[43westji]

Trump should defend himself on the senate floor with side council to keep him on the rails. Democrats and CNN heads would explode 🤯. Serve up the popcorn Mr. President😋

[nathanbedford]

The gravamen of the charge is incitement to insurrection. If the evidence adduced in support of that charge is limited to the president's speech on January 6, no conviction could be supported on the facts. That is the problem the Democrats face. That would be revealed on television in the Senate hearing.

Therefore, the evidence will not be limited to the president's speech but every utterance he ever made and every act he ever undertook in office will be adduced in support of that proposition. Most important, the assumption will be made that the mere questioning of the count of the election is in itself incitement to riot or somehow a crime against the Constitution.

Further, the incident will be attributed to white supremacy which of course is the most toxic charge, even if not one of the bill of particulars.

The the president's defense obviously will be to point out the moderation of his speech especially the phrase when he exhorted the crowd to " protest peacefully and patriotically."

Before they get to that there will be motion practice, the president's team will move to dismiss because the president is already out of office. If that does not carry the president's team will move to limit the charge to traditional incitement to riot, not opposition to the count.

If the motions fail, it is in the president's interest to have an extended trial to demonstrate that it has been the tradition in America to question the count and to do that by quoting, preferably by video, leading Democrats who have already done that in previous elections.

Finally, it is in the president's interest to have an extenuating trial to raise as an affirmative defense all of the dubious efforts by the Democrats to impeach him and to prevent him from taking office since 2016, to point out that there were plans by leftists to riot etc.

A short trial works to the advantage of the Democrats and Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump needs a full hearing to get on the attack. This is after all not an actual impeachment but a Soviet style sham trial rigged for the cameras.

Mitch McConnell will collude with the Democrats to foreshorten the trial, deny actual witness testimony, and require the entire matter to be argued in theory rather than proved in fact. All of these restrictions operate against Donald Trump.

With advocates like Mitch McConnell who needs prosecutors?