Trump's impeachment defense team leaves less than two weeks before trial

CNN ^ | 1/31/21 | Gloria Borger

[jstolzen]

(CNN) Former President Donald Trump's five impeachment defense attorneys have left a little more than a week before his trial is set to begin, according to people familiar with the case, amid a disagreement over his legal strategy.

It was a dramatic development in the second impeachment trial for Trump, who has struggled to find lawyers willing to take his case. And now, with legal briefs due next week and a trial set to begin only days later, Trump is clinging to his election fraud charade and suddenly finds himself without legal representation.

..more at link

[devane617]

Good grief...Trump is his own worse enemy!!! Unless he gets past this impeachment mess there is no future for Trump, no 2024.

[Dr. Franklin]

He was charged in the impeachment of "Incitement of Insurrection". The case at hand is whether or not he did that. Arguing election fraud is: A. Admitting he incited insurrection as a result of his being cheated. -or- B. Not pertinent to the fact that he didn't incite insurrection. Any good lawyer on the other side would argue that it has no relevance to the case, and the biased judge would throw it out as inadmissible. John Roberts himself recused from this, knowing that it was unconstitutional and a circus. Trump and his team should do the same. As I mentioned, his presence only gives the charade credence and will not change a single vote for or against.

Start with:
1) This is a political show,
2) They don't have the votes to convict him, and
3) Even if they did, SCOTUS would declare it invalid since Trump is not recognized as being POTUS.

Since this is all theater, Trump can turn it all into entertainment. He can hire L. Lin Wood as his attorney, and Wood can stand in the well of the U.S. Senate and say that CJ Roberts won't come because he is a pedophile, and they should be impeaching him instead. Wood can talk about all of the election fraud, and make the Dems keep objecting. The Senate can't find anyone to be in contempt of court. That would be a bill of attainder. The worst thing that could happen is that they throw him out of the Senate. Trump would love the headlines. Enjoy the show.

[RummyChick]

I didnt say YOU said it. I said Trump likely wants to make it the focus.

Thus , he cant keep lawyers who dont want to make it the focus.

IMO, it’s a mistake and it will cost him Senate votes.

[jersey117]

Show up himself as his own witness and call them all out on live tv

[RummyChick]

he may want to blow it all up..similar to the current GME fiasco....which is going to hurt more than just a few wall street fat cats if it doesn’t resolve soon.

401ks are going to take a hit

and it has to potential to be a 2008 scenario.

add in Biden completely mishandling everything...

2021 may be worse than 2020

[EODGUY]

Paraphrasing here.....’the truth is still the truth even if no one believes it.....and a lie is still a lie even if everyone believes it’. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

cnn is nothing more than a pandering blog.

[NELSON111]

Hiring Omerosa and all those others was the correct instincts? Gotcha.

[vivenne]

I agree with all you have written. It’s unconstitutional and Trump’s legal team should be in court trying to get an injunction to stop the impeachment until the constitutionality has been decided. If Trump finds lawyers who do not go for dismissal and attempt to make this about voter fraud, a number of Republicans who voted that it was unconstitutional last week will change their votes. I think Trump has been listening to Steve Bannon, who is not a lawyer to my knowledge, speaking everyday that Trump needs to bring the election fraud receipts to the trial (and not go the dismissal route). IMHO, this would be a grave mistake. The Dems in charge are NOT going to let Trump bring up the election fraud in any detail. Trump needs this dismissed quickly and prove the voter fraud in a book. Losing his entire legal team (and Turley, Dershowitz, Starr do not want to be involved—Trump has very limited options and the trial is 1 week away). This is not good and the Dems are probably salivating.

[vivenne]

Do you believe that Chuck Schumer (and some Republicans) will give him that platform?

[vivenne]

Do you believe that Chuck Schumer (and some Republicans) will give him that platform?

[southernerwithanattitude]

I really wish we had a Ignore button!!

[DouglasKC]

The democrats and the republicans have ONE goal in this scam: make trump or his lawyers admit there was no election fraud. They will not be satisfied with any other outcome.

[CodeToad]

I don’t think it takes two weeks to prepare to say, “Sorry, you bunch of morons, but Donald Trump is no longer the President and you cannot impeach a private citizen. Please read the United States Constitution before making further jackasses of yourselves.”

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

WHAT TRIAL???

They have NO legal or constitutional basis for this! DON'T SHOW UP! This is NOT a trial, it is a Nancy Pelosi circus

[Georgia Girl 2]

Hard to stop it. IMO.

[McGruff]

Amazing how many fall for these fake news stories. Or should I say depressing.

[wiseprince]

Revisionist BS. Trump couldn’t have a meeting the Russian President without both sides of Congress threatening to get translators to testify. The Senate is a joke of an institution and can’t be stormed fast enough.

[YouGoTexasGirl]

I am ‘hearing’ that we will hear from God on this and many other events!!! David vs. Goliath. The Red Sea parting just in time. Maybe not a lawyer needed, just millions of prayers and intervention from the heavenly hosts fighting evil in DC....

Let’s get praying. Let’s have FAITH!!!! God’s plan is so far above any man’s plan that we’re going to have a knee praising celebration with truth like we never have seen!!! Plus, our friends praying around the world will rejoice with our victory!!!!!!!

[sphinx]

Trump's statements to the rally on Jan. 6 were standard political boilerplate. He did not "incite insurrection." If generalized statements about fighting to the end, never giving up and how the cause will continue, then every democrat who gave a red meat speech to a BLM/Antifa rally over the past year is guilty of "inciting insurrection." Trump's lawyers should simply compile a list of comparable democrat statements, and they should go further back than the George Floyd insurrection, which the democrat party has been very deliberately egging on. One has to draw a line somewhere, but I would go back at least to the storming of the Wisconsin state legislature by the unions attempting to block a Right to Work vote. That was riot and insurrection, celebrated by many prominent democrats. Trump's lawyers should simply present a comprehensive list. This would probably not shift a single vote in the Senate, but it is an historical marker that MUST be planted.

If Trump's team is too incompetent to do this -- and that's a likely prospect -- some conservative organization that has interns and Lexis-Nexis should take it on. Done right, it would be a considerable body of work.

[jstolzen]

Being reported by multiple news sources.

Our wishing it to be fake news doesn’t make it so..

And to those who say “who cares?”..WE should care. Because if he doesn’t mount a decent defense and things do turn against him (even though it’s not even remotely justifiable), it could mean him not being able to run in 2024. And since he’s probably the only candidate that we have that people can and will get excited about, we better start caring.

All that said, I agree the entire thing is a total farce and that he did nothing wrong. But that doesn’t change the “kangaroo court” nature of this whole farce, and if they convict OR censure him under some twisted contortion of the 14th Amendment, we’d be looking at having..pretty much no-one..to run in 2024 that isn’t more of the same Uniparty McCain/Romney/etc mold..(Nikki, anyone? That’s who they’re already starting to push, God help us..)