NY Times:
‘Constitutional Nonsense’: Trump’s Impeachment Defense Defies Legal Consensus
As President Trump’s impeachment trial opens, his lawyers have increasingly emphasized a striking argument: Even if he did abuse his powers in an attempt to bully Ukraine into interfering in the 2020 election on his behalf, it would not matter because the House never accused him of committing an ordinary crime.
Their argument is widely disputed. It cuts against the consensus among scholars that impeachment exists to remove officials who abuse power. The phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” means a serious violation of public trust that need not also be an ordinary crime, said Frank O. Bowman III, a University of Missouri law professor and the author of a recent book on the topic.
“This argument is constitutional nonsense,” Mr. Bowman said. “The almost universal consensus — in Great Britain, in the colonies, in the American states between 1776 and 1787, at the Constitutional Convention and since — has been that criminal conduct is not required for impeachment.”
Don’t buy the nonsense that Rs are impervious to public pressure. Keep hammering them.
WaPo:
Senate Democrats privately mull Biden-for-Bolton trade in impeachment trial
“Biden and his people don’t want to give it credibility, so there is a stalemate right now, in terms of doing anything new,” one Biden associate said regarding whether the former vice president or his son would testify.
Throw in a second round pick and a player to be named later, and maybe there is a deal to be had.
NY Times:
McConnell’s changes to the trial rules came after concerns from Republican senators.
Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, made changes to the proposed rules for the trial after Republicans senators, including Susan Collins of Maine, raised concerns about two provisions, according to a spokeswoman for Ms. Collins.
The aide, Annie Clark, said the Maine Republican wanted to ensure that the resolution as closely resembled the rules adopted by the Senate in the 1999 trial of President Bill Clinton as possible.
Mr. McConnell’s initial plans had deviated in several ways from those carried out in Mr. Clinton’s case.
Consensus is that McConnell was bluffing and his caucus forced these changes.
More to come as America digests what they heard and saw yesterday.
Jennifer Rubin/WaPo:
Democrats already have these four victories in the impeachment trial
In his calm and methodical presentation, Schiff scored a victory: Democrats have effectively built the case that the Senate would be guilty of a coverup if it allows Trump to continue to conceal witnesses and documents. (Since the public already believes by huge margins that witnesses should be allowed, Schiff has the wind of public opinion at his back.)…
Schiff and his fellow impeachment managers understand that Trump has been impeached, that a majority of the public believes he obstructed Congress and abused his power and that a really big majority want a real trial. They know Republicans are going to vote to acquit, so the purpose is not a favorable verdict. Rather, it is to hammer home to every persuadable voter that Trump violated his oath and engaged in a coverup, which Senate Republicans are enabling.
The jury is not really the Senate; it’s the public. The defendant is not really Trump; it’s the Republican senators. Understanding this, Schiff got off to a strong start.
David Mastio and Jill Lawrence/USA Today:
Get ready for the Trump Senate impeachment trial as partisan farce
Here's hoping that Republicans prove us wrong and decide they've had enough of Donald Trump.
[Maastio]: They’ll be standing by Trump whatever comes in the Senate trial, new witnesses or not. Damning new facts or not. And when you are talking to Republicans, even in private, they do a pretty good imitation of being true believers in Trump. Why’s that? In the short term, Trump is the only route to clinging to power.
Pence is viewed as weak tea in rallying the base. And after years of Trump, there’s not much hope on the right for reaching out to the middle in the coming presidential election. Blue-collar Democrats aren’t going to defect to Pence’s traditional brand of Republicanism and he can’t really fake populism with Trump’s verve. Without Trump winning at the top of the ticket, hopes for keeping a grip on the Senate are not high.
I don’t care how damaged Trump is by the Senate impeachment trial next week, there’s no hope his Republican backers will abandon him.
[Lawrence]: That is a dark view of the party, and probably justified. But until it’s over, as Bill Clinton used to say before The Troubles descended upon him, I still believe in a place called Hope.
3 top witnesses I'd call in Trump impeachment trial and what I'd ask: Ex-US attorney
It would be tempting to call Rudy Giuliani, Mike Pence and Donald Trump. But John Bolton, Mick Mulvaney and Mike Pompeo would be better witnesses.
How to get the truth on Ukraine
Three other witnesses are essential to getting to the bottom of what happened in the Ukraine affair — Bolton, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Because they have not been questioned, House managers would have to violate a prosecutor’s general rule to never ask a question to which they do not already know the answer. But sometimes risk is necessary for reward. These are the key questions these witnesses should be asked.
Questions for all three witnesses:
►Were you aware of any request to any Ukrainian official to investigate Burisma, Hunter or Joe Biden or the role of Ukraine in interfering with the 2016 U.S. presidential election?
►If so, what was the role of President Trump in that request?
►Why was the Trump administration interested in investigating these matters?
Conservative columnist:
In other news:
Will Bunch/philly.com:
Call Richmond’s MLK Day gun rally what it was: An outbreak of terrorism on American soil
As they marched a stone’s throw from what had been the capitol of the Confederacy, the marchers argued to a man (and they were virtually all men) that, in essence, they want their country back. “I don’t like what they are doing to our rights,” Raymond Pfaff, an 85-year-old man from Louisa County, Va. — where the public schools remained segregated until Pfaff was in his late 30s — told the New York Times at the rally, adding: “I’m a patriotic American. The left is going so far left right now.”
Wason Center for Public Policy:
State of the Commonwealth 2020 Survey Report (Virginia)
- Voters strongly support requiring background checks on all gun sales (86%-13%) and passing a ‘red flag’ law (73%-23%); a slight majority (54%-44%) support banning assault-style weapons
- Voters strongly back the Equal Rights Amendment (80%-13%)
- A slight majority oppose giving localities authority to remove or alter Confederate monuments (51%-44%)
- Voters strongly support decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana (83%-14%)
- Voters strongly support raising the minimum wage (72%-28%)
- Voters strongly support automatic voter registration (64%-31%), but slightly oppose no-excuse absentee voting (74%-23%)
- Voters strongly support second passage of the redistricting reform constitutional amendment (70%-15%)
Important, given the gun rights rally yesterday.
