Can some legal beagle dumb this down a little? Asking for a friend.
Summary:
I am not President any more.
So, NANA-NANA-BOO-BOO..................
He's not president and the Senate has no authority.
Since the House presented one article with multiple charges it is unconstitutional and was constructed with the explicit purpose to get a 2/3 vote by the senate as each senator could vote yes in some part of the article.
They handed up the impeachment article after he left office so it is invalid
Chief justice is not presiding so this is DOA and Trump is a private citizen - Senate has no jursidiction.
Also, in impeaching an private citizen that holds no office the Congress in effect has created a special class of citizen and denied Trump his first amendment rights.
He’s not president and you’re harassing a private citizen which the senate cannot do the case is pretty much open and shut
Not a legal beagle but I do believe the shortened legalese for this is “Go Piss Up A Rope.”
case dismissed!
There's a little more to it than the other commenters pointed out. Yes, the main thrust is that the Senate lacks jurisdiction, but there are some other important points:
-- Trump denies that he committed any crime.
-- The speech for which Trump was impeached is protected by the 1st Amendment.
-- Conviction would constitute an unconstitutional bill of attainder.
-- As further support for the position that the trial is unconstitutional, they make an argument I haven't seen much: Removal from office is the "prerequisite active remedy," and thus the proceeding is essentially moot. They're basically arguing that the Constitution does not provide for disqualification from office uncoupled from removal from office. It's a clever argument and might be a persuasive one.
-- Finally, and this may be the best point of all: They point out that the House has essentially charged multiple counts in a single article of impeachment. Under Senate rules, an article of impeachment is indivisible and must be voted on in their entirety--you can't vote "guilty" on one part of an article and "not guilty" on another. Trump's lawyers make the correct constitutional objection that this article violates the Constitution's requirement that conviction be by two-thirds vote because it would render any verdict fatally ambiguous. It would be impossible to tell whether two-thirds voted to convict on the same count.
For example: The article basically alleges that Trump committed a crime by saying A and also committed a crime by saying B. It's possible Senators 1 through 33 think Trump is guilty because he said A but not because he said B, while Senators 34 through 67 think Trump is guilty because he said B but not A. If they can vote "guilty" if they believe Trump committed ANY crime made out in the article, then Trump could be convicted even though no 67 Senators agree on whether he committed any particular crime.
That last objection sets up a great closing argument: If you do not believe the managers have proven that Trump is guilty of ALL counts made out in the article of impeachment, you MUST vote "not guilty."
This is great because the name of the game is to give Senators political cover to vote "not guilty."