A root confusion Trump's lawyers are trying to exploit is between a legal trial and a political trial. Impeachment is a political trial but they keep insisting on using the procedures of a criminal or civil legal trial, which don't apply.https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1360611122294972417 …
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The word trial has roots that go deeper than the law and extend beyond it. A trial is contestation: Trial by combat. A trial in court is one form of contestation but not the only one. Impeachment is trial in parliament, with its own set of rules (which parliament sets)
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Trump's lawyers, either as a strategy of deception or because they are incredibly stupid (maybe both!), keep talking about a political trial as if it were a court trial. Exploiting "law & order" brain by talking about due process, 1st Amendment, deposing witnesses, etc.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
The distinction is much fuzzier than you're suggesting. Presidents can only be impeached, according to the Constitution, if they commit crimes. It's not called an impeachment hearing, but "trial," with a clear analogy drawn not to trial by combat but to criminal trials.
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Replying to @JamesSurowiecki @HeerJeet
I don't even know what "a political trial" means. If it's all about politics, then why does anyone have to bother to present evidence?
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Replying to @JamesSurowiecki
As an example, Trump as president would have had the legal right to declassify all of America's secrets and hand them to Putin. That would not have been a legal crime at all - he had the power. But I'd argue he could've been impeached for it.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
Not clear to me he had the legal authority to hand them to Putin. But regardless, you're getting hung up on the definition of "crime." That's not the issue. The issue is that the president has to have committed a crime in order to be impeached, and that case has to be proven.
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Replying to @JamesSurowiecki
Right but the rules for proof and the standard for proof are not those of a criminal case.
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Replying to @HeerJeet @JamesSurowiecki
The definition of crime in the Constitution for impeachment is not the same as a legal trial. Federalist No. 65 (Alexander Hamilton) says that impeachable offenses “proceed from the misconduct of public men … from the abuse or violation of some public trust.” 1/
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Replying to @joe_selvaggio @HeerJeet
Again, this has nothing to do with the definition of "crime." It has to do with the question of how the alleged crimes for which the president has been impeached should be adjudicated.
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As per the constitution, they should be adjudicated by the rules the Senate sets. There is no requirement that these rules mimic those of a criminal trial in a legal court.
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Replying to @HeerJeet @joe_selvaggio
Yes - there's no requirement. But it's perfectly reasonable for Trump's lawyers to say the absence of such a requirement means that the Senate rules are unfair to the defendant in the trial.
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