Day Two of the impeachment trial begins shortly. If you had better things to do than watch the circus until 2 a.m., here’s what’s happened so far:
1. Day One was all about the process.
The process is the “how” of a trial, not the “what.” During President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial, there was unanimous agreement on the rules of procedure because there was actually substance to consider. Clinton was charged with multiple felonies, and there was evidence to support those charges. Here, the House Democrat prosecutors have no substance, no crime, and no “what” to consider.
So the House managers wasted time arguing over process items to manufacture substance and use the debate time to grandstand. Ultimately, they were unsuccessful, with 11 attempted amendments all failing along party-line votes.
2. Chuck Schumer and Adam Schiff made dangerous arguments.
Because they have no substance, Democrats are so desperate that they are showing their true colors and making unconstitutional arguments. They’re actually arguing that the president should be considered guilty of a “cover-up” simply for asserting his constitutionally protected rights.
On the Senate floor, the Democrats, the party of open borders and due process for terrorists and illegal aliens, actually argued that literally every person on the planet is entitled to due process except President Trump.
Every single citizen in this country, including the president, has rights that our government is obligated to preserve and protect. Our country was founded on the premise that rights are inalienable, God-given, and it’s no coincidence that our Bill of Rights enumerates protections against government railroading prosecutions. This sham trial is showing precisely what our founders were protecting against. Be assured, if the Democrats are willing to take away the rights of the president, they don’t care about your or my rights.
3. Trump’s trial team was aggressive and effective.
While Schumer and Schiff were grandstanding, Jay Sekulow and Pat Cipollone were lawyers. While everyone recognizes that this is a show trial and the Democrats care more about the court of public opinion, this is still actually a matter of law more than optics.
While the Democrats have absolutely nothing of legal merit in their articles of impeachment and can’t do anything except grandstand, Trump’s legal team was persuasively arguing the Constitution. Cipollone said: “Now let me tell you something. If I showed up in any court in this country, and I said, ‘Judge, my case is overwhelming, but I’m not ready to go yet. I need more evidence before I can make my case.’ I would get thrown out in two seconds. And that’s exactly what should happen here.”
The legal arguments matter because laws still rule our country. The Democrats are not above the law in their prosecution attempts, nor should any prosecutor in any context. That’s exactly why we have a Bill of Rights.
4. Chief Justice John Roberts isn’t having any of the circus.
Close to midnight, Roberts finally asserted himself beyond the administrative role of presiding over the trial. In obvious annoyance with how much time was being wasted over the petty process arguments, he called for civility on the Senate floor and referenced a 1905 impeachment trial of a Florida judge. In that trial, one senator was offended at the use of word “pettifogging” (which means “worrying too much about details that are minor or unimportant”).
It was an epic smackdown. Clearly, the Democrats are pettifogging. When will they learn their lesson?
As Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale highlighted in an interview with Fox News, the Democrats “went too far with this impeachment thing. They don’t have anything to run on.” Parscale added: “On top of that, since they started this, in every metric we track the president’s success of getting reelected, he’s gone up. He’s bringing independents who see this as a hoax.”
And that’s what mattered on Day One of the Senate impeachment trial. Now it’s time to settle in for Day Two.
Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) is a constitutional law attorney, the senior legal adviser for the Trump 2020 campaign, and a fellow with the Falkirk Center for Faith & Liberty. She is the author of The Legal Basis for a Moral Constitution.
