The five lawyers who were going to defend Trump in the Senate after being impeached by the House of Representatives have abandoned him. Apparently, they refused to offer the defense that he demanded of them - that the election was stolen and what he did was proper.
Why? Because lawyers can be disbarred for knowingly lying in court. And they know, as we all know, that it is a lie, a classic Big Lie, that Trump lost because the election was stolen from him. The courts have already ruled in about 60 ludicrous lawsuits Trump already tried that there was no evidence of meaningful fraud in the election, ruled that the election was not stolen from him.
Of course, Trump has decades of experience where he has had others incriminate themselves on his behalf - for example, his long time personal lawyer and intimidator, Michael Cohen, who ended up going to prison for campaign violation for bribing two women during the final months of the 2016 election to keep them quiet about extramarital sex he had had with them. Cohen went to prison, and mused that it was strange that he rather than Trump was in prison since it wasn't Cohen who got the blow job.
The five lawyers who walked out on Trump supposedly were going to offer a defense that it was unconstitutional to try a president for an impeachable offense after he had left office, so the trial should be thrown out. And, indeed, 45 Republican Senators voted that the trial was unconstitutional and should not happen. They lost 55 - 45 of course, but let's pause a moment about this vote.
What is or is not constitutional is not a matter to be decided by elected officials influenced by public opinion of voters they are trying to woo for the advancement of their own careers. Constitutionality is a higher realm of scholarship than political jockeying.
The impeachment was clearly Constitutional since he was impeached while in office. The trial does not simply determine whether he be removed from office at the time of a guilty conviction, but it determines whether a person is to be removed from office forever. Mr. Trump clearly should be on trial to determine whether leading/exhorting/inciting/promoting/causing/intimidating/inspiring a violent insurrection to overthrow an election is cause for removing him from office forever. Good grief, if trying to overthrow a fair election isn't impeachable, what is?
By the way, weren't the lawyers implicitly conceding that Trump was guilty by going to the only defense available to them - that the trial was "unconstitutional" and should be thrown out? If you can't defend the innocence I guess the only recourse is to try to dismiss the trial.
It would be especially gratifying to have Trump show up in the Senate trial to defend himself and be able to witness a "Caine Mutiny" type of melt down into paranoia and insanity on the witness stand for all to see. Who knows, maybe even the Trump Cult would finally see his reality rather than his "Brand" and turn away in disgust and despairing recognition that they have been played.
