Category Archives: Donald Trump

President Donald Trumps impeachment defense team launched its case on Saturday playing excerpts of the dramatization from the House impeachment proceedings delivered by Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-California) and arguing that removing a president by impeachmentas set forth in the constitutionis unconstitutional. Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, told the Senate that the impeachment trial is the most massive interference in an election in American history...Theyre asking you to remove President Trump from the ballot. He went on to say that impeachment "would violate our Constitution. It would violate our history. It would violate our obligations to the future. Earlier in the week, Trumps lawyers previewed their remarks in the Senate, claiming in a legal filing that the articles of impeachment are constitutionally invalid on their face and violate the Constitution because they flagrantly denied the President any due process rights.

Mike Purpura then took the floor and, using a series of slides, argued that the Ukraine did not even know that aid was deferred and, playing various excerpts from the House impeaching proceedings, said no one involved with the now infamous July 25 call between the president and Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky was at all concerned at the time.

This story is developing.

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Donald Trump Defense Team Argues That Impeachment Process, Set out in Constitution, is Unconstitutional - The Daily Beast

As day two of his impeachment trial began in the Senate, President Donald Trump departed Switzerland, en route to Washington, DC.

The trip to Davos, a high-powered conference for the jet set and global elite, was very successful, the third president ever to be impeached said. For USA.

Had the conference not gone well for other countries? Unclear. What was it George Washington said during his Second Inaugural? Screw em or some such?

The flight wentwell, it went. The flight flew and didnt crash. So in that sense, it was a good flight. But how did the flight go in relative terms to most flights? Maybe not so great.

The president broke a personal record for most tweets and retweets.

He did some retweets of people saying nice things about him.

He retweeted some videos of himself complaining about democrats.

He retweeted some compliments from his sons, Don Jr. and Mike.

He retweeted some weird tweets by the guy who runs social media for his campaign.

He tweeted no pressure before immediately retweeting a set of tweets from a congressman credibly accused of failing to report sexual abuse.

He then sent about a million retweets of crazy people I am not going to bother putting here.

Finally, he topped it off with a Trump golden classic, threatening immigrants:

We wish he could have stayed in Davos longer, many Americans and no Swiss thought.

tl;dr: Donald Trump spent this Wednesday the same way he spends most Wednesdays, the only difference being this Wednesday he was live-tweeting Fox News on a plane and also facing removal from office in the Senate.

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Donald Trump Did a Zillion Tweets Today and Each One Is Terrible - Mother Jones

On the day House managers transmitted two articles of impeachment to the Senate, the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan public auditor, reported that President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump says his advice to impeachment defense team is 'just be honest' Trump expands tariffs on steel and aluminum imports CNN's Axelrod says impeachment didn't come up until 80 minutes into focus group MORE violated the Impoundment Control Act by unilaterally withholding $214 million of legislatively appropriated Defense Department aid for Ukraine without obtaining authorization from Congress. Faithful execution of the law does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law, the Government Accountability Office concluded.

A violation of the Impoundment Control Act is not a minor technicality. At the height of the Watergate scandal in 1974, Congress passed the law to prevent a rogue president like Richard Nixon from withholding lawfully appropriated funds. A president who seeks to put a hold on such funds for policy purposes must transmit to both the House and Senate a special message specifying the amount of budget authority which he proposes to be rescinded or which is to be so reserved and the reasons why the budget authority should be rescinded or is to be so reserved.

Recent documents released through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by American Oversight and unredacted by Just Security disclose that the White House Office of Management and Budget had blocked the military aid under direct orders from the president and knowingly failed to file a report with Congress. Last August, Elaine McCusker, acting comptroller of the Defense Department, had asked Michael Duffey, associate director for national security programs with the Office of Management and Budget, What is the status of the impoundment paperwork? Duffey replied, I am not tracking that. Is that something you are expecting? McCusker said yes, but the paperwork never showed. Duffey said in an email that there was clear direction from the president to continue to hold.

Trump disputed the conclusion of the Government Accountability Office, saying that he acted lawfully under his authority to carry out American foreign policy. Rather than forthrightly putting his concerns in the legally required memo, Trump only mentioned after the fact that he was fighting corruption in Ukraine and getting European nations to contribute their fair share of aid. The evidence shows that both claims are pretextual.

The White House readout of his congratulatory call with president elect Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine last April said that Trump expressed his commitment" to work with Zelensky to root out corruption. But despite the urging of his national security team, the call transcript shows that Trump never once raised the issue of Ukrainian corruption. In his second call to Zelensky in July, Trump again failed to mention corruption. Instead, in the context of discussing American military aid, he asked Zelensky to investigate political rival Joe Biden and the discredited propaganda line that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 election.

Last May, the Defense Department certified that Ukraine had indeed met the anticorruption benchmarks needed to support programs and receive the military aid. Instead, Trump blocked this implementation and ordered no additional review of corruption in Ukraine. Indeed, Trump has shown no interest in fighting corruption in Ukraine or anywhere else. His recent budgets have proposed massive cuts in corruption aid to Ukraine and other nations. Congress rejected his plan to slash anticorruption aid to Ukraine by 57 percent down to $13 million. Trump fired Marie Yovanovitch, the American ambassador to Ukraine who focused on anticorruption, after his attorney Rudy Giuliani organized a smear campaign against her.

In September, Zelensky proposed new laws and a court system to fight corruption. Despite these anticorruption initiatives, Trump continued to hold the aid and released it only after House committees had learned of a whistleblower complaint that the administration tried to cover up. Those House committees announced the opening of investigations into the alleged pressure campaign by Trump and Giuliani in Ukraine.

European nations have not lagged behind the United States in funding aid to Ukraine. Europe and its financial institutions have documented some $16 billion in grants and loans to Ukraine since 2014, which well exceeds contributions by the United States. In his testimony, Gordon Sondland, American ambassador to the European Union, did not reference any approach to European nations about their assistance to Ukraine.

The plausible explanation for the illegal conduct of the president is that he wanted to keep his hold on the aid to Ukraine secret because it had lacked a legitimate policy justification. The Senate will now test at trial the House claim that Trump withheld the aid to pressure Ukraine into announcing investigations that would help him cheat in the 2020 election.

Allan Lichtman is an election forecaster and distinguished professor of history at American University. He is the author of the forthcoming book Repeal the Second Amendment and is on Twitter at @AllanLichtman.

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What law did Donald Trump break? | TheHill - The Hill

Remember the low-speed chase? Former NFL star, actor and TV pitchman O.J. Simpson had just been charged with the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman. The two had been found stabbed to death outside Nicole's condominium in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, just after midnight on June 13, 1994. O.J. had quickly come under suspicion for obvious reasons: Nicole was his ex-wife. LAPD detectives were ordered to notify Simpson of Nicole's death and drove to his house on nearby Rockingham Avenue. There they found blood on the door handle of his Bronco and inside his house, and on a right glove which matched a left-hand glove discovered at the murder scene. The gloves were found to have both Simpson's blood and the victims' on them.

Evidence continued to mount against O.J. over the next few days. More blood was found inside his house. A tenant of Simpson's, Brian "Kato" Kaelin, and Simpson's limo driver were questioned and both implicated him. Simpson wrote what amounted to three suicide notes, to the public, his girlfriend and his mother. Police were sent to his house to arrest Simpson but discovered that he had escaped in a white Ford Bronco belonging to his friend Al Cowlings, who was driving. Police would later find $8,000 in cash, a loaded .357 magnum handgun, Simpson's passport, family pictures and a fake goatee and mustache in the Bronco. Simpson was declared a fugitive and an all-points bulletin was issued for his arrest.

A 911 call placed by Simpson was traced to the Santa Ana freeway and an hour later, Simpson was spotted on the freeway in the back of Cowlings' Bronco traveling at 35 miles per hour. Simpson had the .357 aimed at his head. What became known as the "low-speed chase" lasted for hours. Thousands of spectators packed overpasses along the route, and all the major networks, including CNN, interrupted regular programming to carry the chase, which was followed by some 95 million viewers as it dragged on. (Ninety million had watched that year's Super Bowl.) The chase ended 50 miles later at Simpson's estate, where he was arrested, after drinking a glass of orange juice and talking to his mother.

I lived in L.A. at that time and remember watching the chase that afternoon and evening. More than four days had transpired since the murders of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. In L.A., the case had gotten round-the-clock coverage. By the time Simpson's suicide note was read by his lawyer and he was found with a gun to his head in the backseat of Cowlings' Bronco on the 405 freeway, everyone in North America, and possibly the world, knew that O.J. had killed his wife and her friend.

But as we all know, Simpson's "dream team" of lawyers, which included a much younger Alan Dershowitz, got him off. By the end of the trial, everyone knew what the verdict would be, despite a mountain of evidence that he did it. The defense had put the LAPD and prosecution evidence on trial. "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit" was lawyer Johnny Cochran's clever counter to the bloody glove soaked in the DNA of O.J. Simpson, his dead wife and her lover. O.J. Simpson killed them and got away with it.

Now Donald Trump, O.J.'s political doppelganger, is going to get away with it. We have witnessed the Trump low-speed chase over the last four years. It began when he was running for president in 2016. Everyone knows that Trump called out for help from the Russians, and everyone knows they hacked the Democrats' emails and did everything they could to help elect him. Everyone knows that Trump fired FBI Director James Comey because he wouldn't pledge his loyalty and had begun an investigation of Russian influence in Trump's campaign. Everyone knows Trump has done nothing but cozy up to Vladimir Putin since taking office, in an apparent "thank you" for the help Putin gave him. Everyone knows that Trump has lied repeatedly, not only about his corrupt campaign in 2016, but about practically everything else he's done since his inauguration. He has told some 15,413 lies since taking office, through early December, according to the Washington Post.

And now here we are in the midst of the impeachment trial of Donald Trump by the United States Senate not for the help he solicited from the Russians in 2016, which he should have been impeached over, but for the help he solicited from Ukraine for his 2020 re-election campaign! And just like we knew O.J. would get away with it, we all know Trump will too..

O.J.'s lawyers never really bothered to make a case that he didn't do it. How could they? His DNA was all over the place. It was his ex-wife who was dead, stabbed multiple times in the head and upper body and neck. Testimony at the trial would show that after Simpson killed Goldman, he returned to his wife's body, put his foot in the middle of her back and pulled her head up by her hair and slit her throat, nearly decapitating her. Who could have been so enraged he would practically cut her head off? A random guy on the street? No, she was murdered by her ex-husband, and everybody knew it. Everyone knew the motive, too. A restaurant menu was found under her body. She had drawn a bath and surrounded the tub with candles. She and Goldman were going to order a takeout dinner, soak in a romantic bath and make love. Someone was mad enough to kill at the thought of it, and that someone was O.J. Simpson.

Trump's "dream team" won't try to make a case that he didn't do it either. How could they? Trump released the nearly verbatim notes from his call with Volodymyr Zelensky. It's right there in his own words. He asked the Ukrainian president to do him "a favor" by investigating his chief political rival, Joe Biden, and to look into his harebrained conspiracy theory that somehow Hillary Clinton's email server had ended up in Ukraine, and that it had been the Ukrainians, not the Russians, who interfered in the 2016 election.

The House managers took the time on Thursday to establish Trump's motive, showing that he hadn't withheld aid to Ukraine in 2017 or 2018, and in fact waited until polls showed Biden at the head of the Democratic pack to pressure Ukraine to investigate him in 2019. Only then did he withhold nearly $400 million in aid. He didn't bother asking Zelensky to investigate corruption in Ukraine. No, all he wanted from the president of Ukraine was an investigation of Joe Biden.

There were multiple theories why the L.A. jury didn't find O.J. guilty. He had been a star NFL running back, and he was an enormously popular public figure. The LAPD, which O.J.'s lawyers put on trial, was as unpopular as O.J. was popular, and demonstrably racist to boot. The prosecution had been as ham-handed as Simpson's "dream team" was highly skilled. The verdict amounted to jury nullification, according to some legal experts.

This time, it's the House managers, acting as prosecutors, who have been skilled in their presentation of largely irrefutable evidence against Trump, and the defense that has been, to this pointanyway, clumsy and ineffective.

But none of it matters. Donald Trump once said he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and get away with it. He was right. Now we're going to learn that he can kill the Constitution and leave his bloody fingerprints all over it, and the supine Republicans in the Senate will let him get away with it. Donald Trump truly is the O.J. of American politics.

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Donald Trump is the O.J. of American politics and we know how that story ends - Salon

WASHINGTON When President Donald Trump left Minneapolis after holding a rally there in October, he left behind a bill of $542,000.

Thats what local taxpayers paid for extra police protection, security barriers and other costs. And the city still hasnt gotten paid.

The city alone should not bear the costs of keeping residents, visitors and the president safe for a campaign rally, and we will continue to seek reimbursement for the event on behalf of Minneapolis residents and taxpayers, Mayor Jacob Frey said in November.

Minneapolis isnt alone. Several other cities, including El Paso, Texas, and Lebanon, Ohio, also have complained about unpaid rally costs.

Nor is the problem unique to the current president. When President Barack Obama flew into Seattle in August 2012 for a fundraiser, the bill to local law enforcement agencies was close to $100,000.

Wildwood Mayor Pete Byron said he doesnt want to foot the bill for Tuesdays Trump rally.

Do I think that our taxpayers should foot the bill for this? Absolutely not," he recently told NJ Advance Media. I will do my best to get a final tally, and I will certainly pass that on to the local Republican organization, and I hope that we get some sort of reimbursement for the event.

Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said the presidents re-election committee is not responsible for the costs.

The U.S. Secret Service, not the campaign, coordinates with local law enforcement for the protection of the president of the United States," Murtaugh said. "The campaign itself does not contract with local governments for police involvement. All billing inquiries should always go to the U.S. Secret Service.

Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., though, said the Trump campaign should be paying those costs rather than ignoring the bills its receiving from municipalities.

I dont want to call the president a dead beat but hes close to it, said Pascrell, D-9th Dist. Let him pay his bills. The campaign should be paying for it, certainly not the states and the cities.

Last October, Pascrell asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate why the campaign was not reporting those unpaid bills as disputed debts, which he said was required by federal law and would let the public know how much those rallies cost taxpayers.

Donald Trumps presidential campaign may ignore their obligation to reimburse local officials for the significant assistance provided at these political events," he said in a letter to the commission. "But FEC regulations on reporting disputed debts clearly state that these disputes must be reported until the dispute is resolved.

The FEC, though, has only three of six commissioners in place, not enough to move forward on any investigation.

The commission is operating without a working quorum and unable to move forward on newly filed complaints and enforcement matters, spokesman Christian Hilland said.

El Paso billed the Trump campaign $470,417 for its costs stemming from a February rally in the city, then tacked on late fees when it was wasnt paid.

Mayor Dee Margo told NJ Advance Media that the next step was to send a collection notice.

We definitely want to get paid, Margo said.

Any advice for Wildwood?

You need a contract with them," he said.

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.

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Other towns have been left holding the bag for Trump rally costs - NJ.com

President Trumps insight into what captivates the American people, and what draws the attention of the news media, remains remarkable. Consider, for example, how he castthat seems the right wordthe defense team for his impeachment trial, which begins Tuesday, in the United States Senate. There are not many legal celebrities in the United States, but Trump now has two of them: Kenneth Starr, the erstwhile pursuer of Hillary and Bill Clinton as the independent counsel during the Whitewater (and more) matter, and Alan Dershowitz, defender of O.J. Simpson, other famous clients, and, lately, his own conduct. How can we not wonder how Starr, who inveighed against what he called the dishonesty of the Clintons, will contrive to defend this President? What will Dershowitz, a onetime liberal and a civil libertarian, say about his new client, who is openly hostile to the values enshrined in the Bill of Rights? And how did Trump manage to find not one but two famous lawyers who had previously joined forces to defend Jeffrey Epstein, who was a friend of Trumps?

Five of the Presidents eight lawyers have appeared frequently on Fox News, and theyve been hired to put on an entertaining show for the Senate. (Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, Jane Raskin, a member of Trumps legal defense team, and Eric Herschmann are the exceptions.) But the showmanship thats likely to be on display should not obscure whats really going on here. The outcome of the trial is not in doubt; there is no way that sixty-seven senators will vote to remove Trump from office. But there is a real question about whether the trial will involve any fact-findingthat is, the presentation of witnesses and new documentary evidence. Trumps real priority, and that of the Republican leadership in the Senate, is to make sure that never happens.

Dershowitz is likely to be the crucial figure on the Senate floor. He is currently trying to portray himself as more of a neutral constitutional expert, rather than as a full-fledged member of Trumps defense team. That semantic dodge is meant to elevate his core argument: that the two articles of impeachment, even if they accurately describe the Presidents conduct, are not impeachable offenses. Its worth addressing that argument, because its likely to be crucial to the Senate trial, not just on the merits but on the issue of whether the seven House managers named by Nancy Pelosi last week will be allowed to call witnesses.

The first article charges Trump with abuse of his constitutional powers, through his dealings with the government of Ukraine. The claim is a familiar one by now. Trump withheld congressionally authorized funds, and also personal Presidential attention, from Ukraine in an effort to force the announcement of an investigation of former Vice-President Joe Biden, Trumps putative 2020 opponent, and Bidens son Hunter. The second article charges Trump with obstructing Congress, by refusing all demands for witnesses and documents in the Ukraine investigation. Dershowitz says, and all of Trumps lawyers will argue, that neither article charges conduct that is a high crime and misdemeanor, the standard for impeachment established in the Constitution.

Dershowitz does not say exactly that a President must commit a crimean actual criminal offenseto commit a high crime and misdemeanor, but thats what his position comes down to in the real world. He is worried, rightly, about Congress trying to evict a President simply because of policy differences. But neither of the articles refers to any good-faith dispute over Trumps performance in office. Rather, both charge core violations of Presidential duties. What Dershowitzs position misses is that impeachment is designed specifically to police Presidential conductto make sure that a President does not abuse the powers which that office alone possesses under our system of governance. This is why Bill Clintons conduct should not have been impeachable. Lying under oath about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky was likely a crimeperjurybut it was not an abuse of Presidential power, and thus not a high crime and misdemeanor.

What makes Dershowitzs argument so important in the context of Trumps case is that it gives Republican senators an excuse to vote against witnesses. If his view is adopted, it means that Republicans can accept the truth of factual assertions from the House managers, for the sake of argument, and still vote to exclude new witnesses. By this reasoning, the witnesses would not offer anything of value because they would only testify to conduct that is not impeachable, anyway. Thats the real point, and the real danger, of Dershowitzs argument; it gives Republicans cover to cut short the Senate trial.

Trump and his followers (and his enablers, such as Dershowitz) surely recognize that the facts in this case will show how much the President abused his power through his dealings with Ukraine. (The Government Accountability Office just added to those facts by finding that the withholding of funds for Ukraine was illegal.) If the House managers are allowed to call witnesses, those witnesses will likely make the case against Trump even stronger. At some level, the Presidents defenders must know that Trumps conduct is impeachable. Thats why Trump has taken every opportunity to block the facts from coming out. On Tuesday, the Presidents lawyers reveal their true agenda: to persuade the Senate to preserve Trumps incriminating secrets.

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How Donald Trumps Unlikely Legal Team Will Try to Defend Him - The New Yorker

The big difference was the way most people at Davos, including Americans but especially the non-Americans, were responding to this flamboyant but familiar show. The consensus reaction: Whatever.

This years Davos gathering featured several preoccupationssubjects that seem to come up at every panel, in every sidewalk encounterand it is striking that Trump is a marginal figure in all of them.

Some of the American delegates behave as if the world is America, with its 24-hour, 7X-weekly Trump obsession, while much of the rest of the world has simply moved beyond the Trump drama, David Miliband, a former British foreign minister who now heads the International Rescue Committee, said in an interview.

Christian Rhally, an executive at LinkedIn who emphasized he was speaking in a personal capacity, said Trump lacks the aura or the respect that a president might ordinarily command at Davos. Echoing a common refrain, he said Trumps Tuesday address sounded more like a campaign speech, raising the question of whether he was even trying to engage with the global audience. You cant ignore him but its nothing people really talk about.

Conversation was instead dominated by three seething conflicts that many participants see as existential in their long-term implications for the global order.

There is the conflict over the future of capitalism. Business and government leaders here look at polling in nations around the world, and see the tenor of the debate in the Democratic presidential campaign, and acknowledge that deep mistrust of free markets is likely to be an enduring political reality.

There is the conflict over the future of technology. This is partly about how vigorously to regulate U.S.-based giants like Facebook and Amazon. Even more, however, tech policy is being viewed through the prism of long-term competition between the United States and China over who will be more influential in shaping the global tech landscape on artificial intelligence and 5G mobile capacity.

Above all, there is the conflict over the future of the planet. In this case, the climate change debate came with an edge of generational tension. Seventeen-year-old celebrity activist Greta Thunberg commanded the spotlight here, who scolded reckless capitalists and feckless policymakers in her speech: Your inaction is fueling the flames by the hour, and we are telling you to act as if you loved your children above all else.

President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo

It seems likely that Thunbergs perspective goes back far enough to realize that her very presenceand the celebratory attention lavished upon herwas an illustration of one of the historic roles of the Davos gathering.

With its mix of public-policy activists side by side with some of the planets wealthiest and most influential peopleall participating in a virtually round-the-clock blur of panels and partiesDavos has long served as a kind of buffering agent between go-go capitalists and do-good social activists.

For the capitalists, the theme of censorious self-criticism was especially pronounced this year. Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, wrote in a special Davos issue of Time magazine that Capitalism may be at a tipping point, endangered in part because policymakers and business leaders have done of a poor job of helping those who have been left behind.

An annual survey known as the Trust barometer sponsored by the Edelman public affairs firmcollecting views from 34,000 people in 28 countriescaptured the downbeat assumptions that pervaded many conversations at Davos. Some 56 percent of respondents say they believe that capitalism does more harm than good. Fewer than one in three people in developed markets believe they and their families will be better off in five years time. Nearly 80 percent agree that elites are getting richer while regular people struggle to pay their bills.

Virtually every event or corporate branding project here was designed to associate the sponsor with the message of acknowledging gaps in equalitybetween sexes, between geographical regions, between capitalisms winners and losersand pledging to do something about it. Lets make business the greatest platform for change, read the banner at the Salesforce hub here.

The blas reaction to Trump showed how quickly the Davos crowd has gone through its stages of reaction to a figure who was elected in part with a pledge to halt the kind of economic and social integration that historically has been celebrated by the World Economic Forum.

Three years ago, just as Trump was about to be inaugurated, the general thrust of conversations with business and government leaders about him was one of alarm: What the hell has happened to America and what does this mean?!

Around the time of his first appearance at Davos two years ago, fresh off passing a tax-reform measure that many business leaders liked as pro-growth, people here criticized his divisive style but often added something like, You know, his actual record is not as bad as we feared and we can learn to live with him.

Now, Trumps style and substance seems to have been factored into peoples expectations alreadycreating a new normalthat Trump has become something people dont often associate with him: No longer especially interesting.

It is not that the Davos participants see themselves as simply waiting out Trump. There was lots of chatter here predicting that he would win re-election, though the reasons offered were not any more insightful than something you would hear on a random cable-TV panel (Trumps base is so loyal; Democrats may nominate someone too divisive, etc.).

Still, the general mood here made the self-oriented, rah-rah promotion of Trump seem off-key, irrelevant to the moment.

At his Wednesday news conference before leaving, Trump said he wished he saw Thunbergs speech but that she should turn her attention elsewhere from the United States because our water numbers, our numbers on air, are tremendous.

He is a moron, a European energy executive said of Trump. Do we have time for it? No. We have to change our whole company to get carbon-neutral.

Greta is great, said an executive for a Japanese manufacturer. Even if she cant deliver, she is needed to balance Trump in conversation and that seems to be happening.

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Trump Roars, and Davos Shrugs - POLITICO

Starting this week, an endless number of commentators, including yours truly, will descend on the cable news networks to breathlessly analyze the Senate trial of President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump says his advice to impeachment defense team is 'just be honest' Trump expands tariffs on steel and aluminum imports CNN's Axelrod says impeachment didn't come up until 80 minutes into focus group MORE. We will talk about the law and strategy as we eagerly consume every hour of what will be a clownish but captivating spectacle. We will watch senators from both parties pretend their minds are not made up, when we know exactly how they will each vote. We will pontificate about the sanctity of impeachment, about the Constitution, and how this entire ordeal will eventually be judged in the history books.

But let me clue you in on something. None of this really matters, and not just because we all know how it ends. It does not matter because this trial simply has nothing to do with the law or the Constitution or dealings with Ukraine. This is not oversight by Congress or some principled exercise by serious leaders to protect the system from a corrupt president. It is and has always been about rejecting a president who not only refuses to play by the rules but to acknowledge they even exist. It is and has always been a desperate attempt to stop him from winning reelection this November.

Anyone paying attention in 2016 knew exactly what we were getting with Trump, and nothing he has done as president is a surprise. He is impolite and petulant. He will throw anyone under the bus. He is not judicious in his choice of friends, his actions, or his speech, and he regularly toes the line of legality. He has no use for Washington power structures or respect for freedom of the press. In a town that rewards conformity, Trump is the complete opposite, and his election threw the entire system out of whack.

But you know what? That is all just fine. Ultimately, the system within our democracy was not meant to limit presidential candidates to the vetted members of an aristocratic class. The beauty of our nation is that anyone can be elected to office, whether they are cut out for the job or not, and Americans are entitled to the president of their choice every four years.

For the past few decades most of our presidential candidates fit into one of two molds. One was the career politician who went to an Ivy League, groomed for politics with no experience in the private sector. The other was the product of a dynasty, someone whose success was largely owed to the power and wealth that came from existing bases. When you look at 2016, Trump was an outlier on both sides of the aisle. His election was the resounding rejection of a system that millions of Americans decided was not working for them. They chose to give Trump a chance to do better.

When the Ukraine story broke, despite the efforts by Democrats to sell it as the worst offense, the public did not buy it because this is exactly the kind of behavior they expect from Trump. They were unimpressed with an impeachment case with no real crime and no actual harm to Ukraine, with many convinced this was no worse than how other presidents behave. It revealed the Hunter Biden arrangement with Burisma, exactly the type of deal that Americans so detest yet have come to expect from Washington insiders and their families shamelessly cashing in on all their influence.

Perhaps if Democrats had not spent the last three years calling Trump a Russian stooge and traitor then they would have some credibility today. However, the special counsel investigation and the unceasing march to impeach Trump for whatever they find now makes them impossible to take seriously. Despite their best efforts there was no public outcry for impeachment and no break in the ranks by Republicans. Yet Democrats marched on to hand us a partisan impeachment simply doomed to fail.

The true threat to our democracy is not Trump. It is leaders who are using the system to accomplish what they cannot at the ballot box. For better or worse, Trump is our president. We had the right to elect him the first time, and we have the right to decide if he keeps his job for another term. This impeachment is about taking away that right. Let us have the trial, ensure it is fair, hear from witnesses, and allow the chips to fall where they may. But let us not pretend it is principled. It is a divisive and harmful scorched earth campaign designed to prevent Americans from repeating what the ruling class believes never should have been allowed in the first place.

Joseph Moreno is a former federal prosecutor at the Justice Department and a United States Army combat veteran. He currently practices law in Washington. You can follow him on Twitter @JosephMoreno. The views expressed in this column are his own and are not those of his employer.

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This trial is not about Donald Trump | TheHill - The Hill

Five other states Illinois, Maine, New York, Oregon and Washington have similar laws on the books. But HHS is, for now, only singling out California.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom indicated the state won't change the policy.

"The Trump administration would rather rile up its base to score cheap political points and risk access to care for millions than do whats right," he said. "California will continue to protect a womans right to choose, and we won't back down from defending reproductive freedom for everybody full stop.

California's Attorney General Xavier Becerra tweeted "California won't be deterred. We will fight this by any means necessary."

The move is in line with other Trump administration actions targeting the progressive state over issues including environmental standards, immigration policies and homelessness. It was also timed to coincide with the March for Life on the National Mall, where President Donald Trump will become the first president to address the anti-abortion demonstration in person as he works to shore up support from social conservatives.

Groups opposed to abortion immediately praised the threat to cut funding.

The Family Research Council said the decision shows "just how seriously this administration views its role in protecting conscience rights for all Americans" while the leader of Susan B. Anthony List a group that plans to spend tens of millions of dollars this year to help Trump get re-elected praised him as "the most pro-life president in U.S. history."

While public insurance programs like Medicaid have long been barred from covering abortion services, Fridays announcement also marks an escalation of the administrations efforts to extend the prohibition to private coverage. In December, HHS unveiled a rule requiring private insurers on Obamacare markets to send patients separate monthly bills to separate the portion of the premium that goes toward abortion coverage. The added administrative burden could prompt some insurers to drop abortion care altogether.

"We're sending a message that if any state does what California has done, they should likewise expect to be found in violation," Severino said. "Whatever one thinks of the legality of abortion, the American people have spoken with one voice that they should not be forced to pay for, participate in, or cover someone's abortion."

HHS said a Catholic order that previously and unsuccessfully sued California over the policy the Missionary Guadalupanas of the Holy Spirit filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights that led to the investigation and notice of violation. Severino on Friday compared the issue to the legal challenge filed by another group of nuns challenging the Obamacare's birth control mandate a case the Supreme Court last week agreed to review.

"The parallels with the Little Sisters of the Poor case are clear," he said. "Once again, the government is trying to force nuns to cover abortion for fellow nuns. Why can't they be left alone?"

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Trump threatens to cut California funding over abortion coverage - POLITICO

Trump attracts plenty of ridicule for his promise-mongering about the wall with Mexico, but the unbuilt wall can do the same job in 2020 as the hypothetical wall did in 2016 e.g., Reelect me, I have to finish what Nancy Pelosi prevented me from doing, blah blah blah.

Trumps, harsh, cruelty-first immigration policies havent won him many friends in the commentariat, or in states where immigration and asylum issues arent integrally connected to the local economy, i.e., Massachusetts. But he will run on his record.

A Trump ad aired last fall claims he has cut illegal immigration in half an exaggeration, to put it mildly. Yet The Washington Post recently reported that the number of migrants taken into custody along the US-Mexico border has started to plateau after several straight months of decline.

He grasped the nettle, as he promised to do.

Nobel Prize winners are never going to praise Trumponomics (Paul Krugman on Election Day, 2016: Markets are plunging), but in a presidential campaign, three pocketbook issues matter: (1) Is inflation under control? (2) Is gasoline more expensive? and (3) Do I have a job?

The election is several months away, but for now the answers for most Americans are Yes, No, and Yes. Advantage Trump.

Concerning foreign entanglements, Trumps foreign policy can be politely described as incoherent. American troop deployments overseas have either declined or remained steady, depending on whom you choose to believe. When Trump was elected, my greatest fear was that he would provoke a war on the Korean peninsula. That hasnt happened, which either exposes my poor judgment or means that Trump has acted with more restraint than I thought he would.

Trumpism spawned a spate of wheezy Death of Democracy articles in thought leader publications, e.g., The Atlantics How America Ends or The New York Timess How Democracy Dies. What a charade. Trump loves democracy! American democracy has provided him with a tricked-out Boeing 747 that he can fly down to Florida to play golf, any day he wants. Not just on weekends.

Democracy is grand!

Further proof that Trump loves democracy: He has injected himself into several closely contested state elections since he became president. (Louisiana, Kentucky, and Alabama come to mind.) With mixed results, to be sure. But there is no reason to think he wont contest this next election, and vigorously. Itll be worth it just to keep flying his Golf Shuttle, formerly known as Air Force One.

Ah, I hear you say, but people despise Donald Trump. That is true. In one poll, 69 percent of the respondents said they dislike Trumps admittedly loathsome personality. But the Trump campaign has that angle covered: Hes no Mr. Nice Guy, an ad that ran during the 2019 World Series declared, but sometimes it takes a Donald Trump to change Washington.

Its easy to write off Trump as a psychiatric basket case, or an Adolf Hitler wannabe. The truth is much starker: He is a formidable candidate for reelection to the presidency of the United States.

Alex Beams column appears regularly in the Globe. Follow him on Twitter @imalexbeamyrnot.

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Lets analyze Donald Trumps reelection chances - The Boston Globe