By Karen Rubin, News-Photos-Features.com
Among the most absurd defenses of Trump’s impeachment, Trump’s lawyers – whose resumes include defending Colombo mob bosses – are claiming that this is “political theater” and a continuation of “Trump derangement syndrome.” They cited prosecution of Trump (by Democrats) going back to the Mueller Investigation into complicity with Russian agents which helped Trump literally steal the presidency.
This “derangement syndrome,” they claim, continued into the first impeachment arising out of his abuse of office and literal extortion of a foreign leader, Ukraine’s president, to get a “favor” by hurting the political rival he most feared, Joe Biden, and again, rig the election. It continued as he attempted to bribe state lawmakers to overturn the will of their people and disenfranchise millions of voters, and extort the Georgia Secretary of State to” find” 11,780 votes – to give him a one-vote advantage over Biden in order to overturn the will of Georgia voters. Very likely he attempted the same to overturn the election in Arizona and Michigan, to again steal the Electoral College, despite losing the popular vote by 3 million in 2016 and 7 million in 2020.
“Derangement syndrome,” and not legitimate call for Trump’s impeachment, they claim.
They ignore the fact Trump, in his months-long campaign to rig and then steal the 2020 election, tried to work the courts up to the Supreme Court, where he had successfully installed a sixth “friendly” justice he expected would find in his favor, just as Scalia did in the 2000 election that anointed George W. Bush president. Trump contemplated taking up disgraced Michael Flynn’s plan to use martial law (a tactic he tested in the Portland protests) to run new elections in swing states that would declare him the winner.
And they expect Americans to dismiss his violation of his oath to protect and defend the Constitution – at essence, to accept his loss in the democratic election and oversee a peaceful transition of power - to incite a mob to disrupt the Constitutionally-mandated ceremony of counting the Electoral College votes and officially declare Joe Biden the president of the United States. Instead, he invited, then incited a deadly insurrection – an attempted coup - having the Pentagon stand down as his Proud Boys stood up, invaded the Capitol on his command, attacked Capitol Police, killing one, gravely injuring 140, hunted Vice President Mike Pence they intended to hang for failing to do Trump’s bidding, stole classified information, and hunted and threatened Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats on their hit list.
According to Trump’s lawyers, all of this is fiction, a hoax, a witchhunt, rather than acts to subvert democracy, the oath of office, and the Constitution.
Unprecedented? Trump is most proud of being unprecedented, a norm-buster (mostly because norms are inconvenient and he doesn’t know, understand them or care about them anyway). This country has never had anyone occupy the presidency, who came to the office through criminality. Throughout his reign as president, Trump acted more like a mob boss, demanding loyalty of his underlings –starting with FBI Director James Comey – and firing those who dared uphold their oath, like Alex Vindman and any Inspector General who found wrong-doing, who, while attacking the “Deep State” spent his time constructing a deep state that would support his dictatorship. (How many times has he used the memes “witch hunt” and “hoax”?)
As for this trial being “unconstitutional because Trump is already out of office,” the House impeached Trump just a week after the deadly insurrection, but Mitch McConnell, holding on to his power as Senate Majority Leader, refused to call back the Senate to receive the Article of Impeachment saying there was plenty of time after the inauguration. What a tactic, if it is allowed to stand.
Trump was impeached while he was President and the Constitution makes it clear the Senate must hold a trial. There are prior precedents, though what Trump has done is unprecedented. What is more, If this becomes precedent, any president could commit heinous acts in the last month of office – sell national secrets, assassinate a rival, write a personal check from the US Treasury – and not be held to account.
Trump’s defenders know it too, but have no actual defense against this or the string of “high crimes” that have defined Trump’s entire occupation and abuse of the Oval Office; they are doing their damnedest to give the Senate Republicans an off-ramp, an excuse not to convict Trump of these heinous high-crimes against the nation.
Political theater? Tell that to the widow of Capitol Police Officer Sicknick, the two officers who subsequently committed suicide, the officer who will lose his eye and 139 others gravely injured. Tell that to the traumatized Congressmembers who were hunted and had to hide from the marauders who already proved they would beat someone to death. Is intimidation of lawmakers the new “Rule of Law.”
No precedent for impeaching a president after leaving office? This is only the fourth impeachment trial in history – of which two were of Donald Trump – so yes, no precedent. But the framers that the conservatives so glorify, were singular in protecting the Republic against a new monarch, a new tyrant, a new dictator, someone who would declare himself “president for life” and use and abuse the tools of his office – as commander in chief of the military, the chief law enforcement officer – for his own benefit.
Those Republican Senators who are looking for any excuse to dismiss and ignore these latest, escalated crimes of Trump (it is inexplicable why they are protecting him when he represents death to the Grand Old Party), just as Congressman Adam Schiff warned in the first impeachment trial, would be setting a horrendous precedent, though it is clear that Republicans don’t actually see their actions as precedent, but conveniently bend and change for political convenience. You only have to recall Senator Lindsey Graham’s attack of President Bill Clinton to justify 50 votes to convict him of what he described as “bad character” staining the presidency. That was his benchmark then. Not now.
The second absurd claim is that Trump’s incitement of the protesters at the rally at the Ellipse (who only had a permit for the rally, not the march) was “free speech.” But free speech is not unlimited - does not cover fraud, slander and certainly not incitement of violence. But as Lindsey Graham would have noted if a Democrat was in this position, Trump violated his oath of office in setting his rabid followers to disrupt Congress fulfilling its Constitutionally-mandated duty, for the purpose of somehow keeping himself in office.
Throughout his occupation of the office, Trump demonstrated that he had no care, no interest, in actually serving as President and the people. He used it for his own personal enrichment and gain. He lied over 33,000 times – thousands of them to build the propaganda that he won the 2020 election “in a landslide” and the election was stolen from him.
Free speech? Incitement is not protected speech, but the President must be held to a higher standard of faithfulness to the awesome power of his office. What is more, this was a long-term disinformation campaign designed for his own benefit. (I said all along that while he could care less about winning in 2016 and was the most surprised person when the Electoral College anointed him, he was desperate to stay in office in order to avoid the delayed prosecutions for tax fraud, money laundering, campaign violations, and the upcoming $400 million in outstanding, personally-guaranteed loans.)
That’s what this second impeachment is about: to reaffirm the obligations of holding this sacred office.
But it also is about declaring Trump unfit and banning him from ever holding federal office again.
Conviction would be doing the Republican Party a favor, to remove Trump as their mob boss, defang the kingmaker pulling the strings. Instead of the Senate Republicans worrying that convicting Trump would hurt their political fortunes, they have to be made to see that voters will punish them if they do not stand up against a would be dictator.
Look around the world, though, and see how Trump’s desecration of democratic processes has helped inspire and empower dictators in Russia, China, Philippines, Turkey, Hungary, Belarus, now a military coup in Myanmar.
It isn’t enough that Trump is being impeached for inciting an insurrection and attempting to overturn the election, he should be prosecuted for his actions and policies which amounted to negligent homicide (just like former Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is being prosecuted for Flint’s poisoned water supply), contributing to the death of over 400,000 Americans to COVID-19, because acknowledging the pandemic would damage his political fortunes, and what’s more, was hurting Democrats way more than Republicans. He would be prosecuted for crimes against humanity for his family separation policy. He would be prosecuted for extortion, bribery, and shaping domestic and foreign policy for his personal enrichment.
And no doubt, Trump’s defense will be that he was President at the time.
_______________
© 2021 News & Photo Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. For editorial feature and photo information, go to www.news-photos-features.com, email editor@news-photos-features.com. Blogging at www.dailykos.com/blogs/NewsPhotosFeatures. ‘Like’ us on facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures, Tweet @KarenBRubin