As the House Judiciary Committee has approved both articles of impeachment ahead of next week's full floor vote, as I noted this morning in StupidiNews, Mitch McConnell is now openly saying the "Senate trial" will be coordinated with White House lawyers, the equivalent of a jury foreman saying he's openly working with the defense team. There should be open outrage from Democrats at this point, and there's nothing. Greg Sargent:
Many have sharply criticized McConnell for telegraphing that the trial will be gamed in advance to assure Trump’s acquittal and to make it as politically painless as possible.
That’s true, but it’s worse than this. Note that Hannity treated this not just as utterly unremarkable, but as how things ought to be.
It’s not. As Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz write, the framers designated the Senate for impeachment trials to create an “extraordinary court” composed of “the nation’s leading statesmen,” one up to the gravity of weighing “great offenses against the people.” The Senate would not be prone to factional pressure (senators have six-year terms) and would be independent of the president.
But you cannot watch this McConnell interview without coming away convinced that he is trying to reassure the faction known as Trump and GOP voters that the Senate trial will be conducted in full accordance with Trump’s wishes and needs.
“I’m going to take my cues from the president’s lawyers,” McConnell said. “I’m going to coordinate with the president’s lawyers.” And: “There’s no chance the president will be removed from office.”
It has been reported that McConnell wants a quick, un-circus-like trial, whereas Trump wants it to be weaponized against potential 2020 opponent Joe Biden. Here McConnell is plainly trying to put the Fox News audience at ease: The GOP Senate’s interests are 100 percent joined with Trump’s.
We knew this was going to happen, because McConnell is just as corrupt as Trump is, maybe even more so.
The important point here, however, is that this nonsense is necessary to reverse-justify McConnell’s naked corruption of the process. In the disinformation bubble that is Hannity’s show, millions of Trump and GOP voters are now reassured that McConnell will shape the trial entirely in sync with Trump’s political needs, and that Democrats have rendered it the correct and justified thing to do.
This interview belongs in a time capsule. It will benefit future generations who study the impeachment and all-but-certain acquittal of Trump, and the degree to which Trump’s defenders corrupted our discourse and political system to make that outcome possible.
It's depressing as hell, and completely true. There's no effort to hide the corruption anymore. It's being done out in the open, and America no longer cares. Trump made that clear at the White House today:
"I'll do whatever I want" with the Senate #impeachment trial, says @POTUS. "I'll do long or short."— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) December 13, 2019
"I'll do whatever I want" has absolutely been the motto of Donald Trump.
Nobody will stop him on his way to autocracy. And nothing makes me think there will be any outcome in November 2020 that will be free or fair as a result.
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