The Trump Impeachment

[Tero]

McConnel is apparently not be able to dismiss the case. However, there is a plan in the works to REJECT ALL THE HOUSE EVIDENCE. The prosecutors and so on can retell this story in their 24 hours.

However, Roberts has some powers. He may decide some evidence, or even the allowing of witnesses. That is not unfair to the citizens or the US.

[Svartalf]

why don't the senators just vote to dismiss the whole case en masse and get done with the rigmarole?

[Tero]

Because they do not have 51 votes to dismiss. 48-49, but even 50 does not pass.

[Tero]

[Seabass]

[Tero]

I'm watching live with TV, because they are going back and forth accusing, defending. And in the process, still setting the rules. The main tool I have is the MUTE button.

But they each yammer for 10 min at a time and Roberts never stops either one. So not like a court. Until they vote on someting. They want to vote on "no evidence" and "no witnesses."

[Tero]

All the amendments are from the Democrats. Looks like all will be voted down, 53 to 47.

[JimC]

A complete and utter circus, it seems...

[Tero]

The remaining circus will be repeats. All party line votes.

[L'Emmerdeur]

The US House of Representatives has given notice to Pat Cipillone, the president's lawyer, that they're considering him a fact witness in the impeachment trial. A lawyer who is a witness in a trial can be disqualified on ethical grounds from acting as counsel in that trial. Not that this matters to the Republicans in the US Senate.

January 21, 2020 Letter to Pat A. Cipollone

Evidence indicates that, at a minimum, you have detailed knowledge of the facts regarding the first Article and played an instrumental role in the conduct charged in the second Article. The ethical rules generally preclude a lawyer from acting as an advocate at a trial in which he is likely also a necessary witness. See e.g., ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct 3.7; D.C. Rule of Professional Conduct 3.7. As the Supreme Court has observed, "tradition, as well as the ethics of our profession, generally instruct counsel to avoid the risks associated with participating as both advocate and witness in the same proceeding."

These risks are so serious that they can require a lawyer's disqualification. Most importantly, "when one individual assumes the role of both advocate and witness it may so blur the line between argument and evidence that the [factfinder's] ability to find facts is undermined."

[Tyrannical]

I have a bad feeling impeachment will end very boringly.

Justice Roberts will dismiss impeachment for lack of violating any 'criminal code', let alone impeachable offence. Trial get's skipped, Trump get's unimpeached as the original charge declared legally invalid. Booooring.

Roberts does not have that role. Someone from the parties involved needs to make a move for dismissal. The Senate then votes on that.

But does Chief Justice Roberts know that?

Presiding over an impeachment is the last place he wants to be
Trump isn't being accused of breaking any laws........
Roberts might, with the consent of the Senate, slap them back with a scathing dismissal.

[L'Emmerdeur]

You just hang there by your thumbs, and the Chief Justice will be along any time now to drop that shoe.

[Tero]

Trump broke laws. Election laws.

[L'Emmerdeur]

The dream team:

'Meet the goon squad: Donald Trump's defense team is amazing — but not in a good way'

The impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump begins on Tuesday morning. If you've been closely following the Trump saga since he came down his golden escalator and declared his candidacy, as I have, you are not terribly surprised that it has come to this. Unfortunately, most of us who could see how he might seduce the faction of the country that had been primed for a demagogue like him over the past several decades also overestimated the patriotism of Republican officials, many of whom made it clear in the beginning that they knew what he was and have since rolled over for him like trained poodles. That phenomenon is what will determine the eventual outcome of the trial we are about to witness.

...

Trump's attorneys' legal arguments show how contemptuous the president is of the process. Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe has called them "garbage dressed up as legal argument." Nonetheless, Trump's team seems highly confident that this is all they need to do, knowing that their GOP allies will do as they're told and Republican voters will be shielded from the truth by Fox News and other right-wing media.

...

[Trump's] latest White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, [is] a former corporate lawyer and Catholic activist. (Fox News host Laura Ingraham has called him her "spiritual mentor.") Cipollone was highly recommended by his good friend Bill Barr and Trump's other lawyers, Jay Sekulow and Rudy Giuliani. From what other lawyers say about Cipollone's legal arguments during the impeachment process so far, particularly the incomprehensible screed he sent to the House before the hearings (which was quite likely dictated by Trump), he is no longer concerned with his reputation as a serious jurist.

The second in command on the Trump team is Sekulow, previously known as a legal advocate for the Christian right. Like so many of his brethren in that movement, he apparently sees no barrier to empowering and defending a corrupt, libertine president. But then, Sekulow has more in common with Trump than he admits. He's also personally implicated in the Ukraine scandal, which is not unusual for a Trump attorney. Since these guys are throwing out the common understanding of the Constitution, they might as well discard any notions of conflict of interest as well.

[u.s.w.]

[Tero]

Well, yeah all that. Plus they have two main points:
1 there was no crime
2 this:

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