What Are the Arguments for and against Trump Impeachment?

            Arguments for and against the impeachment and removal from office of former President Donald Trump were filed today. Trump fired his previous team of lawyers and hired two more in recent days. His current lawyers are David Schoen and Bruce Castor, and they filed a 14-page counterbrief today, the same day that Democrats managers filed an 80-page brief.

This post will give the arguments for and against the impeachment trial. Fred Lucas at The Heritage Foundation shared the following four key points made by Trump’s lawyers: 

1. Trump Did Not Incite

Schoen and Castor assert that Trump’s Jan. 6 speech at a rally near the White House did not incite the deadly riot in which protesters broke into the Capitol….

2. Senate Lacks Jurisdiction

The Senate has rejected a resolution from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., saying that the trial for Trump set to begin Feb. 8 would be unconstitutional. However, that likely will remain a major issue of debate.

Trump’s lawyers contend that since he no longer holds public office, the Senate lacks the authority to try him and possibly prohibit him from holding future federal office….

3. Not Unusual to Challenge Electoral Votes

Trump’s lawyers denied that, while president, he intended to interfere with the counting of Electoral College votes Jan. 6 in a joint session of Congress.

“As is customary, members of Congress challenged electoral vote submissions by states under a process written into congressional rules allowing for the respective Houses of Congress to debate whether a state’s submitted electoral votes should be counted,” the Trump team writes. “In [January] 2017, Democratic members of Congress repeatedly challenged the electoral votes submitted from states where President Trump prevailed.” …

4. Absence of Chief Justice Signals Biased Trial

Chief Justice John Roberts declined to preside over the Senate impeachment trial since Trump no longer is president. The Constitution requires the chief justice to preside over a presidential impeachment trial….

            Lucas also shared the four key arguments from the Democrat impeachment managers. I suggest that it would have been easier for him to find the four key points in Trump’s 14 pages than to find the Democrat key points in their 80 pages. 

1. ‘Singular Responsibility’

Trump has “singular responsibility” for the violence that occurred Jan. 6, the House impeachment managers argue. They note that Trump had exhausted his options to contest the election results in court and should have conceded.

“Instead, he summoned a mob to Washington, exhorted them into a frenzy, and aimed them like a loaded cannon down Pennsylvania Avenue,” the House managers state….”

2. ‘Disqualify Him’

The Senate can’t remove an official who no longer is in office. However, the House prosecutors insist, “the Senate should convict President Trump and disqualify him from holding or enjoying [what the Constitution calls] ‘any Office or honor, Trust, or Profit under the United States.’”

3. ‘Former Official Remains Subject to Trial’

In January, the Senate voted 55-45 to proceed with the trial of Trump, rejecting a resolution from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., asserting that it would be unconstitutional for the Senate to try a private citizen who no longer is in office.

Although a majority voted to proceed, the fact that 45 senators saw constitutional problems in moving ahead demonstrates that the Senate isn’t likely to reach the 67 votes needed to convict and disqualify Trump from holding future federal office….

4. ‘Grievous Betrayal’

The memorandum from the House prosecutors states that on Jan. 6, Vice President Mike Pence was set to oversee a joint session of Congress “to perform one of its most solemn constitutional responsibilities: the counting of electoral votes for president of the United States.”

Interestingly enough, four years earlier, on Jan. 6, 2017, the leader of the House managers, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., was among several House Democrats who objected to counting electoral votes for Trump.

However, Raskin and the other Democrats didn’t have a Senate sponsor required to back up their objection.

Challenging the count has become routine after Republican victories under the Electoral Act of 1887, which allows such challenges. In most cases, House members object but fail to get a Senate sponsor. Only in 1969, 2005, and 2021 did a House member and senator sponsor an objection to force debate over the Electoral College count.

The House impeachment managers contend a president has not openly supported such an objection…. 

            I openly admit that I am biased against the crazy Democrats. It seems to me that they are simply continuing the dirty games that they have played since Trump won the 2016 presidential election. They have hated Trump since 2016 because he was an outsider and not “one of them.” However, he had been to all the parties and heard all the gossip. He knew their dirty tricks and used that knowledge against them.

Trump knew that there was a Deep State full of swamp creatures, and he did his best to drain the swamp. He was not successful in draining it, but he did succeed in exposing the Deep State. The Mueller Report and the recently declassified FBI papers are proof of the Deep State. The swamp creatures are anxious to destroy Trump and his supporters because they fear that he will come back in four years with even more power. Their fear is the motivation for their hatred and vindictiveness – not patriotism or concern over national security.