impeachment

Trump Defense Lawyers Celebrate Victory They Had Nothing To Do With

February 15, 2021 By John DeProspo 6 Comments

In true Trumpian fashion, Trump’s defense lawyers are taking credit for something they had no hand in … the Senate’s acquittal of their client on impeachment charges.

“We’re going to Disney World,” Trump lawyer Michael van der Veen joked to reporters following the trial. He was later photographed fist-bumping a colleague.

The whole world knows (as I guess so did Trump’s lawyers) that the fix was in and that their presence at the impeachment trial was nothing more than legal window-dressing. They could not lose no matter what baseless, whacked-out, bogus defense they came up with.

There was no way 17 Republican senators were going to join 50 of their Democratic colleagues to reach the two-thirds vote needed to convict Trump.

Trump’s defense lawyers did not have to be articulate, competent or prepared. It didn’t matter. They just needed to show up.

Because the Senate’s verdict was a forgone conclusion, House impeachment managers were wise not to bring in witnesses. Why further delay the inevitable? The case they presented against Trump, even without witness testimony, was open and shut. Just ask Mitch McConnell!

I wonder if Trump’s lawyers ever bothered to read the reviews of their “lawyering?” Because of their bumbling, buffoonish efforts, “My Cousin Vinny” trended on Twitter.

Of course, that is an insult to Vincent LaGuardia Gambini who won his case after winning over an impartial, some might even say hostile, jury!

Photo | Alex Brandon/AP/inquirer.com

Trump Hires Top D.C. Law Firm After Exodus of Current Legal Team

January 31, 2021 By John DeProspo 3 Comments

Reprint from moronmajority.com

With little more than one week before the start of his impeachment trial in the Senate, Donald Trump’s entire legal team has quit.

But, with the kind of swift action Trump has come to be known for, the Washington D.C. law firm of Dewey, Cheatem & Howe has been hired to take up his defense.

It is believed the firm’s senior partner, Mr. Cheatem, will personally head Mr. Trump’s legal efforts.

When asked how he plans to defend the former, now twice-impeached president, Mr. Cheatem offered a very basic, elemental strategy.

“We are going to impress upon the Republican Senators who will control Mr. Trump’s fate, ‘If you wish to remain in office, you must not f**k us’.”

With such a brilliant, yet simple, legal strategy, is there any wonder why Dewey, Cheatem & Howe is D.C.’s premier law firm?

Photo | britannica.com

*moronmajority.com is a satirical site … seriously!

No Unity Is Possible Until Republicans Renounce Their Support Of The “Big Lie”

January 13, 2021 By John DeProspo 3 Comments

During today’s impeachment hearing, many House Republicans called for national unity. A good number of those Republicans are the same ones who fanned Trump’s false claim that the presidential election was stolen from him … that Joe Biden was not the lawfully elected next president of the United States.

How can we come together as a nation when nearly 70% of Republicans believe the “Big Lie?” How can we move on with the business of the country when a large number of Republican representatives and a handful of senate Republicans are still peddling the “Big Lie?” How can we restore faith in our democracy, and the Constitution, when 197 out of 207 Republican House members refused to honor their oath and vote for Trump’s impeachment?

Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern, chair of the House Rules Committee, said today during his closing remarks, “We will never have unity without truth and also without accountability.” He chided his Republican colleagues for their hypocritical pleas for unity.

“Some of my Republican friends have been trying to lecture us about unity here today — unity after they voted to overturn a free and fair election in the United States of America, but also preaching unity and not acknowledging that for four years many of them gave oxygen to Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories,” McGovern said.

The fact is that a majority of Republican voters firmly … and fervently … believe the election was rigged. They accept the false notion that Trump votes were not counted or somehow changed to Biden votes. They believe scores of dead people voted for Biden. Many are pledging to never accept or acknowledge Joe Biden as their duly elected president.

It will be hard to dissuade these Trump voters of the many conspiracy theories fed them by Trump and his willing accomplices … Congressional Republicans and right-wing media outlets. Many believe so strongly in the “Big Lie” that they traveled miles to be part of the mob that stormed the Capitol last week, some claiming they were the true patriots willing to die for their country and the Constitution.

A necessary first step in bringing about national unity is for us all to be on the same page when it comes to the essential truth about the 2020 election.

The 2020 presidential election was “the most secure in American history.” This assessment was put out in a joint statement by the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council (GCC) and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

Those Republican senators (I’m looking at you Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley) and House Republicans (yes, you Jim Jordon and Mo Brooks) need to do the right thing and speak the truth to those misguided and misinformed Republican voters. Fox News has to do some soul searching and try to walk back some of its loyal viewers from the ledge. They all have to own up to their role in spreading the “Big Lie” which led directly to the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

I know, I know, keep dreaming!

The said truth is that even if this were in the realm of possibility, it might not be enough to get through to those ardent Trump loyalists who would no doubt brand any Republican who dares tell the truth, and attack the “Big Lie,” as a traitor or a RINO.

Yet, do you see any other way?

Photo | AP/J.Scott Applewhite

Sorry Susan, But You Couldn’t Have Been More Wrong

June 2, 2020 By John DeProspo 4 Comments

Explaining why she voted to acquit Trump in his Senate impeachment trial, Maine Senator, Susan Collins, claimed on national TV, with a straight face, it was because the ordeal Trump had been put through made him see the error of his ways.

Speaking to Norah O’Donnell of CBS News, Collins said, “I believe that the president learned from this case. The president has been impeached. That’s a pretty big lesson.” She went on to add, with what anyone with just one functioning brain cell would have told you could never happen, “I believe that he will be more cautious in the future.”

There is no doubt Trump learned a big lesson from his impeachment trial. But not the one Collins had in mind. Donald Trump learned that he can pretty much get away anything, the rule of law and Constitution be damned. He also learned that he had Collins and the rest of the sycophantic Republicans in his back pocket… and they would stay there.

The fact that we, as a country, are in the sorry state we’re in is a direct result of Collins and the other Republican doormats failing to do their Constitutional duty of removing a corrupt and incompetent president from office. At a time when it was necessary to put country over party, Collins and her crew (except for Romney) failed miserably.

So, Susan, the state of chaos we find ourselves in is all on you and your absurd rationale for letting Trump off the hook. It’s also on the heads of every Senate Republican who also voted to acquit.

As our country spirals out of control, with one crisis after another, we find ourselves with the worst, most incompetent, president imaginable; a leader incapable of preforming even basic presidential duties. We are stuck with a man who could care less about doing the right thing because he doesn’t know, nor has he ever known, what the right thing is… except for how it personally affected his interests. We have a president who has abdicated his oath of office. As country, we are flying solo.

Adam Schiff tried to warn you, Susan, and your fellow Republicans.

“We must say enough — enough! He has betrayed our national security, and he will do so again,” Schiff, told the Senate. “He has compromised our elections, and he will do so again. You will not change him. You cannot constrain him. He is who he is. Truth matters little to him. What’s right matters even less, and decency matters not at all.”

If there is any justice left in this world, you, Susan, and your fellow toadies will all be driven from office. Joe Biden will be our new president.

But, of course, only you and 22 of your colleagues are up for reelection in November.

I am sure the majority of Americans, not part of the Trump cult, would be happy with just enough Republican losses in November to give Democrats a majority in the Senate and relegate Moscow Mitch to nothing better than Minority Leader.

But in Trumpian time, five months seems like an eternity. Who knows what new horrors Trump will inflict on our great nation by then? Who knows what our country will even look like?

Photo |REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/pinetreewatch.org

Don’t Blame Trump For Being Trump … Blame Senate Republicans for Keeping Him In Office

April 24, 2020 By John DeProspo 3 Comments

Our country is facing a health and economic crisis like never before. Nearly 900,000 Americans have been infected by the coronavirus, with over 50,000 deaths. The U.S. economy has now wiped out all the job gains since the Great Recession. In the last month and a half, over 26 million workers have applied for unemployment insurance. Congress has approved a massive $2 trillion coronavirus relief package … with more money to go out the door.

It didn’t have to be this way. The situation didn’t have to be this bad.

The fact that Donald Trump is a total incompetent who is mishandling the pandemic response, which is on pace to be the deadliest since the 1918 Spanish flu, comes as no surprise. Could we have expected anything else?

The man has demonstrated his ineptitude … and complete lack of respect for science, facts, expert opinion … from the moment he stepped into the White House.

Remember when candidate Trump boasted he knew more than the generals? Now he stands in front of the White House press corps claiming to know more than the scientists and doctors.

That we find ourselves in this mess is a direct result of Republican senators failing to do their Constitutional duty by removing Trump from office when they had the opportunity.

So, lest we forget, and in order to highlight their shame, here is a list of the 53 Senate Republicans who voted to acquit Trump on Impeachment Article 2, Obstruction of Congress (52 Republicans voted to acquit Trump on Impeachment Article 1, Abuse of Power, with only Mitt Romney voting guilty):

Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Blackburn (R-TN)
Blunt (R-MO)
Boozman (R-AR)
Braun (R-IN)
Burr (R-NC)
Capito (R-WV)
Cassidy (R-LA)
Collins (R-ME)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Cotton (R-AR)
Cramer (R-ND)
Crapo (R-ID)
Cruz (R-TX)
Daines (R-MT)
Enzi (R-WY)
Ernst (R-IA)
Fischer (R-NE)
Gardner (R-CO)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Hawley (R-MO)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Hyde-Smith (R-MS)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Johnson (R-WI)
Kennedy (R-LA)
Lankford (R-OK)
Lee (R-UT)
Loeffler (R-GA)
McConnell (R-KY)
McSally (R-AZ)
Moran (R-KS)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Paul (R-KY)
Perdue (R-GA)
Portman (R-OH)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)

Romney (R-UT)

Rounds (R-SD)
Rubio (R-FL)
Sasse (R-NE)
Scott (R-FL)
Scott (R-SC)
Shelby (R-AL)
Sullivan (R-AK)
Thune (R-SD)
Tillis (R-NC)
Toomey (R-PA)
Wicker (R-MS)
Young (R-IN)

No, we did not have to been stuck with the worst possible leader at the worst possible time.

It’s not Trump’s fault. Blame those 53 Senate Republicans who voted to keep the most incompetent president in American history in charge of the federal response to one of the most serious crises the country has ever faced.

Photo | alternet.org

Dems Take Trump Acquittal To Court Of Appeals … The American People

February 7, 2020 By John DeProspo 6 Comments

Now that the United States Senate has voted to keep our lawless president in office; now that the courts have shown a reluctance to interfere in what they see as political disputes … it is up to the American people to render the ultimate verdict by voting Trump out of office in November.

But even though a majority of Americans disapprove of Trump, such a simple and obvious strategy runs up against three obstacles.

First, will the Democrats nominate a strong candidate that can send Trump packing? For a while, it appeared they had such a candidate … Joe Biden. But after a poor fourth-place showing in Iowa, the Biden-as-the-Democratic-savior narrative is starting to fray. While many Democrats have a favorable opinion of the former VP, they wonder if he has the stuff to go head-to-head against perhaps the most vicious, hit-below-the-belt politician of all-time, Donald J. Trump. Many seem to have concluded that, at the age of 77, Biden simply does not have the fire in the belly to get the job done. While the fiery septuagenerian Bernie Sanders seems to have the momentum that can carry him to the nomination, many moderate Democrats worry he is too radical (god forbid, a democratic socialist who believes health care is a basic human right!) to win a national election.

Second, do most Americans even know what’s at stake in the upcoming election? Do they understand the Constitutional framework of three co-equal branches of government? Do they understand the Framers’ wise insistence on checks and balances between those three branches? Do they understand that our very democracy and the rule of law is on the line in 2020; that with Trump we are well on the road to an imperial presidency? It is hard to answer in the affirmative on any of these questions when 61% of all Americans cannot even name the three branches of government!

Third, and most important, can we rely on a free and fair election? Now that Trump has been given a pass on trying to extort a foreign government into meddling in our 2020 election, does anyone, other than Susan Collins, believe Trump has learned his lesson and will stop trying to cheat his way into office … again? Can we have any faith in a Department of Justice, run by Trump’s flunky, Willian Barr, to safeguard the integrity of our electoral system? Can the American people have any confidence in the election outcome, no matter which way it goes?

We keep hearing that this next election is the most important in our lifetime. It’s become an election-year cliché. But 2020 truly is the election which will determine whether or not our Constitution still matters … whether the rule of law still matters … and whether we, as a nation, will continue to strive towards that noble, yet elusive, goal of a more perfect union based on equal justice under the law.

Photo | voteosceola.com

Mitch McConnell – The Master Of Obstruction

February 2, 2020 By John DeProspo 4 Comments

In a perverse way, you’ve got to hand it to Old Mitch. He is the Leonardo Da Vinci of Gridlock. Has any other Senate Majority Leader done more to make sure nothing gets done?

McConnell’s skillful navigation of the choppy waters during Trump’s impeachment “trial” is just the latest coup for the man who proudly calls himself the” Grim Reaper.”

We should have known he’d be the High Priest of Hindrance the moment he announced that making Barack Obama a one-term president was his number one priority. Republicans were not going to cooperate with Obama’s legislative agenda, no way, no how. True to his word, it didn’t matter if Obama proposed ideas previously championed by Republicans, the President had to be stopped at every turn.

When it came to approving Obama’s nominees for federal judgeships, McConnell slowed the Senate confirmation process to a crawl. But it was Mitch’s blockade of Judge Merrick Garland from filling the Supreme Court seat vacated by Antonin Scalia that many are labeling his greatest moment of obstruction.

Mitch even boasted about it.

“One of my proudest moments was when I looked at Barack Obama in the eye and I said, ‘Mr. President, you will not fill this Supreme Court vacancy,’” McConnell said in 2016 to cheers at an annual Fancy Farm Picnic.

No other Leader of the Senate would even dream of attempting what Old Mitch pulled off. He’s a veritable Rembrandt of Resistance!

And now McConnell’s masterful blocking of witnesses during Trump’s impeachment “trial” may rival his Merrick Garland feat. It’s certainly as consequential, if not more.

Mitch McConnell, the five-term senator from Kentucky will no doubt go down in history as the greatest obstructionist leader of the Senate … and the man who may have singlehandedly killed the rule of law, the Constitution and American democracy.

Now that’s some legacy for the virtuoso stonewaller!

Photo | businessinsider.com

R.I.P. Political Satire – Republican Senator Asks Whether John Bolton Is Really A Firsthand Witness

January 28, 2020 By John DeProspo 4 Comments

Clearly we are living through some weird times. The line between the factual and the absurd just keeps getting blurred beyond recognition.

Satire is dead.

Senate Republicans have complained that all the evidence against Trump has come from people with secondhand, third-hand and even fourth-hand knowledge. Yet when Democrats asked, during Trump’s impeachment trial, to subpoena witnesses with firsthand knowledge of Trump’s alleged wrongdoing, all such requests were voted down along a straight party-line vote.

Then, over the weekend, the Bolton book bombshell hits the streets. In the unpublished manuscript of his tell-all book, former national security advisor, John Bolton, says Donald Trump told him that he was withholding military aid to Ukraine in order to pressure Ukrainian president Zelensky to help him with political motivated investigations, i.e. dirt on the Bidens.

In a normal world this would be considered the ultimate firsthand knowledge … unless you could produce a witness who inhabited Trump’s subconscious!

But, no. Missouri junior Senator Josh Hawley is actually questioning whether John Bolton is that much-sought, indispensable witness.

When CNN’s Haley Byrd caught up with Hawley yesterday and asked why the Senate wouldn’t want to hear from Bolton, he replied, “Well, I don’t know. Is he a firsthand witness? I’m not sure.”

Folks, we have reached a point where writers of political satire need to just pack their bags and go ply their trade on some less absurdist terrain otherwise known as today’s political world. Well, at least until we can return to more normal times … if that is even possible.

Sorry, Mr. Borowitz, but it seems the current crop of Republican politicians may have put you, and all your clever fellow satirists, out of business.

Did you hear that Donald Trump is thinking of pardoning Charles Manson, Ms. Williamson?

Photo | washingtonpost.com

Graham On Calling Witnesses: “I Really Don’t Want To Turn The Trial Into A Circus”

January 25, 2020 By John DeProspo 6 Comments

Now that Trump’s lawyers have begun offering up their arguments against impeachment, many Democrats are saying they just made a great case for calling witnesses.

Trump’s defense team began this morning’s Senate session arguing that no one has testified they heard Trump directly demand a political quid pro quo from Ukraine or say he explicitly held up foreign aid to benefit himself.

So, wouldn’t calling witnesses with direct knowledge of the issues potentially solve the problem?

Not for Lindsey Graham. He stated, after this morning’s “brief” presentation by Trump’s lawyers, “I am more intent on ending this thing now with my vote. I really don’t want to turn the trial into a circus.”

Any person with even the slightest knowledge of trial procedure would tell you Graham has it completely backwards. A trial without witnesses IS a circus; nothing but a sham trial.

Yes, Senate Republicans have heard enough after three grueling days of arguments by the Democrats. They want to move on to other things … lunches with lobbyists and fundraising for the next election.

Having witnesses, like Bolton or Mulvaney, testify would only complicate things and make it more difficult for Senate Republicans to acquit Trump without looking like the unpatriotic, partisan hacks that they are.

Welcome to our brave new, dystopian, world of Orwellian doublespeak!

Photo | cnbc.com

Please, Let’s Stop Calling What’s Taking Place In The Senate A Trial

January 23, 2020 By John DeProspo 2 Comments

As we are all transfixed on the spectacle taking place in the Senate, let us not dignify it by calling it a trial.

The Constitution gives the Senate the sole power to try a case of impeachment. In other words, to hold a trial.

A trial by its very definition is a formal examination of evidence before a judge; an exercise in seeking the truth. The basic structure normally follows this pattern:

Opening statements
Witness testimony and cross examination
Closing arguments
Jury deliberation and verdict

What’s taking place in the Senate is not a trial but a partisan, and some might add, unconstitutional, impeachment process. Senate Republicans voted down every effort by the Democrats to call witnesses (and produce documents, for that matter).

As many have observed, a trial without witnesses is a sham; a coverup.

Oh yes, but aren’t they just following the Clinton impeachment model you ask?

Yes and no.

Yes, in the Clinton impeachment there was unanimous agreement among senators to vote on the need for witnesses after the trial concluded. But key witnesses had already given sworn testimony before the trial. The idea of not calling live witnesses during Clinton’s trial was mainly due to the salacious nature of the facts which gave rise to Clinton’s perjury.

But in Trump’s case, there is nothing indecent about any potential witness testimony … just plain old-fashioned abuse of power and obstruction.

House manager Adam Schiff put the difference between Trump and Clinton this way:

“If we’re really serious about modeling this proceeding after the Clinton trial, the Clinton precedent is one where all the documents had been provided, up front, where all the witnesses had testified, up front, prior to the trial. That is not being replicated by the McConnell resolution — not in any way, not in any shape, not in any form, far from it.

What the Senate is doing is flipping the meaning of “trial” on its head… conclude the presentation and then vote on whether witnesses and documents are necessary!

Look for Republican senators to vote down the need for witnesses at the end of the trial and for either a motion to dismiss or a quick vote leading to acquittal.

So, let’s just call what’s happening in the Senate what it is … a “presentation” by a group of Democrats seeking to uphold the Constitution and a group of Republicans willing to undermine our constitutional democracy.

Photo | nypost.com