Today’s legal team
The question is answered: yes Trump’s new “legal team” is willing to repeat his lies.
Donald Trump’s legal team for his second impeachment trial has filed a 14-page brief defending his actions on January 6, when the then-president incited a violent insurrection at the US Capitol.
On January 6, Trump repeated his baseless claims that Joe Biden won the presidential election because of widespread fraud, and he encouraged his supporters to march down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol as Congress certified Biden’s victory.
He encouraged them to do more than march to the Capitol.
“Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness,” he said. “You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
The president’s legal team said in its brief, “Insufficient evidence exists upon which a reasonable jurist could conclude that the 45th President’s statements were accurate or not, and he therefore denies they were false.”
Straight up lying.
Guess that depends on who gets to define “reasonable jurist”. I sort of do have problems with that formulation, because it can be so mangled, but in this case, if a jurist is truly reasonable, they would have to recognize that the president’s claims are false.
This is *such* typical Trump. The president’s statements are not “true”; rather, “he denies that they were false”, bceuase there’s “insufficent evidence” to determine whether they be “accurate or not”.
Post-truth. Truth and falsehood don’t mean anything to him.
Let’s face it: truth and falsehood don’t mean anything to *anyone* these days…
Present company excluded, no? Isn’t that why this blog is such a refreshing place to hang out?
Which is why calling what will happen in the Senate a trial is wrong.
Were this a trial, very few of the jurors would be acceptable to either party.
Impeachments need a less biased Jury, one that will hear and deliberate evidence, not partisanship.
Good luck with that.
The trial analogy has always been a little strained. People try to make a big deal out of the fact that some Senators have expressed opinions about the matter, or the fact that Leahy will be presiding but will also cast a vote, etc.
Impeachment and removal are fundamentally a political process. That’s not just my opinion, that’s what the Supreme Court has said. It would be a massive mistake to have a president’s fate depend on a group of randomly selected citizens, who aren’t accountable to the people in any way. (But who will be dragged through the mud and harassed the rest of their lives by the “other” side.)
When you find yourself saying “but this isn’t how a criminal trial would work!” the solution is for you to stop thinking of it as a criminal trial, not to demand that the Constitution be changed because you’re wedded to an inapt analogy.
Good job, S.M.