Thomas Jefferson: "I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."
United States GOP Senators:
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| Clay Jones |
The articles of impeachment were solemnly walked from the House to the Senate last week. Upon delivery, and after Chairman Schiff read aloud the articles, Chief Justice John Roberts took an oath promising to "do impartial justice according to the Constitution and the laws." I got goosebumps watching him take the oath. He in turn swore in all the members of the Senate.
BREAKING: US Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts takes oath to preside over the US Senate during the impeachment trial against President Trump. pic.twitter.com/LI676olHVC— NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) January 16, 2020
Speaker Nancy Pelosi chose the managers, de facto trial prosecutors, who will present the case. The rainbow crew is composed of mostly lawyers. They are:
- House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA), de facto leader of the first phase of the House impeachment proceedings. He got his law degree from Harvard.
- House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler (D-NY), in charge of the second half of the impeachment proceedings, oversaw the drafting of the articles. Nadler is a Constitutional expert.
- Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). She's a member of the Judiciary Committee and a lawyer. It's her third impeachment rodeo, having been a staffer during Nixon's proceedings and a member of the Judiciary Committee during Clinton's. She represents many of my friends in the San Jose area.
- Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Judiciary Committee member; he's a lawyer, and considered Speaker Pelosi's possible successor as Speaker.
- Rep. Val Demings (D-FL), member of both the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees. I was impressed with her during the impeachment hearings. She is a former police chief.
- Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO), a freshman representative, is a former Army Captain and concerned with national security.
- Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX), member of the Judiciary Committee and a former Texas judge.
It's been interesting already.
New evidence has come forth from Lev Parnas, Giuliani's henchman. Parnas provided written notes, photos, texts, videos, and voicemail recordings. He provided more dirt on the ouster scheme of Ambassador Marie Yavonovich, as well as texts sucking Devin Nunes deeper into the mud. His most talked-about piece of evidence: hand-written notes on Vienna Ritz-Carlton stationary.
And Parnas has said that for every time SCROTUS claims not to know him, he will release another photograph of the two of them together. He's kept his promise.
Parnas had a blockbuster interview with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC and proclaimed, "He knew what was happening....He knows who I am." See a portion of the interview here:
Parnas also talked to Anderson Cooper on CNN:
Part 1.
Part 2.
Parnas needs to testify!
New evidence also came from the nonpartisan federal watchdog, the Government Accountability Office, who found that IMPOTUS broke the law when he withheld security funds from Ukraine.
We learned that TЯUMP's defense team is headed by White House counsel Pat Cipallone. The team also includes 45's current personal attorney (previous personal lawyers are in jail or under criminal investigation) Jay Sekulow, as well as (surprise) TV stars Ken Starr, former independent counsel during the Clinton years, and celebrity lawyer Alan Dershowitz.
SHOWTIME!
IMPOTUS's team filed a brief which laid out their defense. The defense is, basically: <shrug> Hey, what he did wasn't a crime, so no harm no foul.
Nope. It doesn't work that way. It's clear from the founders that statutory crime was not the standard of proof necessary. Hamilton's expanded quote from above:
A well-constituted court for the trial of impeachments is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt. – Federalist Papers, No 65The abuse or violation of some public trust.
Done. This, and so anymore offenses.
Constitutional scholars from here to forever reject that defense. IMPOTUS's own lawyer Alan Dershowitz disputed it in 1998 during the Clinton impeachment:
Besides, it was a crime. The GAO stated so.
The trial begins in earnest Tuesday January 21, though the first day will be spent hammering out the rules, with presentations beginning on Wednesday. It is expected that the rules will be modeled after the 1998 impeachment trial and will allow for 24 hours for each side to present their cases – with Senators required to sit quietly "on pain of imprisonment" – before Senator questions will be allowed.
It's still up in the air whether additional witnesses will be permitted. There are four Republican Senators who have expressed interest in hearing from additional witnesses: Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. The issue of witnesses is likely to be decided after the first few days of proceedings. Four Republicans are all that is needed to approve a simple majority vote on the issue.
Because I love him so, and because under the humor is an astute analysis, Stephen Colbert can explain more about the whole dealio:
And so we begin, for the third time in the history of the United States, a trial to decide whether or not to remove a sitting president from office.
Buckle up.
....and #resist!
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