Posted on 02/14/2021 9:26:16 PM PST by MarvinStinson
The impeachment trial is hurtling toward a conclusion, after brief drama over potentially calling witnesses.
Former President Trump is almost certain to get acquitted, but it won’t be much of a vindication.
His conduct in the post-election period and on January 6 will blight his reputation forevermore. He waged a dishonest and poisonous campaign to overturn the election that culminated in a mob disrupting the counting of electoral votes at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
The new videos played by the House managers at the trial brought home again the national embarrassment of that day, with top elected officials scurrying for safety as the rabble descended.
’ The House managers were at their strongest describing Trump’s conspiracy-laden effort to reverse the election result, his long catalogue of inflammatory comments, and his dereliction of duty in failing to urge the rioters to cease and desist as early and forcefully as possible. All of this is damnable, inarguably so.
The weakness in their case stems from the defects of the article of impeachment itself, which both goes too far and not far enough.
At the core of the article is the contention that Trump incited the crowd to attack the Capitol, that he “willfully made statements that, in context, encouraged — and foreseeably resulted in — lawless action at the Capitol.” This suggests an element of intent that the managers couldn’t prove.
On the other hand, incredibly enough, the article doesn’t even mention Trump’s conduct during the riot, when he continued to criticize Mike Pence as he was being targeted by the mob, and that he went AWOL as allies begged him to tell the rioters to stand down. Trump’s defense team didn’t have good answers — or really any answers — when queried in the Q&A about what Trump was doing in these hours.
If House Democrats hadn’t rushed to impeach Trump in an afternoon, they might have written a more airtight article. As it is, a number of Republicans will conclude, reasonably enough, that Trump is still guilty. If he hadn’t falsely insisted that he’d really won the election in the most incendiary terms and promoted a protest on January 6, there would have been no rabble to run out of control in the first place.
On top of this, his pressure campaign to get Republican officials to throw the election to him in key states was intolerable in its own right.
We hope Republicans voting to acquit largely on process grounds — a post-presidency trial is unconstitutional, it’s time to move on, etc. — will at least speak forthrightly about the president’s misconduct.
This has been a quickie impeachment, running about a month from beginning to end. But the underlying events, and Trump’s unforgivably reckless behavior, will long reverberate.
THE EDITORS comprise the senior editorial staff of the National Review magazine and website.
They were Against Trump from the beginning.
That included Mr. Meghan McCain
I’ll never subscribe to the National Review.
Yellow-bellied sunshine patriots. I’ve no use for them.
‘
And Joe Biden raked in Billions..
Billions....
And they can only whine about Trump. Pathetic!
‘
Guess we shouldn’t hold our breath for the national fish wrap to write an article discussing how an amazing percent of never trumpers are pedos
What else would you expect from this mediocre stack of cat litter box liner?
How about NRO can FOAD.
I really don’t care what gas emanates from that anal orifice beneath their nose. I just don’t want to hear it or smell it.
Forget Jan. 6th and the Capitol. This staged breach of the Capitol was just the cover the democRATS needed to impeach Trump.
President Trump was impeached for trying to expose the theft of the election by Joe Biden and the democRATS. He was trying to prove they stole the election from him.
They needed to shut him up before their crimes were exposed.
Well, they won that battle and ran out the clock. Now they're in charge and whatever he says now can be chalked up to sour grapes and being a sore loser.
But this is not over by a long shot. Not only will the Left continue to pursue Trump via Section 3, of the 14th Amendment, but via criminal charges for himself and his family and his business practices going back for decades.
Trump is not done yet either. He believes in payback if he has been deliberately wronged. Revenge. Vengence. He will go after these people who stole his second term from him. They will rue the day they messed with Donald Trump.
A distinction without a difference.
Vindicate this punks!
Americans better WISE UP/
Key swamp demons were making fortunes when they allowed US companies in a number of industries including pharma, computer; and electrical as well metal fabrication components even bicycles relocate their factories in China . To the point where China was our sole supplier.
Shipped here by rats and rinos who owned the boats
The money the CCP has now comes from US .If we play our Chinese checkers right we can really turn things around for the better not only here but in China as well.Check out this recent posting in Free Republic.com which the MSM and social venues will spike; http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3890312/posts. will be stopped by Biden and hailed by Walmart http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3920123/posts
I wish WFB were still alive to kick some ass around that sorry degraded office — they used to have a clue a generation ago. Now they are just pretend conservatives, to call them the progressive wing of the Republican party would be to admit that the eagle has only one wing and the other one fell off.
NR was great all throughout the 1980s when WF Buckley was at the helm. I have saved all my copies.
NRO is now simply a fringe group of malcontents, outside the mainstream of political thinking. Ignore them!
Normally sane Fox Business had Fred Barnes on. He now has a new job, his third I believe since his magazine failed.
He is almost as bad as Nancy Pelosi in his vindictive blather.
As we know, Trump did nothing to Fred unlike Nancy Who he screwed every single day
I was actually referring to her husband Ben Domenech
notice how the Media-Dem Party has declared that the “election was fair and honest” ignoring all the illegalities like changing laws unlawfully, ballot drop-boxes, 6 states announcing at the same time that they were going to “stop counting” but by morning Trump’s lead had been erased by 3 am ballot dumps in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Georgia.
If they are so confident that there was no fraud, why haven’t they agreed to a complete audit and investigation into the 1200 sworn affidavits detailing fraud and irregularities?
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