Trump Is Throwing Away A Winning Hand
– By Ed Kociela –
The deck was stacked in his favor.
Even after Senate Republicans voted in strong enough numbers to say they didn’t think it would be constitutional to try a president who was no longer in office, Donald Trump decided that his defense in his second impeachment trial should be based upon his delusional belief that the election was stolen from him.
The man had a free pass.
He was rounding third and heading for home.
He was Secretariat pounding down the home stretch, 31 lengths ahead of the Belmont Stakes field to win horse racing’s Triple Crown.
He was sitting on four aces on The River.
But, instead, he tossed it and went all-in on a hand that had already been beaten in the courts from Pennsylvania to Arizona.
Suddenly, the shoo-in is no longer a sure thing, especially since his legal team bailed on him over the weekend, less than two weeks before the Senate impeachment trial is set to begin because Trump wanted to base his defense on the Big Lie, and the Big Lie abides and attorneys are bound by an ethic that prohibits them from basing a defense on a lie. We’ll see how his new team responds.
But, wait, as the guy on the television infomercials says, there’s more.
Steve Bannon, the cheap swindler whom Trump has had an on-again, off-again bromance with and who served as chief White House strategist during Trump’s first seven months in office, has, according to one report, suggested that the former president should represent himself during the Senate trial.
Hey, I can’t make this stuff up. It is too far beyond the pale, too far beyond reason. There is a reason why attorneys are warned that a man who acts as his own lawyer has a fool for a client.
Except, I can see the Trump ego possibly settling into such a place. He is, after all, a “stable genius,” right, even though he pretty much screwed up a sure thing. I mean, the Senate basically gave him a roadmap to follow. They let him know in advance that they thought it unconstitutional to continue impeachment proceedings after he left office. His attorneys picked up on the cue and wanted to pursue that defense. They were also encouraged to take that path because ethics tend to make attorneys unwilling to base a case on a lie. Unfortunately, for him, Trump’s ego would not allow him to do so. He just had to keep ripping off that scab of losing the election because it was rigged, as he put it, and that is what may place him in jeopardy. While such a defense would certainly garner huge television ratings, providing us with many must-see hours of viewing, the absurdity of it all would soon wear thin in the din of an endless rant of “we wuz robbed!”
By continuing to claim that the election was stolen from him, even when such loyalists as former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell underscored the fact that he lost, he is feeding fuel to the impeachment charge of inciting an insurrection. He is, in effect, again emphasizing the words that set the mob off when he told those gathered that they should march to the Capitol and prevent Congress from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to ratify the Electoral College results. It is, truly, a compelling argument that he was leading a coup, that instead of defending and protecting the Constitution, as he swore an oath to do, he was looking to shred it, along with the will of the voters who gave him the boot.
His speech on Jan. 6 was like a page out of the Qanon playbook, rife with conspiracies and dark claims that remain unproven and the crowd ate it up, marching dutifully to the Capitol and trashing it while looking for former Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker of The House Nancy Pelosi, who escaped with their lives while Trump watched on from the shelter of the White House.
The thugs overrunning the Capitol were nothing more than Trump loyalists, eager and willing to do his bidding.
Except, a funny thing happened after the shouting subsided. People were arrested, and continue to be arrested for their role in trying to undo the election. So, as it stands now, the insurgents are beginning to throw Trump under the bus, telling investigators that they were following his orders to storm the Capitol. They crashed into the building with blood in their mouths and anger in their hearts, wanting to hang Pence because Trump berated him for following the law, and wanting to put a bullet in Pelosi’s skull because she was part of the process and, well, as a Democrat, she represented the enemy.
I am hopeful that Senate prosecutors call Trump as a witness and that they ask him the simple question: “What did you hope to accomplish by ordering this angry mob to go to the Capitol?”
The only answer he could give without perjuring himself would be that he wanted them to overturn the election, which, I will remind you, had already survived numerous court tests with no change in the results.
This second impeachment trial of Donald Trump is likely to be the most important legal action of our lifetime.
The Constitution is on the line.
The principle that nobody is above the law is on the line.
The integrity of our entire system of government is on the line.
This is a big deal, a big fucking deal, as President Joe Biden might say.
This was not simply about a partisan battle, this was not simply about an ideological battle, this was an assault on the United States. If these were people of color, people of Middle Eastern descent, they would be rounding them up and tossing them into a cage in Guantanamo Bay.
But, according to Trump, these were courageous and strong patriots who had “truth and justice” on their side.
Somehow, he maintains his grip over just enough followers to wield a certain amount of power and influence, enough power and influence to create a cult of followers willing to faithfully do his bidding and that doesn’t bode well for the health of the nation regardless of what happens during the Senate trial.
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