Dana Milbank has a great piece in the Washington Post this morning where he describes how Republican senators made a mockery of Trump’s impeachment trial, repeatedly violating their oaths and violating Senate rules.  Many didn’t even bother to show up during the House Managers’ presentations, or if they did, smacked on chewing gum or read magazines.  As I read these descriptions, what struck me was what a poor job Chief Justice John Roberts did, not even trying to get Republicans to follow their own rules in the trial.  Trump always whines about how everything is rigged against him; well, this trial was certainly rigged in favor of him even before it started.

In voting to block all witnesses and close the record, Republicans completed their corrupt mission of acquitting Trump even as they admitted that he is guilty.  Milbank’s best line of the the piece was when he described Lamar Alexanders illogical reasoning for refusing to hear any witnesses.  Alexander’s statement was whiplash inducing as described by Milbank:

“’There is no need for more evidence to conclude that the president withheld United States aid, at least in part, to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens; the House managers have proved this,’ Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) declared late Thursday. But the choice of ‘what to do about what he did,’ Alexander said, should be ‘in the presidential election.’ What an elegant solution! He accepts that Trump is guilty of cheating in the election — and, therefore, his fate should be determined by the very election in which he has cheated.”

Milbank nails it in those brief sentences by pointing out the idiotic reasoning behind not only Trump’s lawyers but his enablers in the Senate.  They admit Trump is guilty, yet either say it doesn’t rise to the level of impeachability or that the election should determine his fate.  How goddam stupid – if inviting, indeed extorting a foreign government to interfere in a presidential election is not impeachable, then nothing is.  Even more stupid is saying that the election he’s trying to rig is the one in which he should be punished.

The illogic is gobsmacking.

In a truly jaw dropping moment during the question period at Trump’s impeachment trial, Alan Dershowitz spewed some pretty outrageous assertions, especially when he tried to defend arguing the opposite side of what he argued for the Clinton impeachment trial in 1998.  But the breathtaking moment came when Dershowitz actually said that if the president believes his reelection is in “the public interest”,  he can do ANYTHING.  That’s right, folks, Alan Dershowitz, of OJ Simpson and Jeffery Epstein fame, has now debased himself completely by actually claiming that the president of the United States is immune from all oversight and consequences as long has he/she BELIEVES their reelection is in “the public interest”.  The “public interest”?  Dershowitz has cleared Richard Nixon of the crimes he committed because he believed his reelection was good for America.

This is the logical result from Trump’s “if I deny it, I didn’t do it defense”.  Now, denial is not even needed; if the president believes his actions are in “the public interest” he can just do it and no one can do anything about it. Trump has actually declared himself monarch, and HALF of the Senate is enabling that.  I wonder how they’ll feel about their position when he suspends the Constitution and disbands the Congress if he wins (or even loses) the election.

Remember during the 2012 and 2016 elections when Republicans admitted (on television) that their strict voter ID laws were not about fictional “voter fraud”, but about suppressing Democratic voter turnout?  Well, in 2020, it’s happened again.  This time, right-winger, Joni Ersnt of Iowa, said (on television) that the Iowa caucuses were coming up and mused about how smearing Joe Biden using the Trumped up Ukraine conspiracy was going to hurt him by keeping people from caucusing for him.

The shocking thing about how conservatives talk is that they say this crappola so much amongst themselves that they blurt it out are the worst time – for them.  The jig is up.  Not only was Trump trying to smear Biden with a fake conspiracy theory and associated fake investigations, the GOP is continuing that strategy by saying “Biden” as much as possible during the trial about TRUMP.

Admit it…you had to think about that for a second, didn’t you?

John Bolton’s tell-all book was leaked yesterday (at least the part about Trump’s extortion of Ukraine) by someone, likely WH staff, and it says exactly what you think it does.  How did the WH get a copy? A transcript of the book had been provided to the WH on December 30, to review for classified information.  According to the NY Times, Bolton confirms that Trump told him personally that he was going to withhold military aid to Ukraine until Zelensky announced investigations of Joe Biden and his son Hunter.   The account apparently runs dozens of pages, describing not only Trump’s role, but also Giuliani, Mulvaney, Pompeo, and others describes events around Trump’s extortion plan from the Spring of 2019 up until his departure in September.  Of course, Trump lied via Twitter last night that he didn’t discuss Ukraine with Bolton.  Right. Trump NEVER talked about his Ukraine plan with his national security advisor.  That’s believable.

This should ratchet up pressure to allow witnesses in the impeachment trial, but it won’t and you can bet that Cornyn and Cruz will lead the way off the cliff.