Seriously? Trump's Morally Dubious Legal Team Calls Impeachment A "Perversion of the Constitution"

Two of the perverts' pals errr...lawyers, on Trump's trial team: Alan Dershowitz (left) and Ken Starr:

"If the Senate goes along with McConnell with a big whitewash then you will have a situation where  the Senate will have been on trial, and it may lose its Republican control in 2020."  -  Harvard Constitutional Law Prof. Lawrence Tribe, on All In, Friday .

"Amidst all of this who does Donald Trump pick to represent him at his impeachment trial?  Alan Dershowtiz and Kenneth Starr. These two famous attorneys who represented Jeffrey Epstein more than a decade ago and helped him get a sweetheart deal.  This was back when he was facing a federal indictment for sexually abusing underage girls back in 2007.  You remember the deal right? It was for only 13 months and he was regularly allowed to leave jail, to apparently return to his decades long abuse of girls and young women"-  Chris Hayes on 'All In', Friday night


Maureen Dowd, in her recent (Jan. 19) column best summed up the creeps that Dotard has chosen as the top lawyers to defend him, first turning to Ken Starr:

"The Starr chamber was a shameful period of American history, with the prissy Puritan independent counsel hounding and virtually jailing Monica Lewinsky and producing hundreds of pages of panting, bodice-ripping prose that read more like bad erotica than a federal report, rife with lurid passages about breasts, stains and genitalia.....Even Trump was appalled. “Starr’s a freak,” the bloviating builder told me back in 1999. “I bet he’s got something in his closet.” In other interviews, he called Starr “a lunatic,” “a disaster” and “off his rocker,”..

Starr, who once clutched his pearls over Bill Clinton’s sexual high jinks, is now going to bat for President “Access Hollywood.”

In 2007, he defended Jeffrey Epstein. By 2016, Starr was being ousted as president of Baptist Baylor University for failing to protect women and looking the other way when football players were accused and sometimes convicted of sexual assault"

It was the Starr Report, co-authored by the newly (SC)- installed right wing weasel  Brett Kavanaugh, which laid out the  spurious case for Clinton’s impeachment and removal from office, based on Monica Lewinsky's illegally- obtained taped spiels with  Linda Tripp.  As I pointed out in my Sept. 14, 2018 post, that tape "evidence" ought to have been inadmissible given procuring it was a felony under then Maryland law. (One cannot secretly tape the words of another over the phone without informing them first.)

Ms. Dowd then fixes attention on Dershowitiz:

"And then there’s Dershowitz, whose past clients have included such sterling fellows as Epstein, Claus von Bülow, O.J. Simpson and Harvey Weinstein. How did he miss Ted Bundy?"

All of this is  relevant now as we read in the press (e.g. Denver Post, Jan. 19th) 

"The Trump team called the Senate's formal impeachment summons to the two articles of impeachment  'a dangerous attack on the right of the American people to freely choose their president."

Which is a pile of ripe merde. First, it did not amount to any "attack" on an American's "right" to freely choose a president. It DID remind us that when a deranged and low IQ minority faction exercises such right without regard to common sense we all pay - in that we get a demented demagogue capable of doing untold damage to the Republic.  The Trump team that made such a wacko remark to the media then needs to be reminded of the words of James Madison - who defined the mischief of 'minority faction' in Federalist No 10, i.e.:

"Citizens - whether amounting to a minority or majority of the whole - are united and actuated by a common impulse of passion (to cast their votes) adverse to the rights of other citizens or the permanent and aggregate interests of the community".  

This is exactly what the Trump voters ('the minority")  did, motivated by passion and recklessness via Trump's often violent rallies to give a middle finger salute to the rest of the country - thereby militating against the majority's interests.  They knew just as well as anyone  the degenerate and destructive nature of this filth, but cast ballots for him anyway. Enough, namely 77,000 in three key states (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan) , to put him over the top in electoral votes.  

But it then fell to the state  Electors to correct the voting anomaly. To do their sworn duty, i.e. not to rubber stamp a malicious choice, but to set it right and prevent an unhinged, authoritarian demagogue from attaining the highest office.  Alexander Hamilton, for his part,   held that the same electors could ensure the integrity of the office through their own discretion which may diverge from what the people themselves voted for (particularly if motivated by passion as opposed to reason).

Thus we read in Federalist # 78:

"The process of election (by state electors) affords a moral certainty that the office of President shall never fall to the lot of any man who is not to an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications...."

Read that last sentence again:   The office of the President shall never fall to the lot of any man who is not to an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.


The FACT of Trump's debased being and premoral character was exposed for all to see in the recent  blistering editorial from a prominent evangelical magazine, Christianity Today.  That, combined with his brazen extortion of the Ukrainian President (Volodymyr Zelenskiy) shows clearly he is a human maggot and unfit to run a dog kennel- far less a nation.  So no one on God's green Earth (not even the inimitable commenter "Publius" - suddenly exposed as a rabid Trumpster)   can tell me with a straight face that Trump, aka Dotard, is "endowed with the requisite qualifications".

Secondly, the Trump team shows itself to be ignorant buffoons by asserting an Article 1 power exercised by the democratically elected House, can in any way be interpreted as an "attack" on a lawless renegade, rogue president.  One who aspires to absolute power, as when he appointed Bill Barr as his personal "Roy Cohn".   Thus, the Trump team's further hysterical blather (ibid.):

"This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election"

Is just fulsome codswallop of the most head -spinning form, especially given it is precisely Trump's extortion effort which marked the actual interference effort in the coming election - stopped in its tracks thanks to a patriot whistleblower.  Further, the nonpartisan GAO has further reinforced Trump's criminality by referring outright to what he did as a crime. The specific law at issue is the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. 

But for sheer brazen ignorance of the Constitution it's hard to rival Alan Dershowtiz who has repeatedly expelled this verbal vomit on assorted appearances the past few days (e.g. in an interview with MSNBC host Ari Melber):

"The abuse of power - even if proved - is not an impeachable offense.  The Founders never gave congress the authority to overrule the president because he abused his power.  So then they (congress) have to prove treason,, bribery or other crimes and misdemeanors."

This twaddle so amazed MSNBC host Chris Hayes on Friday he had to replay the segment for senior Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Tribe - who responded thusly : (See e.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADCUGx9wHhE  

"I almost don't know where to start. My colleague has it upside down. I knew the Trump defense was going to rely on to a large extent on alternative facts,  but I didn't know they were also going to use alternative law.

There is no legal principle that says something has to violate a federal criminal statute to be impeachable.  When the impeachment power was put in the Constitution there were no federal criminal statutes.  As the House report accompanying these articles of impeachment says, what is being charged against the president happens to be a federal crime: felony bribery.  And on top of that yesterday we learned from the accountability office that the president is indeed breaking the law, the impoundment control act.

So that's why I don't know where to start since Alan is completely wacko on this.  So I don't understand why the president thinks it will help him to have this kind of bizarro defense."

Well of course it's likely  to have more than a little success because the Trump team knows there are millions of dumb clucks - fed on FOX News claptrap and propaganda - who start with lower IQs  and will be dumb enough to believe anything Trump's team churns out.

Prof. Tribe even gives an example from Dershowitz own recent book on how far he's willing to take this asinine bull pockey, citing a hypothetical president like Trump allowing Putin to take Alaska - "like he took Crimea."  And as Prof. Tribe adds: "That would be pretty bad, says Alan Dershowitz, but it wouldn't be a federal crime and would not be impeachable."

That's how far down the rabbit hole of irrational bullshit we've been led by these liars, Reich framers and PR artists.   Indeed, they totally ignore as well Trump's efforts to have repealed the Foreign Corrupt Bribery Act - which would have allowed outright bribery, say by a foreign power. (As reported in the new book, 'A Very Stable Genius' by Philip Rucker and Carol Loennig).

The latest tally of Trump's lies is now 16, 241, not counting all those he will likely spew in the wake of publication of Rucker's and Loennig's book.    What is clear is that this shameless liar, sex pervert (pussy grabber) and bellicose buffoon has indisputably picked the legal team that best jibes with his dubious character. Oh, and all the Repuke traitors and enablers who will now do their damndest to protect his sorry, fat orange hide over the country and the Constitution. 

 As for the rest of us - the normal, rational part of the populace, we expect Trump's team  will be allowed a total propaganda cover up - especially after Moscow Mitch has delivered his "resolution" for 12 trial rules,  which includes that all the evidence presented must now be voted on.  This despite the fact the House impeachment procedure and evidence assembly was impeccable, well organized.   E.g. from the first link given below:

"Legal experts Benjamin Wittes and Quinta Jurecic, in an article for The Atlantic, assert that there is an enormous difference between the two: while the House brief is professionally organized, the one from Team Trump is a rambling mess that reads like “the scream of a wounded animal.”

Potemkin trial anyone?  Buckle your seat belts, kiddies, for a wild Senate trial the next few weeks, including Moscow Mitch trying to contain the damning revelations. And, if allowed at all (by vote), then only disclosed past midnight EST. Oh, and also if Bolton does wish to testify (and enough Repubs join the Dems to vote for it), no public hearings will be allowed because of "national security implications".  Translation: the revelations may produce too much damage to Herr Trump. E.g.

Trump’s lawyers, Senate GOP allies work privately to ensure Bolton does not testify publicly


See also:

Alex Henderson

Donald Trump | Impeachment

Legal Experts Compare Trump Lawyers’ Impeachment Brief to the ‘Scream of a Wounded Animal’

And:

Impeachment | Senate

What to Expect next Week as the Senate Impeachment Trial Begins

And:

Impeachment | Mitch McConnell

Moscow Mitch, Perjurer

And:

Donald Trump | Impeachment

Trump Just Picked Ken Starr and Alan Dershowitz for His Senate Trial — and It’s Already Humiliating for Them All

And:

Impeachment | Mitch McConnell | Senate

Mitch McConnell's Senate Impeachment Trial — Cut! 

www.thenation.com › article › the-trump-allegations-as-jane-doe-brea...

It's Past Time For The National Popular Vote (NPV) To Replace The Electoral College

By now every manjack and his dog knows about the electoral dumpster fire that led to the madman swine now in power and befouling our land. In the end, the great Electoral College misfired by rubber stamping a know nothing, morally bankrupt stooge for a hostile foreign power, when it should have prevented that.

Worse, the resistance and supposed  'fail safe' check on Trump's ascension to power went out more with a whimper than a bang. This as all  efforts by anti-Trump activists to stop him reaching 270 electoral votes fell pathetically short. Activists who'd urged electors to back efforts led by academics (e.g. Prof. Lawrence Lessig) to cast their ballots at variance with the rubber stamping misfits in the states, were largely ignored. E.g.  "Our state was won by the Donald so we gotta give the votes to him!"

The system the Founders set up to protect the White House from being occupied by an agent of a foreign government was straightforward, Hamilton insisted. The choice of president would not “depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes.”  Instead, the Electoral College would be made up of “persons [selected] for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment.”

The electors would be apolitical because it would be illegal for a Senator or House member to become one.  Thus Hamilton wrote:

And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the President in office. No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors.

This, Hamilton was certain, would eliminate “any sinister bias.”  Nice assumption but it didn't work out that way, and we've been left to ponder why. But more importantly it's necessary to ensure this farce never happens again. That's why we need to support the movement for a National Popular Vote (NPV) to eradicate an anachronism that no longer functions.  With the NPV in place state electors  pledge  their electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the national popular vote.  

Here one may inquire: How did Hamilton's original grand idea go so far south back in 2016? Basically,  a combination of too little will to overturn the Electoral College as a mere rubber stamp, and too little actual strategy. Specifically, I place the preponderance of blame on two factors: 1) A disorganized effort to thwart the fascists with too many distracting and unrealistic alternative choices, and 2) An unwillingness to rock the boat and just play it safe, especially among Republican state electors.  As for the much ballyhooed "Hamilton electors', they turned out to be more a myth than reality.  If a person had to, he might have counted them on one hand, if that.

The result was predictable: with only external protests erupting - as in Madison, WI-  so the morally  bankrupt Trump cakewalked to his official electoral victory as millions tuned in to updated tallies, aghast.  

Hamilton and James Madison originally had high confidence the Electoral College would function to stop a deranged maggot like Trump, with the morals to match, from gaining office. So that leads us to ask what the hell happened?  Basically neither Madison or Hamilton ever envisioned a day when a man so entangled in financial affairs with foreign governments as is Donald Trump could even be seriously considered, because (in their minds), the electors would carefully investigate the candidate. That hasn’t happened in over a century, so, by those standards, the electors totally failed in their job in the 2016 election.

Taking a stroll down American history lane we also understand that The Electoral College was a compromise designed to keep the president above political considerations, and sold to the public as a way to prevent an agent (witting or unwitting) of a foreign power from becoming president. We now see it has failed on both counts.

Tracking back to the beginning we can even put the more direct source of our current  electoral morass on a bastardized element of the Constitution - a poison pill if you will -  called  Three-Fifths Compromise.  Because of the Three-Fifths Compromise (found in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution,):

"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons."

The Electoral College thereby handed the White House to four Virginia slaveholders among our first five presidents. Since that compromise has been eliminated, it continues to wreak havoc, i.e. in having put George W. Bush and Donald Trump into office. Each state was then awarded the same number of presidential electors as it has legislators (senators plus representatives), applying the outcome of the compromises to the presidential race. After some debate, the Founding Fathers left it to each state’s legislature to decide how to award its electoral votes — a power that has been confirmed repeatedly by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Currently, 48 of 50 states, including Colorado, have a winner-take-all model. This means if a majority of Colorado voters fill in a bubble on their ballot for, say, Beto O'Rourke, all the state’s electoral votes are awarded to his electors. Presumably, those electors cast a ballot for Beto. In fact, in some states, including Colorado, state law requires they do so. (In some other states, however, electors are not “pledged” and may decide to vote for another candidate, though such a move remains rare.  But this is what the activist effort in 2016 to prevent Trump's ascension was based upon.)

The winner-take-all model is so ingrained in our culture that calls to change it are often painted as unAmerican, but winner-take-all isn’t in the Constitution, nor has the Electoral College always functioned that way. In fact, only three states cast their votes winner-take-all style in the country’s first election, and a little more than a decade later, every state dropped the system. 

States adopted winner-take-all laws again starting in the 1800s in an effort to have a greater influence on elections. That led to a domino effect that has now swept up every state except Maine and Nebraska.

In 2016, despite a massive increase in support for the Electoral College by Republicans following Trump’s win, Gallup found that most Americans preferred amending the Constitution to do away with the College rather than keeping the current system, 49 to 47 percent.   This polling has paved the way for the National Popular Vote (NPV) movement today - as people realize we cannot have another clusterfuck such as transpired in 2016.  We do not need yet another Bob Woodward effort such as Fear: Trump in the White House  to remind us how bad things can get if the wheels of democracy fly off.

Before the NPV, it was generally assumed that ditching the Electoral College would take a constitutional amendment, which must be either approved by two-thirds of the House and Senate and three-fourths of the states or proposed by a Constitutional Convention called by two-thirds of state legislatures and approved by three-fourths of the states. (Notably, ditching equal state representation in the Senate, on the other hand, requires the consent of every state.) 

But NPV gets around the amendment process by using an interstate compact — an agreement amongst states. It’s the brainchild of Dr. John Koza, who created a board game about the Electoral College when he was a young man (it never really took off) and authored the book, Every Vote Equal: A State-Based Plan for Electing the President by National Popular Vote. Now the chair of NPV, Koza had a career with the lottery, where he dealt with interstate compacts, and taught for a time at Stanford University.

Let's also note there is a logical basis for changing to the NPV. Namely, that the respective party nominees then have to go throughout the country campaigning to win voters, as opposed to cherry picking a minority  of states. To grasp my point just look now at how presidential candidates campaign in battleground states, or how gubernatorial candidates campaign.

Doubt the  rhetoric about the importance of battleground states in the current system?  Then  consider this: The NPV campaign found general election events really only happen in battlegrounds. In 2012, for instance, 12 states saw almost all the general election campaign events.  Of 253 events, Ohio saw 73, Florida 40, Virginia 36, and Iowa 27. In 2016, the NPV claims, 94 percent of general campaign events were held in 12 battleground states.   This, my friends, is absurd. 

As one Colorado State Senator put it:  “We should elect the president of the United States, not the president of the battleground states.”

Under a National popular vote,  every vote would count in every state, and every vote in every state would thus be worth courting.  Currently, Republican presidential candidates aren’t even trying to win the popular vote right now; they’re trying to win the Electoral College.  

Instead of this perfidy it's time for a truly rational system, the National Popular Vote.  It returns the ideal of one man, one vote, and has state electors  pledging  their electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the national popular vote .   This mechanism would introduce finally a fail safe mechanism to preventing a minority faction  of deplorables from enacting their rage against the rest of us.  

That includes the current gaggle of buffoons - such as at Trump's rally in El Paso two nights ago - wearing red MAGA hats and chanting nutso bollocks that would embarrass a vociferous chimp. Instead of seeing this spectacle repeated over and over we could again take control of the nation's future direction and halt a travesty of destructive minority rule.    

In this case a minority of  morons and imbeciles who believe anything their mutant twit says - even that an invisible wall has already been erected at the border.  The danger triggered by this faction is that their virus of practiced and proud ignorance - including reinforcement by Trump's incessant lies- can metastasize to the normal populace and begin to convert segments into dumkopfs as well.  See e.g.

Donald Trump

Resisting the Weaponization of Ignorance in the Age of Trump

by Henry Giroux | February 14, 2019 - 7:17am | permalink

— from Truthout

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update:  As reported in The Denver Post (2/14, p. 8 A) the Colorado House Committee has now passed the resolution to implement the NPV here in Colorado.