Former President Donald Trump better be thanking his lucky stars that Sen. Rand Paul got 45 Republican senators to vote that his second impeachment trial is unconstitutional on procedural grounds. Based on the opening day of the trial, it’s clear Trump’s legal team has zero strategy on the merits.
Even the most sycophantic of Trump allies in Congress have avoided defending the former president on the merits, but one would assume that those representing Trump himself would at least try to do so. Instead, his lead attorney Bruce Castor launched a meandering soliloquy that can best be described as a filibuster with the sole intent of running out the clock.
Unlike the clown-show impeachment process conducted last year by Reps. Adam Schiff of California and Jerry Nadler of New York, House Democrats this time deployed the impressive Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, David Cicilline of Rhode Island, and Joe Neguse of Colorado to make a legally measured case backing both the merits and the constitutionality of a Senate convicting a president who is out of office. The impeachment managers kicked off their opening plea with a visceral video illustrating how the Capitol rioters responded to Trump’s words in real-time, followed by dozens of arguments from the Founding Fathers and legal scholars backing the trial’s legitimacy. Partisan theater, this was not.
So, when Castor kicked off Trump’s defense by referring to himself as the “lead prosecutor” and then chuckling nervously at his mistake, we knew we were in for a wild ride.
Although Trump’s conduct likely did not clear the bar for the criminal definition of inciting an insurrection, what the article of impeachment charges him with, that virtually no Republican has tried to make the case that he did not incite the Capitol storming means that the GOP (and likely Trumpworld) understand the obvious. Namely, that every reasonable person understands that there was only one logical conclusion to Trump spending two months lying that the election was rigged and then directing an armed mob that he invited to Washington to go to Congress and “stop the steal.”
So it’s utterly baffling that rather than spend every iota of this trial arguing that the Constitution bars the Senate from convicting a private citizen in an impeachment trial, Castor spent the bulk of his time awkwardly swearing he loves his senator and riffing that this impeachment is too partisan. Then, contradicting his own logic, the lawyer argued that there’s no reason to disqualify from office a person who claimed the election was illegitimate because the election that removed him from office was legitimate.
“This trial is about trading liberty for the security from the mob?” Castor said, in the tone of a question. “Honestly, no. It can’t be. We can’t be thinking about that. We can’t possibly be suggesting that we punish people for political speech in this country.”
Yep, lambasting former Vice President Mike Pence while an armed mob stormed the Capitol to execute him is just “political speech.” Refusing to deploy the National Guard to stop them is just “political speech.” Or something.
One only imagines what Trump would be tweeting today.
