The right-wing media is taking victory laps for Donald Trump becoming the most acquitted President in American history.
It certainly was a triumph for President Trump. His legal team, led by Michael van der Veen, methodically destroyed the meritless case brought in bad faith by the Democrats, and they won their client’s acquittal.
There are too many highlights to mention. They caught the Democrats submitting fake evidence and doctored photos. They played long, brutal montages of Democrats committing the actual behavior they accused of President Trump.
They slammed Democrats on the obvious legal grounds for dismissal, including the lack of jurisdiction to impeach a private citizen retired from office, the total denial of due process, and the fact the President’s statements were constitutionally protected speech. They even hit on less obvious grounds: that the Senate’s own rules prohibited multiple allegations being brought under a single charge, an important protection to ensure senators wouldn’t vote to find a defendant guilty on differing claims.
They pulled no punches in calling the impeaching Democrats out on the obvious malice with which the charges were brought. They proved the crimes committed at the Capitol were premeditated and could not possibly have been incited by the President.
Best of all, they highlighted the hypocrisy of the entire exercise: They showed not only that the Democrats’ own words over the past year be at least as responsible for the chaos on January 6 than the President’s own, but that the impeachment itself underscored to the public how corrupt our system is and poured gas on the fire of discontent, just to conduct a purely malicious act of political retribution.
Their case was crisply argued, using just two and a half hours out of the sixteen allotted. And their entire presentation was assembled in just a few days, with the team not even receiving the evidence until the trial was underway. They created an incredible performance on an emergency deadline.
Van de Veen’s performance was a masterclass. David Schoen was good, too. They knocked the defense off balance and never relented.
And yet, all the same, the impeachment achieved what it actually set out to accomplish.
If you’re puzzled by this, you don’t understand the tactics of the radical left.
It is a standard tactic for them to demand total surrender from their victims, only to graciously (or bitterly) settle for a smaller victory, when in reality, the smaller victory was the goal all along.
H.L. Richardson described this tactic decades ago:
“By definition, compromise is a settlement of differences with mutual concessions being made by both parties. This is how the dictionary defines the word. Both sides give up something.
“This is not how the leftists ‘compromise.’ They will ask for 100 percent, then give in a little on their outlandish demands when opposition becomes formidable. They may call it compromise, but what are they giving up? Absolutely nothing! In order to implement their humanist agenda, are they sacrificing anything? Are they relinquishing control or perhaps abandoning some other established bureaucracy in order to negotiate in good faith? Never. They relinquish nothing while insisting we compromise away a piece of our freedom.”
Democrats couldn’t convict Donald Trump, but they committed grievous damage to the foundation of the American legal system.
They did so with total unanimity. Every Democrat member of the House and Senate voted to burn the Constitution of the United States and conduct a witch trial. If not for Republican opposition, they would have prevailed.
But even without the requisite two thirds, they still had a majority in both chambers, and more than zero Republicans joining them to destroy our most basic constitutional civil liberties.
Think about the implications. Not for Trump, but for our country.
The party that controls the two strongest branches of the federal government just told the world that the entire American history of defending the legal rights of defendants can be tossed in the garbage if the judge doesn’t like the defendant’s politics.
Just before the hearing, 144 lawyers, many of them highly prominent, influential, and in positions of control, signed a letter arguing that the President’s defense team should be sanctioned and potentially disbarred if they dared to assert the President’s First Amendment rights as a defense. They hideously characterized this defense as unethical to even be raised.
These sick people are undermining the fundamental rights to free speech and to counsel, and it will be the American public, not Donald Trump, who will be the victims of this reckless attack.
These Americans include Lucas Gerhard, who has been under arrest for over a year, accused of making a “terrorist threat,” for joking that his legally-owned rifle “ought to make the snowflakes melt.”
American jurisprudence on free speech protections evolved dramatically over the past century, over many landmark civil rights cases. The impeachment put these protections in mortal danger.
The impeachment trial legitimized madness. Every member of Congress that supported it, including each and every Democrat, wasn’t waging war on Donald Trump, although in their obsessive hatred, perhaps some believed that’s all they were doing.
The real victim of impeachment was the Constitution of the United States and the fundamental rights of free speech, due process of law, and the presumption of innocence.
The Democrats, along with a few enabling Republicans, legitimized a blueprint for insane legal attacks on common citizens across the country.
They moved the center further to the left. And nobody even noticed.
In this case, what they moved wasn’t the political system; it was the legal system.
They moved us closer to mob justice in a big way.
This is profoundly dangerous. People need to understand that our Constitution is in grave peril, and this sham impeachment was a turn for the worse.
The Impeachment’s Hidden Agenda Succeeded
By Adam de Angeli
Posted February 13, 2021
The right-wing media is taking victory laps for Donald Trump becoming the most acquitted President in American history.
It certainly was a triumph for President Trump. His legal team, led by Michael van der Veen, methodically destroyed the meritless case brought in bad faith by the Democrats, and they won their client’s acquittal.
There are too many highlights to mention. They caught the Democrats submitting fake evidence and doctored photos. They played long, brutal montages of Democrats committing the actual behavior they accused of President Trump.
They slammed Democrats on the obvious legal grounds for dismissal, including the lack of jurisdiction to impeach a private citizen retired from office, the total denial of due process, and the fact the President’s statements were constitutionally protected speech. They even hit on less obvious grounds: that the Senate’s own rules prohibited multiple allegations being brought under a single charge, an important protection to ensure senators wouldn’t vote to find a defendant guilty on differing claims.
They pulled no punches in calling the impeaching Democrats out on the obvious malice with which the charges were brought. They proved the crimes committed at the Capitol were premeditated and could not possibly have been incited by the President.
Best of all, they highlighted the hypocrisy of the entire exercise: They showed not only that the Democrats’ own words over the past year be at least as responsible for the chaos on January 6 than the President’s own, but that the impeachment itself underscored to the public how corrupt our system is and poured gas on the fire of discontent, just to conduct a purely malicious act of political retribution.
Their case was crisply argued, using just two and a half hours out of the sixteen allotted. And their entire presentation was assembled in just a few days, with the team not even receiving the evidence until the trial was underway. They created an incredible performance on an emergency deadline.
Van de Veen’s performance was a masterclass. David Schoen was good, too. They knocked the defense off balance and never relented.
And yet, all the same, the impeachment achieved what it actually set out to accomplish.
If you’re puzzled by this, you don’t understand the tactics of the radical left.
It is a standard tactic for them to demand total surrender from their victims, only to graciously (or bitterly) settle for a smaller victory, when in reality, the smaller victory was the goal all along.
H.L. Richardson described this tactic decades ago:
“By definition, compromise is a settlement of differences with mutual concessions being made by both parties. This is how the dictionary defines the word. Both sides give up something.
“This is not how the leftists ‘compromise.’ They will ask for 100 percent, then give in a little on their outlandish demands when opposition becomes formidable. They may call it compromise, but what are they giving up? Absolutely nothing! In order to implement their humanist agenda, are they sacrificing anything? Are they relinquishing control or perhaps abandoning some other established bureaucracy in order to negotiate in good faith? Never. They relinquish nothing while insisting we compromise away a piece of our freedom.”
Democrats couldn’t convict Donald Trump, but they committed grievous damage to the foundation of the American legal system.
They did so with total unanimity. Every Democrat member of the House and Senate voted to burn the Constitution of the United States and conduct a witch trial. If not for Republican opposition, they would have prevailed.
But even without the requisite two thirds, they still had a majority in both chambers, and more than zero Republicans joining them to destroy our most basic constitutional civil liberties.
Think about the implications. Not for Trump, but for our country.
The party that controls the two strongest branches of the federal government just told the world that the entire American history of defending the legal rights of defendants can be tossed in the garbage if the judge doesn’t like the defendant’s politics.
Just before the hearing, 144 lawyers, many of them highly prominent, influential, and in positions of control, signed a letter arguing that the President’s defense team should be sanctioned and potentially disbarred if they dared to assert the President’s First Amendment rights as a defense. They hideously characterized this defense as unethical to even be raised.
These sick people are undermining the fundamental rights to free speech and to counsel, and it will be the American public, not Donald Trump, who will be the victims of this reckless attack.
These Americans include Lucas Gerhard, who has been under arrest for over a year, accused of making a “terrorist threat,” for joking that his legally-owned rifle “ought to make the snowflakes melt.”
American jurisprudence on free speech protections evolved dramatically over the past century, over many landmark civil rights cases. The impeachment put these protections in mortal danger.
The impeachment trial legitimized madness. Every member of Congress that supported it, including each and every Democrat, wasn’t waging war on Donald Trump, although in their obsessive hatred, perhaps some believed that’s all they were doing.
The real victim of impeachment was the Constitution of the United States and the fundamental rights of free speech, due process of law, and the presumption of innocence.
The Democrats, along with a few enabling Republicans, legitimized a blueprint for insane legal attacks on common citizens across the country.
They moved the center further to the left. And nobody even noticed.
In this case, what they moved wasn’t the political system; it was the legal system.
They moved us closer to mob justice in a big way.
This is profoundly dangerous. People need to understand that our Constitution is in grave peril, and this sham impeachment was a turn for the worse.
Adam de Angeli
February 13, 2021
Commentary