Trump’s ‘Ridiculous’ Impeachment Defense Could Crumble
Republicans couldn’t have created a more twisted trial of the president if they’d named Kafka to the defense team.
What a bind they’ve put Democrats in. To fight back against White House lawyers’ main objection to the House’s articles of impeachment—that the officials in the room where the impeachable acts happened did not testify—Democrats have to plead for those witnesses to testify now. And that gives Donald Trump’s political defense a favorite talking point: If Democrats have such a strong case (which in fact they do), than why are they spending the first two days of the trial begging for more evidence?
Easy. While Republicans insist that there’s no case without witnesses and that it’s too late to call them, they neglect to mention that it’s Republicans who demanded and got witnesses in Clinton’s impeachment, including the president himself. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who’s ripping into Democrats now for supposedly creating a “complete circus” by demanding witnesses, was a House impeachment manager then.