Inevitability.
Consider this an exercise in box-checking and not much more. This has the exact same chance of succeeding as the trial itself. Donald Trump’s attorneys laid out the multiple arguments for the unconstitutionality of tomorrow’s impeachment trial and demand a dismissal motion up front. After that, we’ll have a first-class trial anyway! Attorneys for former President Donald Trump on Monday argued in a new brief that the Senate should quickly dismiss the impeachment article filed against him when his trial begins this week. The 78-page document amounts to a more detailed version of the arguments presented in a filing last week from David Schoen and Bruce Castor, who are representing the former president in the Senate. The two argue that Trump’s post-presidency trial is unconstitutional, and that even if senators disagreed, Trump’s speech ahead of the Jan.6 riots at the Capitol was protected by the First Amendment and did not meet the threshold of an impeachable offense. Trump’s lawyers accused Democrats in the brief of attempting to “silence a political opponent and a minority party” through a “brazen political act,” arguing the second impeachment proceedings against the former president failed to give him due process. “The Article of Impeachment presented by the House is unconstitutional for a variety of reasons, any of which alone would be grounds for immediate dismissal,” the attorneys wrote. “Taken together, they demonstrate conclusively that indulging House Democrats hunger for this political theater is a danger to our Republic democracy and the rights that we hold dear.” That last sentence and its lack of punctuation created some pedantic criticism of the defense team. At least they spelled everything correctly this time: This is the opposite of the Oxford Comma. Ed Morrissey (@EdMorrissey) February 8, 2021 Comma faults aside, this eclipses the initial 14-page response to the impeachment. The Washington Post reports that Trump’s team will argue that Democrats are attempting to criminalize political speech in the impeachment, as well as insist that the Constitution does not grant the Senate any authority to try a private citizen. Their main thrust, however, is political: The 78-page filing is the most complete legal defense of Trump’s conduct to date, and it relies heavily on a challenge to the constitutionality of impeaching a former president, as well as a First Amendment defense of Trump’s rhetoric leading up to the riot — which sought to disrupt the final congressional certification of Trump’s loss. But, mindful that they need only convince 34 Republican senators to secure an acquittal, Trump’s lawyers also cast their defense in a political light — calling the rapid impeachment effort the culmination of a long Democratic campaign to marginalize Trump. “The Senate must summarily reject this brazen political act,” Trump attorneys Bruce L. Castor Jr., David Schoen, and Michael T. van der Veen wrote, calling the lone impeachment article “unconstitutional for a variety of reasons, any of which alone would be grounds for immediate dismissal.
