Donald Trump's whiz kids at the White House have reportedly been strategizing for weeks about how to handle his Senate impeachment trial. White House counsel Pat Cipollone, who has sent any number of legally laughable and truly unhinged letters to Congress over his name, plans to take point as Trump's chief defender in the trial.
In keeping with the delusional nature of Trump's White House, his legal team has penned a detailed legal brief just as President Clinton's team did at the outset of his Senate impeachment trial in 1999—because the substance and politics of Clinton's and Trump's circumstances have such obvious parallels. Hopefully it will be just as constitutionally unsound as virtually everything Cipollone has pushed out from the counsel's office, chock full of multiple references to the imaginary concept of "absolute immunity."
Another hot topic at the White House is whether to give some of Trump's staunchest GOP allies in the House a chance to hold court at the trial. While Cipollone will be Trump's main advocate, they're mulling sidekicks such as Reps. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, Jim Jordan of Ohio, and Doug Collins of Georgia. Absolutely. In fact, why stop there? Just guessing Alan Dershowitz and Jeanine Pirro could make room in their busy Fox schedules to accommodate the trial.
There is a limiting factor, however. Politico reports that the idea of adding a Meadows or a Jordan to the mix has gotten "some pushback from Senate Republicans," who are still hoping against hope to present a trial with some semblance of credibility and solemnity. Good luck with that. Looks more like the White House is poised to bedazzle the entire Senate charade. Witnesses or no witnesses, Trump’s crackerjack team will find some way to muck it up.