ON WITH THE TRIAL

by John P. Flannery

ON WITH THE TRIAL. You can’t win the argument you don’t make — in this case, that the Rs are hopelessly entangled in a corrupt Administration and seeking to preserve it in all its dangerous, lawless and unconstitutional faults.

That’s among the reasons why Rep. Smith is right — a top lieutenant of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), urging her to go ahead and transmit the articles of impeachment against President Trump to the Senate and allow a trial to begin.

Send the best managers who will fight, not some form of geographically balanced window dressing, and make the arguments that Trump has abused his power and obstructed congress and that McConnell wants a railroad not a trial.

You have to be there in the well of the Senate chamber, fighting for justice, to prove it’s a railroad and that the Republican caucus has lost its way.

It was a 60s lefty who said in the halls of justice, the justice is in the halls.

We have to bring justice to the other side of the Capitol, carry the articles across to the other side, present them in the Senate, and anything else has gotten old, esp. remaining mute in some impossible standoff. The delay has served its purpose. Time to turn the page.

We need to think more as a criminal defense counsel would, confronting a biased tribunal.

In other words, this is a time to improvise, to fight for the case, to push every piece of evidence into the public record, to explain on a daily basis every way possible what is going on, and thus to shine a light on what McConnell is really about, avoiding the question, allied with Trump’s lawless acts, and obstructing efforts to get at the truth, and to meet out a constitutional obligation the Senators are sworn to uphold, while the Republican Caucus does everything possible to avoid its core responsibility.

JPF