Truly defensive. Amateur. Video montages conveniently taken out of context. Talking louder and angrier as a way to compensate for a lack of substance. All Trump’s defense lawyers proved is that, given enough time and creativity, people are capable of offering a rebuttal to just about any argument.
Many of us know what we saw—a POTUS who groomed a mob over a period of years to do what it did on January 6. We all saw it, even as we’ve interpreted it in different ways. A mob of angry, misguided, and gullible people broke into the Capitol because they loved their President and believed everything he told them, including the oft-repeated big lie about a stolen election.
The extent to which members of Congress were actually threatened will probably never be known, though the human tendency is toward a flair for the dramatic and overstatement. Do we know for sure what the mob would have done if they had found Mike Pence or Nancy Pelosi? Would they have indeed followed through on their mob-induced, crazed threats? Who knows? That’s not what this impeachment trial is about.
It’s about what the President of the United States said and did—and didn’t say and do—that day and the days leading up to it. The fact that most Republican Senators will not be moved to convict says less about Trump’s innocence or guilt than it does about these Senators’ desire to save their own skins. And to hell with the rule of law, the Constitution, and the Republic.
