Only Team Trump. I mean ONLY team Trump could do this.

As reported by Business Insider, Trump’s lawyers, with what could only be described as complete obliviousness, practically begged the senators to demand White House witnesses. The message went out during Team Trump’s opening defense argument today.

Their defense?

There is no evidence from a first-hand person who was there as decisions were made. The evidence presented has been second hand from people one step removed from White House decision-making.

This takes some brass, to argue against something for which they are entirely responsible:

It’s worth noting, too, that though the president’s lawyers complain of not hearing testimony from witnesses who spoke to Trump directly, the defense team led by White House counsel Pat Cipollone could easily solve that problem by retracting the Cipollone’s sweeping directive last year which barred all executive branch officials across six agencies from cooperating with the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry.

Trump has said he must protect the office of the presidency, and does so by denying anyone to talk nor any documents to be released. What he is really doing is setting a precedent whereby it would be nearly impossible to impeach a president. Only direct testimony from an insider counts, but the president can bar all insiders from ever talking.

Nice dictatorship you got there.

Multiple senior administration officials in the president’s inner circle — like acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and former national security adviser John Bolton — cited Cipollone’s command, which he made at the president’s direction, as the reason they would not testify or provide relevant documents.

And, of course, it is Cipollone standing before Congress stating that the House  failed to get direct evidence.

Please to be fcking off now.

Schumer took the first shot, the obvious one, the softball tee’d up for him by Team Trump:

“Now, the first point that I would like to make is that the president’s counsel did something that they did not intend: They made a really compelling case for why the Senate should call witnesses and documents,” said Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer.

This is Trump, in all his glory.

The argument is circular, makes no sense whatsoever. Anyone with a brain can see the con like a sharpie on a map. Yet Team Trump will argue that it is  so obvious that the House failed. They just can’t prove it, and just want to win the election. It is a strategy straight out of Trump University.

In no other context could the argument possibly work.

It will work here, though. Because 53 hypnotized cultists agree that the defense is plain as day. They would agree if the defense was “Presidents are 100% above the law, they can do anything.”  They would agree, and you know it, mostly because Republicans don’t want their heads on a pike on the White House law. (Which would not be illegal if done by the president).

Republicans know that threat was real, and they will obey.

Nice dictatorship you got there.

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Peace, y’all

Jason

[email protected] and Twitter: @MiciakZoom