There were no revelations in today’s (Saturday, January 25, 2020) opening of the defense of the Orange Hate-Monkey (OHM) at his impeachment trial. If there had been, then NPR would have covered it in this special edition of the NPR Politics podcast.
From the brief ten minutes of the C-SPAN video that I watched, it was easy to tell that Pat Cipollone had been told not to waste his time on Saturday because of the bad TV ratings by the ratings-obsessed OHM.
I expect Monday and Tuesday to be also relatively without meaning because the defense has no case to present. Let’s set aside the perfect phone call. Just say it is irrelevant. There is no defense against the Obstruction of Congress article. The letter issued by the White House is grounds for removal of the president. All. By. Itself. …and it was written by? Pat Cipollone. The lead lawyer in the OHM’s defense. Pat Cipollone should have been disbarred already.
The only thing I’m interested in, when it comes to the defense, is if the attorneys working for the president will risk being disbarred for repeating lies they were told to repeat by the president. The sixteen hour question time that follows the defenses’ presentation should be interesting. We should know pretty shortly after it starts what the mood of the Senate is at that point.
As I have said previously, if the Senate doesn’t vote remove the OHM from office, then no president will ever comply with requests from Congress again unless it is something he thinks should be done; and every single Senator, Representative or employee of the executive branch can be investigated by foreign powers and have that dirt used against them by the president without repercussion. Any one of us could be targeted by a foreign power, and our own government would not be beholden to defend us. The stakes could not be higher, and I personally resent the lying done on behalf of the OHM. It’s bad enough that he lies constantly. Don’t insult me and the truth by repeating his lies again.
It has been 3 years, 5 days, 10 hours and 25 minutes since Donald Trump should have been removed from office.
January 28, 2020. Just as I figured, the OHM’s defense offered nothing new on the critically important subject of why the OHM did not comply with congressional subpoenas. He has no defense, because there is no defense.
If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.
Alan Dershowitz, arguing before the Senate, 29 January, 2020
