At a conference of student conservatives in West Palm Beach, Florida, Saturday, Donald Trump moaned about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to delay transmitting the articles of impeachment to the Senate until she gets an agreement from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell about the rules that will govern Trump’s trial in that body. “It’s so unfair. They are violating the Constitution,” Trump grumbled at the conference organized by Turning Point USA.
Pelosi made that decision because she has plenty of experience with how McConnell operates, which amounts to locking up legislation, nominations, and other Democratic proposals by giving them zero Senate consideration, much less a vote. In addition to sitting on Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court for nine months in 2016, he has refused to hold hearings on more than 300 bills passed by the Democratically controlled House of Representatives in the past year even though many of those received scores of Republican votes. He has openly said that he won’t be an impartial juror in the Senate trial, despite the special oath requiring senators to swear their impartiality before hearing impeachment evidence. But lying when taking the oath will no doubt be perjury without penalty.
Trump told the thousands at his speech that “Each of you are on the front lines of defending our way of life. The radical left doesn’t stand a chance against young conservatives who put America first.” Suffice it to say that despite their political views, “our way of life” for most of these students doesn’t include golden toilets.
Rush Limbaugh—who for decades as a talk-radio host has served as model for other right-wingers to contaminate the air waves with a deluge of right-wing lies and conspiracy theories—urged the students not to believe in climate change and support Trump, who has worked diligently in just three years in the White House to exceed Limbaugh’s record of lies during 30 years in the disinformation business.
Another notorious figure pumping up Trump at the conference was Ken Starr. He was the lead attorney in the investigation that led to President Bill Clinton’s impeachment two decades ago. In a brief assessment of the impeachment charges against Trump, Starr said quid-pro-quo accusations “ran out of gas.” He conceded that abuse of power is a legitimate offense, but that there is “no direct evidence” that Trump engaged in that. He said impeachment is being used too much, and that censuring a president would be a better approach. He made no mention of the Clinton impeachment or his involvement in it.