If Anybody Can Get 17 Republicans To Convict Trump, These Guys Can!
Bruce Castor and David Schoen, can you get me out of this parking ticket? Probably not.
Maggie Haberman is reporting at the New York Times that Donald Trump is absolutely enraged by his lawyers' performance on the first day of his second impeachment trial. That means he saw on his TV screen the same thing we saw on ours, because dang , y'all, we know Trump can't get a good lawyer to save his life, but wow .
Haberman says Trump was an "eight" on the Trump GRRR ARGH madness scale, with 10 being the highest. He really hated the first lawyer, Bruce Castor, and CNN confirms Trump was "almost screaming" watching that guy. He thought the second guy, the hysterical batshit yelling David Schoen person, was a little bit better, but still "ended the day frustrated and irate," according to Haberman's sources.
Trump reportedly specifically hated it when Castor admitted he and Schoen had switched the order they were going to talk, because the Democrats had just done such a fucking amazing job. (They really, really did. )
Trump might have also hated it when Castor spent a thousand minutes telling the senators how "extraordinary" they are, sounding like a nice guy trying to have a one-night stand with a Senate that always goes home with bad boys. This is probably not an exact transcription, it is mean Wonkette jokes, but it captures the spirit:
CASTOR: Senators are nice, senators are extraordinary, senators are GALLANT! Senators are smart, senators have families, senators are pretty, senators have the perkiest nipples, senators only adopt rescue dogs, senators do that thing with their tongues, but they don't do it to rescue dogs, because senators aren't perverts!
Or something like that.
[ia_video https: //s3.amazonaws.com/roar-assets-auto.rbl.ms/runner%2F22339-castorsenators.mp4 source="https://s3.amazonaws.com/roar-assets-auto.rbl.ms/runner%2F22339-castorsenators.mp4" autoplay=true feedbacks=true shortcode_id=1612969885924 expand=1 ]
We don't think he quoted James Joyce at any point, but he might have, considering his rambling run-on sentences about how proud people are of "MY senator," because all Americans admire their senators, that is just a scientific fact.
Trump might have also hated it when Castor exclaimed in the general direction of GOP Senator Ben Sasse, for no reason we could discern, that "Nebraska, you're going to hear, is quite a judicial thinking place!" Or when he stopped to ask the gathered senators if they remember what records are. You know, records! You put the needle on the spinny thing and it makes the music and then you do the Charleston and then a baby comes out? Records!
Oh yeah, and Trump DEFINITELY had to have hated it when Castor said all this impeaching is inappropriate, because if the president has committed a crime, the Justice Department can just go arrest that guy after his presidency is over.
[ia_video https: //s3.amazonaws.com/roar-assets-auto.rbl.ms/runner%2F22340-castorarrest.mp4 source="https://s3.amazonaws.com/roar-assets-auto.rbl.ms/runner%2F22340-castorarrest.mp4" autoplay=true feedbacks=true shortcode_id=1612969946328 expand=1 ]
Whew .
And then there was David Schoen, who mostly screamed and cried and sweated and screamed and cried and sweated some more. He screamed about how Congress was "disenfranchising" the 74 million people who voted for Trump, by trying to excise Trump from the American body politic. Which is sort of fair, but we're not the ones being unreasonable here. Trump is an infected ingrown hair on the ass of humanity who incited a domestic terrorist attack in service of his fascist quest to steal a second term as president, and should be surgically removed from American politics forever.
Schoen ended with that Longfellow poem about ships of state, which appeared to make him cry his nutty balls off. He said other things, but we got BORED BY ALL THE SCREAMING.
After Schoen finished, having reserved time for rebuttal, House Impeachment Manager Jamie Raskin — who was astounding yesterday — decided that on second thought, let's all go home early, because LOL what the fuck was all that?
Schoen went on "Hannity" last night and said Democrats use "rhetoric that's just as inflammatory or moreso" than Trump's incitement, but seemed to say the difference is that Democrats' followers just don't love them enough to do terrorism for them like Trump's do. Point being, Schoen's flawless lawyering continued into the night.
Trump impeachment attorney David Schoen says that Democrats have used "rhetoric that is just as inflammatory or mor… https: //t.co/ISKgAarS9h
— Justin Baragona (@Justin Baragona) 1612925712.0
GOP senators were clearly impressed with Trump's lawyers. After the arguments, which were ostensibly about whether it's constitutional for the Senate to convict Trump after he's left office, the Senate took a vote, and six Republicans joined all Democrats in saying that yes, it is constitutional as fuck. Last week, when they took a similar vote, it was only five Republicans, but the House impeachment managers managed to bring Louisiana GOP Senator Bill Cassidy over to their side, or maybe it was Trump's lawyers that pushed him away.
Afterward, Cassidy explained why to reporters, saying the House impeachment managers did a fabulous job — "focused, organized, they relied upon both precedent, the Constitution and legal scholars. They made a compelling argument" — whereas "President" Trump's team was not that :
CASSIDY: "President Trump’s team was disorganized....if I'm an impartial juror, and one side is doing a great job,… https://t.co/WLfDcBruet
— Alan He (@Alan He) 1612911471.0
CASSIDY: President Trump's team were disorganized, they did everything they could but to talk about the question at hand, and when they talked about it, they kind of glided over it almost as if they were embarrassed of their arguments.
Well then!
Texas GOP Senator John Cornyn said David Schoen did a better job, because WE GUESS HE LIKES BEING YELLED AT BY CRYING MEN RECITING BOAT POETRIES, but said about Castor that he "rambled on and on and on" and "didn't really address the constitutional argument."
Oh well, when you're Donald Trump, you get the best people you deserve.
Maybe by the end of this it'll just be Rudy Giuliani and the MyPillow guy, who isn't even a lawyer, flipping their schrams at each other and yelling "The Aristocrats!" at the end. That would at least be more fun to watch.
Liveblog for day two of Trump's second impeachment trial starts at noon! How many Republicans can Trump's lawyers bring over to the Democrats' side today?
Follow Evan Hurst on Twitter RIGHT HERE, DO IT RIGHT HERE!
Wonkette is ad-free and funded ENTIRELY by YOU. Be the change you want to see in the world! Thank you we love you!
Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons .
Dewey, Chetham and Howe were better legal minds
Yes, if there’s one thing, Nebraska is known for, it’s their Constitutional Scholars