The Democrats pushing for the case to remove Donald Trump from the White House are winning the legal argument, and really, it is not even close.
Even some conservatives, like Andrew Napolitano and George Conway, admit as much.
But since Congress is not a room full of adults, that probably will not happen, because Republicans are no longer a serious party, but have morphed into the Donald Trump party.
He can - and does - do whatever he wants, and they let him get away with it, time and time again.
It feels like our democracy is slipping away.
Here are a few snippets from a great article revealing just how lopsided this trial has been in favor of the prosecution against Trump, and how little the Republicans are taking this seriously.
This is a real statement of where we are as a country right now, taken from a Washington Post article by Max Boot (see link below):
The impeachment managers especially shined during impromptu rebuttals. Former assistant attorney general Walter Dellinger joined a chorus of praise for Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.): “Schiff is not just good. Today is one of the most impressive performances by a lawyer I have ever seen.” But dazzling as Schiff was, he may have been matched by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). Responding to Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow’s question “Why are we here?”, Jeffries put on a master class in forensics. “We are here, sir, because President Trump corruptly abused his power and then he tried to cover it up,” he said, concluding with a quote from The Notorious B.I.G.: “And if you don’t know, now you know.” The only stumble so far was Rep. Jerrold Nadler’s (D-N.Y.) impolitic accusation that Republican senators were guilty of a “treacherous vote” and a “shameful coverup.” Even some Democratic senators said he had gone too far.
Trump’s lawyers were far worse. They played a bad hand badly. Admittedly, they are handicapped by the inescapable reality that their client is guilty as sin. They can’t seriously dispute that Trump wanted Ukraine to investigate former vice president Joe Biden — the president said as much from the White House lawn. They can’t even dispute that Trump held up military aid to Ukraine to pressure its government into doing what he wanted. Their only defense on the merits is to claim that the president wasn’t concerned with smearing a Democratic rival but with fighting corruption. But that’s an absurd argument to make given that Trump never mentioned fighting corruption in general during his two phone calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — and given that, as my Post colleague Catherine Rampell notes, he is trying to legalize bribery by American companies.
But these are relatively inconsequential whoppers compared with the biggest lie of all. This is the oft-repeated claim that a president can only be impeached for breaking the law — not for abuse of office. Not even Jonathan Turley, the star Republican witness during the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment hearing, is buying it. He wrote in Wednesday’s edition of The Post: “It is a view that is at odds with history and the purpose of the Constitution. While Framers did not want terms such as ‘maladministration’ in the standard as dangerously too broad, they often spoke of impeachable conduct in noncriminal terms.” Many of the president’s defenders, including his lawyer Alan Dershowitz and Attorney General William P. Barr, have made similar arguments in the past. They have only taken the contrary position today because it is more politically convenient to embrace a lie than to grapple with the terrible truth.
It should be no surprise that the lawyers representing a president who has made more than 16,241 false statements since taking office should resort to their own lies — and it won’t matter for the president’s die-hard supporters. The Fifth Avenue Republicans will back Trump no matter what. But a recent CNN poll found that 51 percent of Americans think Trump should be convicted and 58 percent think he abused his power. The transparently false arguments by Trump lawyers will not convince those majorities that they are wrong. The Trump team will win an acquittal in the Senate no matter how badly they argue but, on the present trajectory, they won’t win in the court of public opinion.
Trump’s lawyers are playing a bad hand badly by Max Boot, Jan. 22, 2020:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/22/democrats-are-winning-argument-even-though-theyll-lose-senate-trial/?fbclid=IwAR2bs5b2TTUnpe_cCbiM4jbaDWu-1gK7yb8Zf1U2IibuBF32-753hFaGVis
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