The White House’s impeachment defense? No defense at all.

The White House’s impeachment defense? No defense at all.
On Sunday, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone wrote an angry letter refusing the invitation from Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) for the White House to send lawyers to participate in the impeachment hearings that will begin this Wednesday. While it’s possible that they might change their minds in later hearings, for now the White House has made clear that they’d prefer to pretend that the entire process is somehow not real.

The best defense, they’ve decided, is no defense at all.

Cipollone’s letter, like many documents produced by the president’s private lawyers and government lawyers alike, is written in a Trumpian tone, full of preposterous assertions and childish whining, as though the authors were laboring to channel the president’s distinctive rhetorical style. Its central argument is that the president’s rights have been violated, citing “the complete lack of due process and fundamental fairness afforded the President throughout this purported impeachment inquiry.”

Purported? I’d invite any criminal defendant to walk into court and proclaim, “I refuse to participate in this purported trial!” and see how that works out for them.

Of course, impeachment is not precisely like a criminal proceeding, though it has some parallels. In particular, this phase of the process is where the president has the opportunity to mount his own defense. Yet it appears he may choose not to.

Which isn’t all that surprising, because at this point it’s hard to see what brilliant defense Trump might have up his sleeve. In the Intelligence Committee hearings, we saw what the Republican defense of Trump would look like. They had an opportunity for their counsel to cross-examine witnesses at length. They had Republican members present their best arguments for Trump’s innocence. They had Rep. Jim Jordan do his exasperated-shouting routine. They had Rep. Devin Nunes deliver speeches mixing bizarre claims with debunked conspiracy theories. They gave it everything they had.

Видео The White House’s impeachment defense? No defense at all. канала Bitno News