For the second time this week dershowitz tries to walk back things he said or did in defense of trump...
I don't think the strategy is to not alienate those in the middle... It's more of a strategy to keep them un-informed and asleep at the wheel so they can get what they want. The Trump Party knows the changing demographics and knows that there is a limited amount of time to power grab to retain permanent control. The move to more of an autocratic form of government makes sense to someone like Mitch McConnell who cares only about power and money. They see the change coming, and want to ensure that the institutions are set to never have pesky liberals changing things in the favor of the little people who want free stuff. Switching to rule with an iron fist to be able to counter the incoming liberal power of the people makes sense if you are representing that 30 to 35% who see their privilege going away if they don't rule with an iron fist. The only difference in Trump & McConnell is that McConnell wants it done quietly starting with stacking the courts. Trump is the kid in Toy's R. Us screaming in the isle that I want it now!! The main thing that I've learned in the past 5 years that is now obvious is that Trump supporters and their Congressional Reps absolutely believe that Democracy is no longer palatable for them, and they very much support changing the government to a more autocratic form of government like that of Russia and they might not believe Trump is the best Supreme Leader they could have, but they are accepting of him taking the mantle since they see him as the most likely to be able to grab that power now before it's too late, and liberals vote in another black dude.
So on Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden isn't the President of the United States. If the GOP believes he did something illegal, he should go through the criminal court process. That is if they genuinely care about justice rather than trying to merely sell a political narrative to the voting electorate. The United States and Ukraine has a "mutual assistance in legal matters" treaty. The Trump controlled DoJ and FBI can cooperate with Ukrainian investigators using this treaty to get proper warrants to search documents and subpoena Hunter Biden if a Federal judge deems that there is enough evidence for such actions. https://www.congress.gov/treaty-document/106th-congress/16/document-text Why doesn't the Trump administration do this if they genuinely believe Hunter Biden did something illegal? Can a Trump apologist explain?
I've also been somewhat impressed with some of the president's defense, though it seems like they do a straight man and funny guy routine. Dershowitz is the funny guy and Philbin is the straight man. One argument I appreciated was about the timing argument the House managers have made (which I never thought was very strong anyway). It goes, hypothetically, if Trump was in his second term and not up for election again and he saw Joe Biden, whom he suspects to be corrupt, declare his candidacy, doesn't it become much more urgent to have him investigated? If Biden retired from public life instead, maybe he could leave it alone, but being a potentially-corrupt candidate for president is a threat to national security. Makes sense. And I really like it because it so mirrors the quandary Obama had faced where there was reason to believe Trump was corrupt and was running for President. but there's a process problem. In Obama's case, Obama chose to be very clandestine about investigating (no public announcements of investigation) until it all blew open because he did not want to appear to be trying to influence the election. He had his intel agencies trying to get all the information they could. Then of course after Trump won the election, tons of leaks started from Admin people who were concerned. Contrast with the hypothetical proposed for Trump. Sure, it's reasonable to be concerned whether Biden is corrupt when he's running for office. But when you're concerned, you do what Obama did -- stay at arm's length to avoid an appearance of impropriety, and have the FBI conduct an investigation. What Trump did instead, using foreign agencies to announce and conduct an investigation whose integrity you can't vouch for, is the tell that his interest was not genuine concern. Reviewing obits is a pretty clever tactic to consider how history will treat these Senators. No doubt, however they vote in this impeachment, it's going to follow them to the grave and beyond.
Trumplicans are going to lose their mind when Schiff subpoenas Bolton to testify in the House in Feb 5th the day after the State of the Union.
I mean that's true, but didn't we already know that's where we were? I said at the outset of this that he would be acquitted no matter what. Most here understand that as well. Only a few held out some level of hope that minds could be changed. We are already at the point where there is no check on executive power.
Sorry Susan, the train actually left in the 90s. I'll let a Trumper answer on your main question (*crickets*), but actually subpoenaing Hunter or Joe Biden would be like the dog who finally catches the car. Gives Democrats a platform to rage about the injustice. Meanwhile, Hunter pleads the 5th and Joe gets a bunch of air time to explain what the Ukraine situation and policy was and what it should be. Unless they have some actual evidence of actual corruption they can throw in the Bidens' faces (which I seriously doubt), I think having them testify would be better for Democrats than for Trump. It is only a talking point because they think it can be a deterrent to calling other, relevant witnesses. Same with the whistleblower. For this reason, even though it would be immoral and an injustice to the Bidens and the whistleblower and would make the Senate trial more of a sham than ever, they should call the bluff and agree to a witness trade. Then watch the Republicans backpedal.
I think one of the biggest pieces of evidence for Trump's motive to find dirt on Biden and whether it was a sincere attempt at finding justice on behalf of the American people or merely to sell a political narrative to the American electorate is what channels Trump used to try to extort Ukraine. If the Trump inner circle thought there was genuine evidence for illegal actions by Hunter and Joe, they wouldn't have sent a TV pundit in Rudy who has no affiliation with the federal government to Ukraine to dig dirt. If they genuinely wanted justice they would have utilized the US Ukraine mutual assistance treaty for criminal investigations and would have the DOJ and FBI cooperate with Ukrainian investigators and obtain proper warrents from judges. The fact they didn't believe that route would have been successful tells me they don't genuinely believe there was a "there there" with Hunter and Joe and don't care because they aren't trying to find justice but rather they just want to sell a political narrative for personal gain. Because of this, I think Rudy is a more relevant witness than Bolton even though I don't think Rudy is a credible witness because of his sporadic loony behavior. He probably is very willing to commit perjury for Trump.
Oh, fully agree. Ultimately, its all about keeping that someone with the "R" in the white house. And come November, the very same people will be voting again to elect trump as president. But I also think it is important to keep calling it out.
That one is still too short. Here's the full video of Dershowitz's answer and Schiff's response: I think people will see that the editing takes some of the nuance out of Dershowitz's argument, but he returns to what's been quoted at the end of his answer as the summation of his argument -- that (1) you cannot convict on a mixed motive (I think that's wrong), and (2) seeking your own re-election is a mixed and not a corrupt motive (also wrong). I don't think he's being grievously mischaracterized and he sounds just as wrong in long form as short form (though some people may get lost in the volume of words).
You could argue though that at this point, it's sadly, better for the Republican senate to call witnesses say "meh, we don't believe you!" and vote to acquit. Obviously, that is ridiculous on its face, given that the facts are indisputable and are subject to mountains of corroboration. If this were an acutal trial, you could move for summary judgment now and win with a bench ruling. But, by aiding and abetting in the cover-up by helping to fix the procedure on the president's behalf, it's even worse from an institutional perspective, especially if they adopt the absurd reasoning of the President's counsel - basically the President can illegally try to rig an election without being punished, because that's within the scope of Executive Power. That seems way worse to me intuitiviely, than saying that lying in a civil suit deposition unrelated to official duties isn't impeachable, though if you want to argue they both should be that's a pretty fair argument with which I might agree at this point. You knew they couldn't get to 2/3rd, but if you have a majority, even a bare one, acting as accomplices to rig the game, that is a death knell.
What is Mitch doing to keep them uninformed? He is just rearranging the headlines a little, but in the end it is the uninformed and uninterested population (unpatriotic if I was to use a stronger term) that is to blame. It is our fault for keeping politics on this board and out of our everyday conversations (I just base it on how many people I know who hate talking politics - 95%)
Agreed. There is a bit of irony in dershowitz claiming he is being misquoted, or having his words miss-characterized in light of his own history of doing so (let alone his client's history). Including his citing his Harvard colleague (above post). It would be interesting to see someone test his mixed motive defense... say, the president has someone killed in order to win the next election, with the mixed motive that he thought the other candidate was a terrorist supporter.
The whole argument falls apart because of the way he tried to investigate Bidens "coruption" IMO. I see you mentioned that never mind.
I have been thinking this way also, what could they actually get from the Bidens? You know they actually don't have anything because if they did they would have investigations ongoing.
