“If you open up that can of worms (by calling witnesses), we’ll want the FBI to come in and tell us about how people actually pre-planned these attacks and what happened with the security footprint at the Capitol,” the South Carolina Republican continued, parroting a right-wing talking point that the attack was planned well before Trump urged his supporters at a pre-riot rally to march to the Capitol.
Graham did not mention that Trump ― even before the election ― whipped his supporters into a lie-fueled frenzy about voter fraud. “You open up Pandora’s box if you call one witness,” Graham said. “I hope we don’t call any and we vote and get this trial over next week when it starts.”
It's hard to parse these "warnings." I assume that if a politico warns the other side not to do something, he's worried about damage to his own side. But that's so obvious that the warning should backfire. Does Graham actually want the Democrats to call witnesses and open the door to weeks or months of testimony that might serve the interests of Republicans? If so, wouldn't the Democrats know that and resist the temptation to call witnesses... or does Graham know that and hope to con the Democrats into not calling witnesses? Infinite layers of potential interpretation.
I don't know what Graham is really up to, but I suspect both parties would like to get this over quickly and avoid a long public trial. But I would love to hear testimony about what really happened. How planned was the break in? Did Trump know of the plan? To me, Trump's guilt depends on whether he knew there was a plan to break into the Capitol. He never directly exhorts the crowd to do anything more than peacefully protest, but there are words that I would see as a signal to violence if there was a specific and widespread plan to break into the Capitol and Trump knew about it.
Now, back to Graham's warning. I think that if there are no sworn witnesses, it is much easier to vote against conviction. Unanswered questions of fact leave guilt unproved. In that light, I'd read Graham's warning in the most obvious way, as an indication of his awareness that witnesses will increase the chances of conviction and therefore an effort to get Democrats to help Trump's cause.
But I don't know how much evidence there is that the break in was planned and that Trump knew about it. Why don't I know? Did I miss a news report? Is it being suppressed? The easiest guess is that there is no such evidence. But I'm tired of the coyness. Open the Pandora's Box!
ADDED: The House Managers of the impeachment have released their trial memorandum — this 80-page PDF. I've only read the headings, but I'll post separately if I see references to the evidence I'm looking for, which is certainly something more than that Trump encouraged the belief that he had won the election, drew a big crowd to Washington, and cranked up the crowd to march to the Capitol in protest.
Posts
202 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 202 of 202pgug said, "
"But its a box of evils. So is hope an evil? Is hope some kind of folly?"
Just think of it as Schrodingers Pandoras box.
That help?
I wouldn't trust anything the PuffHo prints.
Post a Comment