Rigged Impeachment Shows Contempt for Due Process

With the Senate “trial” on the House impeachment of former President Trump just underway, CBS News has come in with a poll asserting that 56 percent of Americans favor conviction, with 44 percent opposed.

According to CBS:

A new CBS News poll finds 56% of Americans say the Senate should convict former President Trump in his upcoming impeachment trial. CBS News director of elections and surveys Anthony Salvanto joins CBSN AM to break down the results.

CBS News thus seems intent on re-enforcing Republican complaints that the Democrats are throwing not only caution, but due process as well, to the winds in their rabidly partisan zeal to crush private citizen Trump for all time — along with his supporters.

Imagine Mr. Trump, following acquittal in the Senate, were to be indicted in a criminal action — in Anywhere, U.S.A. Would CBS News announce a poll, on the first day of that trial, stating that 56 percent of Americans feel that private citizen Trump should be convicted. Seems so — notwithstanding that such a poll would be about as fair as the guilty verdicts handed out during the French Revolution, sending thousands of victims to the guillotine.

Since when do our juries hand down guilty verdicts with the reading in court of the indictment. This is comparable to the undue process practiced by CBS News in asserting that the 56 percent of the American people have determined at the outset that private citizen Trump stands convicted as charged. One hesitates to ask the anti-Trump zealots if they understand what a bill of attainder is — and that their “trial” violates the Constitution’s ban on bills of attainder. If they feel free to act against Mr. Trump, the way the Queen of Hearts acted against Alice, dispensing with the need of a fair trial before convicting, how can they possibly understand what a bill of attainder is?

But didn’t Alice respond to the Queen’s adverse and unfair ruling by declaring something to the effect, “you’re just a bunch of cards”?

It is, alas, not to be expected that Mr. Trump’s attorneys respond to the utter disgrace of this “trial” and the CBS News poll, to boot, by declaring:

“…this is just a charade, having nothing to do with jurisprudence nor with political fair play, and we will not participate further — let the Republican senators do their duty to the Constitution, to our legacy of liberty, and act in solidarity to put an end to this attempt at Soviet-style justice.”

Besides, what kind of “fair play” is it to enter, as the lying Democrats did, Mr. Trump’s remarks of Jan. 6 in the record without including his call for a peaceful demonstration, to offer for the record a twisted, prejudicial version of the events at the Capitol that day, to leave the impression that the former president had any responsibility for the tumult.

The New York Times is free, under the First Amendment, to accuse anyone defending Mr. Trump’s quarrel with the results of the 2020 presidential election of making “baseless claims.” If the Democrats were honor-bound to seek “Truth Unto Its Innermost Parts,” as the Brandeis University motto states, this sham of a proceeding, let alone the twisted process employed, would never have taken place, because this “impeachment” rests on “baseless claims,” along with the four years of the anti-Trump resistance, including Russia-gate and Impeachment I.

For nearly two years, the country, along with President Trump, was subjected to a Mueller probe based on lies, deception, and undue process. But isn’t another special prosecutor engaged in a probe of Russia-gate? While the Democrats and their media advance guard take pains to destroy our justice system, equating accusations with findings of fact, what on earth is happening with John Durham’s investigation? Or is this special prosecutor under house arrest — to be charged with being an agent of the anti-Christ Trump?

There is a Yiddish word that 44 Republican Senators should shout asap from the Capitol’s steps: “Genug!” (Enough.)