As the White House prepares its defense for an all-but-impending Senate impeachment trial, President Trump goaded Democrats on Thursday morning to impeach him “fast.”
In a tweet thread, Trump, in language resembling a royal decree, claimed Democrats had “gone crazy” and urged them to “impeach me, do it now, fast, so we can have a fair trial in the Senate.”
…..trial in the Senate, and so that our Country can get back to business. We will have Schiff, the Bidens, Pelosi and many more testify, and will reveal, for the first time, how corrupt our system really is. I was elected to “Clean the Swamp,” and that’s what I am doing!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 5, 2019
The tweet comes on the heels of news that the White House plans to bring live witnesses to the Senate floor for trial, instead of taped depositions. According to the Washington Post, White House Director of Legislative Affairs Eric Ueland told reporters Wednesday that Trump “wants his case made fully in the Senate.”
“In this instance, we believe very strongly — given the fatally flawed process in the House — that if they were to elect against our better advice [and] send over impeachment to the Senate, that we need witnesses as part of our trial and a full defense of the president on the facts,” he said, according to the Post.
Ueland was one of several White House officials who met with Republican senators on Wednesday to construct its trial strategy. The White House reportedly believes that Trump will easily win an acquittal in the Senate.
Well then lets drag it out.
In other words, “Mitch, my bitch, has whipped the vote, and they don’t have enough to convict me.”
Now he’s talking witnesses? The ones he directed to ignore House subpoenas? As opposed to the ones who testified who he declined to examine despite express invitations to have his lawyer do so - not to mention his acolytes in the House who engaged in as good an examination as they could.
I wonder just what Roberts will stand for as he presides over the Senate trial. I hope he does not cede complete authority to McConnell. And I actually wonder how much of a circus McConnell wants the Sentate trial to become. This could get really interesting if they start fighting over how much of an unscripted reality trial this all becomes.
Terrible headline. He’s not convinced he’ll get, nor does he want, a fair trial. He’s convinced that enough R Senators will be “his Roy Cohn.”
Don’t you just love how he tips his hand? If this were a poker game …