"The Conduct Here Is Worse Than in the Ukraine Case": Trump's Second Impeachment Trial Will...

[Nevilledog]

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Seth Abramson
@SethAbramson
Such an excellent summary of the difference between Trump's first impeachment trial and this one, by the wonderful @DanielSGoldman: "This time, having failed to cheat in the election, the president was simply trying to steal the election."

“The Conduct Here Is Worse Than in the Ukraine Case”: Trump’s Second Impeachment Trial Will...
Democrats may not have the votes to convict, but there’s value in holding a public trial in which jurors have firsthand knowledge of the terror Trump inspired. “You will see a more emotional,...
vanityfair.com

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/02/trumps-second-impeachment-trial-will-immortalize-him-as-an-existential-threat

Daniel Goldman was on the front lines for Donald Trump’s first impeachment. As lead attorney for the House Intelligence Committee, Goldman constructed the case against the president—that was him coolly batting away the provocations of Republican congressman Doug Collins during public hearings in December, 2019. As a staff lawyer to the House managers, Goldman was a key figure in prosecuting the impeachment case in front of the Senate. A year later, as the Senate prepares to start a new trial on February 9, Goldman is a civilian, but one with keen insight into Trump’s prospects for escaping conviction yet again.

If the Trump defense team argues that the then president, in his incendiary January 6 rally speech, never explicitly told his angry supporters to march over and storm the Capitol? “Having prosecuted the mafia,” Goldman says, “the mob boss doesn’t say, ‘Please go kill him for me.’ The mob boss says, ‘Take care of him.’” How about Trump’s rhetoric being protected by the First Amendment? “Hogwash,” Goldman says. “The First Amendment is designed to protect individual speech from government intervention, not to protect government speech, or speech that leads to action. There are many examples—hate speech, for instance—where speech is actually criminalized. So that’s not a defense.”

The legalities matter. But this being an impeachment trial, they matter less than the politics, as Goldman well knows: Both counts of his thorough, artful, damning case against Trump for trying to blackmail Ukrainian officials into digging up dirt against Joe Biden went down in a near party-line defeat in the Senate. Enough Republicans still appear plenty intransigent this time around. Yet the context is vastly different—with Biden having beaten Trump in the 2020 election and with the impeachable acts having unfolded, violently, right in front of the senators who will now be the jurors.

“The conduct here is worse than in the Ukraine case, where the president used his office to extort an ally to help with his reelection campaign,” Goldman says. “This time, having failed to cheat in the election, the president was simply trying to steal the election.” But the greater difference in making the case is that this one is visceral. Instead of a complicated tale of politicians with hard-to-pronounce names pieced together through a dry assembly of documents and some disputed witness testimony, the insurrection case includes Trump bellowing, “We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore!” at a “Save America” rally on the Ellipse, followed by his amped-up followers smashing windows and doors and beating cops—all of it on camera. “It’s much more tangible and understandable and more vivid for the senators who were there on January 6, and for the American public who watched it all unfold on television,” Goldman says. “And we’ll see it again during the Senate trial. You will see a more emotional, powerful, compelling presentation.” Indeed, the research team working for the nine Democratic House impeachment managers, led by Maryland’s Jamie Raskin, have been culling not just video clips, but potentially incriminating social media posts to back up the case against Trump.

*snip*

[Rhiannon12866]

1. Twitter reply :

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[Nevilledog]

2. Can't wait!

[dalton99a]

3. Kick

[Hermit-The-Prog]

4. I hope they have a copy of the propaganda video he played at the 'rally'.