Yesterday I presented a case for why Trump should absolutely raise the issue of election fraud at any Senate show trial--if there is one, rather than the Senate doing the right thing and tossing the whole thing. I say "a case" because there are a number of arguments that can be advanced in this regard. Basically, my argument was along the lines that because Trump has--rightly--never conceded, he should continue on the high ground by making his argument to the nation that a Big Steal went down--not, properly speaking, an election. I argued that Trump has everything to gain--including continued credibility for the future--and absolutely nothing to lose.
In the same blog I also presented Matt Braynard's claim that he is confident that he can show that vote fraud in the very traditional sense flipped the election in a minimum of three states (his research continues): AZ, GA, and WI. That would mean that Trump won the presidential contest. Continuing developments in the news, for those who have been following it, certainly supports Braynard. Local officials continue, to the best of their ability, to defy efforts to inject transparency in all three states. Since Trump's claims of fraud are raised in the Dem House charade, Trump should, as I argue, force the issue and force the Senate to address it or to deny him his right to a full hearing. Heads Trump wins, tails the Establishment loses.
Today at The Federalist David Marcus argues for Trump to take the same approach--to argue election fraud:
Why Trump Should Press His Case On Voter Fraud
Donald Trump can win his Senate trial on the merits, not just a technicality, and he should.
Marcus addresses all three counts. He's apparently not a lawyer, so he simply maintains that the constitutional issue on impeachment is 50-50 and, thus, "provides an easy out for Republican senators." That's true, but for any objective legal observer those who maintain that impeachment and a trial with penalties attached to it (banning from public office) by the Senate alone (CJ Roberts has refused to be a party to the travesty) is unconstitutional have very much the better of the argument.
As regards "incitement", Marcus goes through a brief survey of the emerging evidence that the events of January 6 at the Capitol were not actually connected to Trump's speech, and he adds:
The Senate can define [incitement] anyway they want, but they still need a standard by which to do so, and more importantly they will setting that standard in an official capacity.
If Trump’s speech was incitement to riot, then what is the limiting principle? Was Rep. Maxine Waters inciting people when she told them to get into Trump officials’ faces in 2018, all while she was pushing the big lie of Russian collusion?
That's also all true, but Trump has a far more telling argument to make regarding incitement--one which hits much closer to home for the Senate. Thomas Lifson covers that:
Chuck Schumer incited violence, threatened SCOTUS justices on steps of Supreme Court only 11 months ago
Lifson quotes Mollie Hemingway's account of Schumer's disgraceful conduct:
“I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions,” Schumer threatened the two most recently confirmed justices, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
The threat was so alarming that even leftist activists such as Laurence Tribe condemned it. Schumer received a rare, same-day rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts, who said, “Justices know that criticism comes with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous.”
Then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell condemned Schumer’s remarks as “astonishingly reckless and completely irresponsible.”
as well as Mark Levin's vivid description of the scene:
“[I] want to talk quickly about Chuck Schumer — you mentioned it,” Levin said. “He threatened two U.S. Supreme Court justices. He threatened the Supreme Court. He assembled a mob on the stairs of a Supreme Court that tried to break into the Supreme Court, but for that 13-foot bronze door there. And he warns those justices that they are, in fact, in for hell if they don’t vote the way he wants. He threatened the Supreme Court.
Trump is the clear winner, again, by arguing both lack of actual incitement as well as an egregious double standard.
Finally Marcus gets to the fraud issue. He begins with what we've all been discussing here--the full court press by the Left to coerce Republicans to endorse the Big Steal. Unfortunately, he soft peddles the actual evidence (I've edited that out):
Republican officials have been pressured since the riots to say that there was no widespread voter fraud. The idea seems to be that if they refuse they are also complicit. It’s absurd, of course, as this past election was one of the sloppiest in recent memory. That happens when you change the rules on the fly.
There are plenty of important irregularities in the election that really do need investigation. That is why Sen. Josh Hawley and Sen. Ted Cruz launched a symbolic effort to refuse certification in order to shine a spotlight on these irregularities. ...
Too many Republicans are being shamed now into not making a very important argument about election security. It would be the most Trump thing in the world to show up at the Senate and fight the fight they refuse to. And again, Trump’s bar would be low. We have been assured there was no fraud, no major problems in mail-in voting. Just a handful of examples would put the lie to that.
Trump seems poised to get a win when the votes are cast in his trial. The question is how big the win will be.
As we've seen, there are far more than just a handful of examples to be adduced. But Marcus' main point hits the mark. Trump seems poised to win. There's every reason for him to go for a big win and not allow any lawyers to talk him into a mere technical win. As I argued yesterday, that big win would have important political ramifications going forward regarding the illegitimacy of what went down in November--and of what is continuing.
Lindsay Graham is already saying no witnesses, so I doubt the Senate will allow Trump to present his case.
ReplyDeleteAnd Dominions lawsuits have had a chilling effect on media channels willing to speak on the voter fraud.
Not necessarily. If I recall, Graham was threatening the Dems that if they called witnesses, so would the Republicans. However, this is a Senate proceeding, not a trial in an actual court. Lack of witnesses does not mean that Trump's team can't make the arguments as part of their response. That's all they need to do. So Dem House makes its arguments, Trump team counter argues.
DeleteThanks for clarifying that, Mark. Our hipshots can ring around the internet. Lindsey’s threat was just as you say. The Dems can’t have it just their way - a brief “trial” where they hammer the President with a litany of prefabbed crimes in front of the world and then allow no opposing testimony so that they can get back to Biden’s dirtywork. Un-uh. Lindsey said “you drag out your bag of cats”, we get our turn, too. And let it take months and years….
DeleteIt appears that Trump hired a pair of experienced liberal lawyers who aren't afraid to fight. In that case, the longer this theater lasts the better for Trump and the Republicans.
DeleteTrump should show the repay of Schumer on the stairs of the Supreme Court
ReplyDeleteThe Democrats made a foolish mistake by writing gratuitously in their impeachment resolution that President Trump "repeatedly issued false statements asserting that the Presidential election results were the product of widespread fraud".
ReplyDeleteThat gratuitous accusation opened the door for Trump to argue that the election results indeed were the product of widespread fraud.
Trump certainly should make that argument to a huge, world-wide audience.
Totally agree, Mike. Perhaps they thought they could make their snap impeachment vehicle carry more weight than was possible--but it was a mistake.
DeleteAll it takes is one senator asking questions about election fraud to open up the discussion. Josh Hawley?
ReplyDeleteApparently the Democrats requested Trump to testify next week. Reports say his attorneys declined. But... things can change and probably will. It will be a very distracting week, fer sure.
ReplyDeleteThe Brandenburg test should be the standard of speech, but being that they don't even have Roberts involved in wondering if there is even a standard that could be applied in a political court that even mattered.
ReplyDeleteThe longer this drags out, the longer the Senate is prohibited from conducting any other business.
ReplyDeleteAnd I believe that's a very good thing.
DeleteOne can only hope that this goes on for months, the more the Democrats play this game the better. People were tired of this mess before, now they will hate it and the Democrats are going to have to defend their 'indictment'.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with all of the above discussion, but I would like to raise a couple of tangential points about the ongoing narrative. We need to hear about, and discover more accurate information about other issues surrounding the 'insurrection'. Some facts should be available already, but I believe are being held back for political reasons. Pelosi is in charge of the Capital police. There is almost no accurate information surrounding their role and/or the ROI's they were operating under that day. There is also almost no salient information about what/whether those rules were being followed or ignored. We need to know the rules before we get to accountability, and that is hard to do without facts. Let's start with the lack of any real information about the death of the Capital police officer. The story about him being killed by blunt force trauma is in dispute. What was the cause of death? Was he or was he not beaten by someone wielding a fire extinguisher? Also unknown - what were the rules of engagement for the LEO's on duty that day? For the last year, almost every LEO force in the country (and in DC) was basically told to stand down and allow 'protesters and 'rioters' and 'looter's to have the run of things. Some of the Capital LEO force, on the 6th, were holding the doors open and waving people/protesters in for them to 'storm' the Capital. Were these actually cops from a suburban mall somewhere? No, of course not. At least one officer fired his weapon. Let's see - hold the doors open or shoot someone? That's two very big extremes surrounding what we saw happening. I am not questioning the shooting - yet - because I assume there is always a shoot to kill option. I am questioning what the ROI's are that predicate that option. Were they followed? Why don't we have any information about the ROI for that day? We need more facts. Can this be brought up in the impeachment? Were bombs planted the night before or not? So many questions about why this escalated and why there seemed to be no plan to mitigate or stop it completely. I am assuming that most of the facts about all this will not be revealed until AFTER the Democratic Senators have had a chance to peel the skin off Trumps bones. The left (looking at you, AOC) has been making political hay out of all this, and yet we still have almost no real factual reporting on what happened that day.
ReplyDeleteTotally OT, but I'd just like to put a marker down.
ReplyDeleteI have often wondered here, "Why?"
Why did the Conspirators do what they did? Mrs Clinton's email? The Russia Hoax? The Flynn Entrapment? The Mueller Investigation? The Fake Impeachment? The Covid Scare? The Big Steal? The Phony Insurrection? The Non-Impeachment Impeachment?
I know many here believe it is all about Trump Derangement Syndrome and incipient Marxism taking over our country. Many predict that latter day Lenins and Stalins will be piling us into Gulags before too long. Maybe so.
But I'd like to posit that this is all about power and greed. The Elites have gotten fabulously rich stealing from the Middle Classes over the last several decades and its a self-fulfilling prophecy of money and power motivating decisions made at the highest levels.
Political ideology...and Trump... is just an excuse.
I'm sure I'll have more to say in a more thought out way in the future.
Read my new post. But it doesn't have to be either/or. It's entirely possible to be consumed with hunger for power and wealth as well as the desire to crush your ideological and lifestyle opponents--the bourgeoisie. Soros is the perfect example, but he has plenty of imitators.
Delete