by
M.
Richard Maxson
The
Democrat Socialist party is once again
violating the U.S. Constitution in what he described as a “show
trial” against former President Donald Trump. We
touched base with Jonathan
Turley, an American attorney, legal scholar, writer, commentator, and
legal analyst in broadcast and print journalism. He is a professor at
the George Washington University Law School, and has testified in
United States Congressional proceedings about constitutional and
statutory issues. In
addition, Alan
Dershowitz, an American lawyer known for his work in U.S.
constitutional law and American criminal law. He taught at Harvard
Law School from 1964 through 2013 joined
in.
The
latest
House
impeachment brief alleges that Trump incited a mob to breach the U.S.
Capitol on Jan. 6 while lawmakers were convened in a joint session to
consider certification of electoral college votes. Trump’s legal
team denies the allegation and argues in a memo that the trial is
unconstitutional because Trump is no longer president. The team also
argues that Trump exercised his First Amendment rights in calling
into question the results of the election.
An effective legal defense is based on challenging the
constitutionality of the allegations against President Trump. The
U.S. Constitution states that “the President, Vice President and
all Civil Officers of the United States … shall be removed from
office” if convicted of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes
and Misdemeanors.” According
to Jonathon Turley, the phrase “the President” means the current
occupant of the White House and suggests that only a sitting
president can be impeached. The
president is
Joe Biden, not Donald Trump,” Turley wrote.
Presidential
Trump adviser Jason Miller echoed the sentiment that the reasoning
featured in the impeachment brief is a threat to freedom of speech
more broadly, writing in a statement that, “not only will President
Trump be on trial next week. The First Amendment will be on trial
next week because the Democrats aren’t going to stop with attacking
President Trump, they want to go after the free speech and the rights
of all Americans.”
Constitutional
scholar Alan Dershowitz agreed. The
brief filed by the House managers advocating for the conviction and
disqualification of citizen Donald Trump contains an attack on
freedom of speech for all Americans. It declares that “the First
Amendment does not apply at all to impeachment proceedings,”
despite the express language of the First Amendment that prohibits
Congress from making any law, or presumably taking other action, that
curbs freedom of speech and
“amounts to a dangerous broadside against the freedom of speech of
all Americans.”
Writing
in an earlier op-ed for The Hill, Dershowitz made a case against a
key argument contained in the impeachment brief, namely that “the
First Amendment does not apply at all to impeachment proceedings,”
which the legal scholar said signals Congressional willingness to
take aim at freedom of speech more broadly.
“The
brief filed by the House managers advocating the conviction and
disqualification of citizen Donald Trump. This was precisely the
argument made by Joseph McCarthy and his followers in the 1950s. The
argument made by the House impeachment managers that the First
Amendment does not apply to presidents. The text of the Constitution
would seem strongly to suggest that the framers intended impeachment
to be used only for removal of a sitting official and once removed,
it could also disqualify him,” said Dershowitz, but it was never
intended to be used merely as a means of future disqualification as
it's being used today.” The very absence of any reference to
impeaching a former president suggests the framers were opposed to
the idea. “They could easily have added a provision saying that a
former president could be impeached, and the chief justice would
preside. They didn't do that,” Dershowitz said. Dershowitz noted
that in impeachment cases, the Constitution calls for “removal from
office and disqualification” from holding office, not “removal
from office OR disqualification.” In other words, disqualification
presupposes removal, and since Trump was not removed from office, he
is not subject to disqualification.

“ Congress
has put itself above the law,” Dershowitz added. “They say the
president is not above the law; they’re right, but Congress is not
above the law, and the law makes specific provisions for when a
president can be impeached and you can’t impeach a president in
violation of the First Amendment. The best arguments he can make, and
he will make, are the constitutional ones, namely the Senate had no
jurisdiction over a former president and the speech was covered by
the First Amendment,” Dershowitz stated.
The
President has refused to be part of this political show trial. It is un-constitutional. The Senate is in violation of the Constitution in another way. An
impeachment requires the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to
preside. He will not be there. Instead, in violation of the
Constitution, Senator
Patrick Leahy, the president pro tempore of the Senate, will be
presiding, rather than Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
Obviously
the Supreme Court has read the Constitution.
No
former president has ever been tried before, there is precedent for
the impeachment trial of a former high-level official. The
Belknap case, which the Leftists cite is NOT precedent. First,
Belknap was not the president and second, he was eventually
acquitted “largely” because many senators believed the Senate
lacked the power to try a former Cabinet member. What's
different now?
This
whole show is an attempt at a grab for more power. The Democrat
Socialist party are tasked to destroy the enemy of the Leftist elite,
President Donald Trump, and to make sure he never threatens their
cabal again. Forget the law, forget the Constitution, destroy the
idea of a great America.
There
are still enough Senators who stand by the Founding Fathers vision
and their Constitution that will make this illegal attempt fail. The
Leftists in Congress are wasting our time and money when millions of
Americans are suffering in a wrecked economy
and personal anguish. So much for the Democrats being a party for the
people. They are a party out for total power - forever.