real trial so it’s illegitimate and Trump is still guilty”…

    Since it wasn’t a real impeachment, there couldn’t be a real trial so the whole sham proceedings are illegitimate.

  28. I suspect the new GOP Congress next session will introduce and pass a law cancelling the impeachment resolution passed by Democrats last fall. Two can play this game.

  29. Apparently, due diligence, fiduciary responsibility, and mitigating progress are impeachable offenses. Also, separation of branches. The wannabe executives in the House, in collusion with the private sector, notably journolists, are the beginning, not the end, of an unprecedented cover-up of misconduct by Obama, Biden, Cltinton et al.

  30. I actually hope a Rep majority Congress in 2021 starts impeaching FISA judges.

    This silly show was a waste of time, especially media time, on complaining about a “perfect” Trump call.
    So the Do-Nothing Dems were too busy doin’ nuthin’ that couldn’t do real damage by getting other dumb stuff actually done.

    Few new laws passed, means a stable legal environment, means most business plans will be successful, or not, based on customers, not based on Congress. It’s not reported in the news, but business is always making plans. Lots of plans. Often the plans go wrong and need adjustment.
    They more often go wrong with Congress is changing the laws; are more often successful with legal stability.

    We need a lot more conservative judges; and probably more conservative Law Professors, to optimize the laws.

    Maybe more Congress time-wasting is preferable to doing damage, claiming to try to do good.

  31. On this Super Bowl Sunday, 2 February 2020 (which also happens to be Groundhog Day—but then there are no coincidences, are there?), it can truly be said that Changing the Rules(TM) is quickly becoming an official Democratic Party pastime, so much so in fact that neither Trump nor the American people should take it too personally. It’s just that…well, it’s something that Democrats just seem to have to do (kind of like a nervous tic):
    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/31/dnc-superdelegates-110083

    And they do it soooo well, with flair, panache and style!!

    In any event, sing along now and follow the bouncing ball (substituting “Rules they must change” for “Driving that train”:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLs_0h9_wXM

    Oh, and Happy Groundhog Day! (And may the most deserving team win!…and while we’re at it, say a prayer for the officials, something along the lines of “so that they might not totally embarrass themselves on this day…”)

  32. In traveling through the Instapundit links today, I chanced upon this post, which is topically about the #MeToo movement, but which makes observations that are applicable to just about every political subject today.
    Especially impeachment shams.

    https://blog.simplejustice.us/2020/02/01/prosecute-smear-acquit/

    Not everyone is aware that the #MeToo “movement” didn’t arise organically. I had been told it was coming well before it happened, that there was a deliberate plan to circumvent the difficulties presented by the legal system, even the Title IX campus sex tribunals, because they required two things that proponents found too hard to address: Evidence and the possibility that their accusations might be tested.

    This wasn’t an accident, but a decision to elevate unproven accusation into indisputable “truth.” It was a decision that the cost of the “few” false accusations and ruination of innocents was unfortunate, but necessary, collateral damage.

    You might also note how critical it is to this scheme that the rape epidemic and false accusations lie be perpetrated. With both of these key beliefs in place, the downside of this extrajudicial and subconstitutional system was small enough that people would overlook its harm, ignore the fact that these cries were entirely unproven and would never be proven. There are no rules of evidence on social media, just as there’s no appeal.

    And regardless of where you stand on the underlying issue, it has been a huge success. It has accomplished its goal of circumventing the principles upon which our law was grounded and eviscerating them. But where does it go from here? There remains a problem with the scheme, that as much as they can get men fired or expelled, books burned, movies trashed and art removed from the walls of museums, they still can’t put men in jail without going through the “regular” legal system.

    A prosecutor in Maine has the answer.

    Long story short: subvert the legal system by getting activists elected as DAs in what are usually very low-interest elections for very high-power positions.

    Where #MeToo has enjoyed massive, if mindless, acceptance among the woke, it is now working its way back into the legal system it was created to avoid, only this time based upon the invented belief in its foundational ideologies to overcome its evidentiary failings.

    Will it work? First, it doesn’t have to in order to accomplish its goal. As the saying goes, you can beat the rap, but you can’t beat the ride. Men will be arrested and prosecuted, their faces and the accusations against them will appear in the media. They will lose their jobs, their homes, their families and be criminals. Even acquitted, the belief of guilt isn’t dissipated. After all, juries don’t return verdicts of “innocent,” but not guilty. And as the presumption of innocence is reduced to a “legal technicality” rather than a tenet of law, there is no way to overcome the taint.

    But second, it may well work. For the reasons detained people plead guilty now, they will plead guilty to sex offenses rather than roll the dice at trial or spend a few years awaiting their chance for vindication.

    And third, if the rationalizations, the expert witnesses, the narrative, accomplish what their pushers hope, perhaps juries will convict despite the gross inadequacy of proof. Is it “unfair” that some accusations of sexual assault and rape are hard to prove? Perhaps, but that’s always been the nature of our criminal justice system, that it’s better that ten guilty people go free than one innocent be convicted. There was no exception for sex offenses. Until now.

    Specifically related to #MeToo and its “believe the woman” despite any legitimate concerns about her story, see this.

    https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/explosive-leaked-confession-of-domestic-abuse-of-johnny-depp-turns-metoo-upside-down/

    The audio proves his ex-wife is the one who physically assaulted him, at least on occasion.

    More here
    https://blog.simplejustice.us/2020/02/02/short-take-have-you-heard/#more-42809

    The point isn’t that husbands abuse wives or men abuse women. The point isn’t that women do the same to men. The point isn’t who does it more, worse or harder. The point is that in any given case, with every accusation, the “answer” isn’t to believe the women or presume the man is guilty. The “answer” is to let the facts determine right and wrong, not ideology.

  33. Bonus comment from the Simple Justice post:
    Futardave February 1, 2020 at 9:50 am

    In the court of public perception,
    “What’s the verdict?, I’ve no recollection.”
    But the mere accusation,
    And some brain-dead conflation,
    Will require no further reflection.

  34. Tom Grey,

    We need significant reforms that need major legislation in the following areas:

    – Tax Reform that eliminates all the loopholes added over the years to appease the special interests and that vastly simplifies tax collection.

    – Torte Reform that places reasonable limits on punitive damages. Suing the ones with deep pockets shouldn’t be a business.

    – Health Care Reform that focuses on deregulation and breaking up the monopolies of the AMA, the FDA, the Insurance Industry, and the ABA. This is an industry that desperately needs competition to deliver services better and at less cost.

    Do those three well and we could pay off the national debt in less than twenty years.

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