Trump's confederacy of dunces
by Joe Scarborough
A confederacy of dunces stumbled onto the Senate floor this week to launch their bewildering defense of President Trump. This misfit band of lawyers brought with them arguments so stunningly stupefying, logic so fatally flawed and a cynicism so brazenly transparent that one suspects Baghdad Bob was viewing the entire spectacle with grudging respect.
On Day One of Trumps impeachment defense, the presidents team dismissed his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani as a minor player in the Ukrainian affair. Trump lawyer Jane Raskin said he was little more than a shiny object designed to distract you. Never mind that Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to contact Giuliani, assuring him that Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you.
Before Trump made the not-so-perfect call that would eventually lead to his impeachment, Giuliani ran frequent strategy sessions from the second floor of the presidents Washington hotel that were focused on getting Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. Giuliani repeatedly pressured U.S. diplomats and State Department employees to push his drug deal (as former national security adviser John Bolton described it). At the same time, Americas Mayor kept feeding Trump a steady diet of conspiracy theories that played into the presidents preexisting prejudices against Ukraine. Far from being a bit player and shiny object, Giuliani helped build the Democrats case for Trumps impeachment better than anyone else in the presidents inner circle.
If the claims about Giuliani were not preposterous enough, senators were also forced to endure Kenneth Starrs self-righteous and hypocritical warnings regarding the culture of impeachment. Starr had, after all, once run a four-year investigation into obscure land deals, suicide conspiracy theories and intimate sexual details involving President Bill Clinton. Starr would later claim that Clintons abuse of power was the capstone of his impeachment case, but that did not stop the former independent counsel from mournfully warning senators Monday that the commission of a crime is by no means sufficient to warrant the removal of our duly elected president.
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