I am not impressed with the first phase of the impeachment hearing. It doesn't seem that the needle is going to be moved in either direction. But the Democrats seem to be repetitive and unconvincing and seem to have a weak case on both Articles of Impeachment. My bias here is clear - but I have tried to listen to many of the hours of Democrats for the prosecution. Tomorrow we will start to hear the Republicans for the defense. I am looking forward to it.
The attorneys for the President have a plan to defend President Trump. I hear that they plan to spend time on Joe Biden and Hunter Biden. I hope this is not the case. We have a defense to the Articles of Impeachment and I think time spent on the Bidens may be counter-productive. No evidence is in the record about the Bidens and I believe the President will not be served by attacking the Bidens despite the fact that I believe that the Biden crime family is on a par with the Clintons. One of the fallacies of this Impeachment proceeding is that the House did not give the President the opportunity to call any witness or to confront his accusers according to due process. So the defenders of the President will have to attack the Articles of Impeachment without a record of evidence to point to. But the President has specific powers to set foreign policy and his investigation of Ukraine is consistent with his Constitutional and Statutory authority in this area as to Article One. Article Two is an overreach by the Democrats. They had the opportunity to challenge President Trump's use of his right to invoke Executive Privilege in the court system as we agree that his power in the use of Executive Privilege is not absolute. The Constitution is designed to limit the power of the Federal Government. The President's powers are not unlimited - neither is the authority of the House to Impeach. It is interesting that 21 State Attorneys General have petitioned the Senate to dismiss these Articles in the form of an Amicus brief (a Friend of the Senate, as it were). If I am able to obtain a copy of that document, I will make it available to my readers.
The democrats have to make significant assumptions about Donald Trump's state of mind in order to prove their case but they certainly do not hesitate to verbalize them at every opportunity. That is not the way we do things in this country or in our court systems. Even the President is presumed to be innocent and to convict him without facts or evidence of his intent is not the American way and will not carry the day in this hearing.
You have heard three days of the case against President Trump. You will now hear - for the first time - his defense from Saturday to Tuesday.
I offered a letter from the President to Speaker Pelosi which covered many of the points of the President's defense. It appeared in my last blog post as an update but many of those who may have read that article may not have seen the update. So I will repeat it here. It is about six pages in length. Trump's letter to Pelosi in his defense and was written on December 17, 2019.
I tend to favor the image of the Central London Criminal Court (The Old Bailey) with a tip of my bowler hat to the English legal system from which we draw so much of our Common Law. But the system of government in Great Britain is not a version of our system. The Brits have a Parliamentary system where the Prime Minister is a creature of the House of Commons and is a member and may be removed from office as Prime Minister by a simple vote of no confidence in the House of Commons at any time. Our system of government is dramatically different with the legislative branch, judicial branch and the executive branch which are quite independent of the others. While we have checks and balances, clearly the framers and their founding documents meant for our President (the head of the executive branch) to be a more powerful figure. I hope the proceeding in the Senate and the democrat's unreasoning hatred for President Trump does not destroy the Presidency and our Constitution along with it.
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