“This is good advice, before he was getting bad advice.”
Wrong - this is terrible advice.
This is the last opportunity for President Trump to have a public platform to make the case on behalf of 75-80 million voters that the election was stolen - and they are advising him to shut up about it!
The ONLY reason that would make sense is if there was a risk that bringing up the fraud would piss off enough Senators that he could be convicted, and be prevented from ever holding public office again.
But we know there is zero risk of that happening for two reasons:
1) it is an ironclad case that that would be unconstitutional, and
2) even if it wasn’t ironclad, the Senate already voted 55 to 45 that it is unconstitutional... they are not going to reverse themselves
So he is not getting convicted of anything - and this “trial” is the last chance to make the case for election fraud.
My guess is that they are saying this to put them off guard, but they will make the case for election fraud once in there. I sure hope so
Winning isn’t an issue since the Senate already voted
I have the same view as to the importance of using the opportunity to put the facts before the Court of Public Opinion. The problem remains that the DemocRat Senate, with Leaky Leahy presiding, will not give the President the time to actually make that case and will use every stratagem, excuse, and ruse to limit whatever can be presented in the truncated time President Trump is allowed. There is a real danger that not being able to present the whole case adequately, with all the necessary supporting documentation, affidavits, statistical analyses, etc. will actually backfire. The Democrats will say: “you see, we gave Trump a chance to prove his crazy false story of election fraud and he failed which proves the whole thing was a lie, which in turn proves the impeachment charge that he stirred everyone up with lies.”
In short, the tight control over the proceedings makes it a trap for any case that needs ample time to fully present.
As frustrating as this may be, I harbor the hope that Trump can either: 1. force the issue of giving him enough time for his defense; 2. barring that, stand before the Senate and the world and say: “this trial is a farce and an insult to the American Rule of Law as I have been deprived of the most basic rights of a defendant” in effect casting any result into disrepute; or 3. Find another forum to get the message out. Maybe produce a film about it or maybe hold a series of giant rallies at stadiums with the whole presentation, maybe buy television time (if the scum will allow it) on major networks to make the case.