This is a special edition of Claims and Bad Faith Law. This article is about bad faith without a system of justice.
The U.S. Constitution requires a "Trial" once the president is impeached. The Constitution does not say how to conduct that Trial.
The leaders in charge of the U.S. Senate have stepped into the vacuum and supplied rules. They use the word "Trial," and it will not be like a "show trial" under Stalin. It will be a "no-show trial" under McConnell.
The leaders proposed their Trial rules at 6:00 on the evening of a national holiday before the "Trial" would begin the next day. They have known for weeks that they would have to define rules for the Trial. The leaders have talked about using the Clinton Impeachment Rules as a model. If they had wanted, they could have done a Global Find and Replace "Clinton." With that, you're pretty much done, so it's on to the Trial from there.
That is not what the leaders did, though. Their proposed marathon rules allow opening statements to begin today, Tuesday, January 21, 2020 and to wrap up the opening statements long before the week is over. They require opening statements to be delivered in marathon sessions of 12 hours a side over 2 days. In redefining a Trial to mean a no-show Trial, they have also redefined what a "day" means.
The Senate will stay in session each day until the next day to complete that day, so a "day" means that they will complete the opening statements within 12 consecutive hours even if they begin at say 1:00 PM and they end after Midnight and go into the following calendar day.
Their proposed rules do not call for anything but opening statements. They do not commit to considering evidence. They require a separate vote to consider even the evidence from the House impeachment proceedings, i.e., to consider the reasons that we are even in the Senate for a constitutionally required Trial.
That takes care of the old evidence. The proposed rules do not provide for any new evidence at all.
The proposed rules do not even address consideration of new witness testimony or documentary evidence. Under these rules, U.S. Senators would not have to listen to any testimony or read any documents.
The leaders propose that their no-show Trial will not show up to be seen or heard by the American people, either. The press in particular will be required to do their reporting from a pen away from whatever is going on in the Senate. Have you ever attended a political rally and seen the press in pens? It will be like that.
Television coverage if any will be like C-Span is now. The camera will be rigid and focused on the speaker. It will not show what else is going on in the chamber. (The Senate Chamber is mostly empty during proceedings now, and the C-Span cameras are certainly not allowed to show that, for example.) The single television camera that the leaders allow will be focused on what the powerful want you to see of their power.
The leaders have called for a fast acquittal. They want to wrap up the whole thing before the State of the Union, which is scheduled for February 4th. Parenthetically, can they arrange things such that the no-show Trial actually wraps everything up that day so that the leaders can declare an "exoneration" that night?
These arrangements look like reverse engineering. Someone perhaps started with the idea of a no-show Trial and worked backwards from there on how to achieve it. Again, these rules are proposed for the opposite of a show trial under Stalin. They propose instead a no-show Trial.
I had thought about writing this article that way. That is, I would break down the no-show Trial, deconstruct it. But I recognized that you are capable of delivering your own verdict, of reaching your own judgment, once you are presented with the evidence.
Unlike the person or persons who wrote these proposed rules for a no-show Trial.
Mitch, today is the day in January that you lost your majority in November.
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