How to Convict John Barron
Hot Take #01. Take meter: 5/10 — Spicy. Hot takes included that won’t melt your face off.
[Migrating content to Medium. Written 02.12.21 on Resist.Substack.com]
The 2nd impeachment trial of Donald John Trump has been an emotional week. By the numbers, the Senate has 100 members to cast votes. Democrats have 50 votes to convict Trump. 67 Senators have to vote to see Trump convicted. Are there 17 GOP Senators that will vote to convict?
No.
An argument that might work from the House impeachment lawyers but can’t really be used is the modern analog for the ending speech from Matthew McConaughey’s lawyer character in A Time to Kill. It’d go something like:
“Now imagine Trump is black, brown, AAPI, indigenous, gay, trans, a liberal woman, or an immigrant.”
So what the Hell? Well, at the national level it’s sounding like a Truth Commission is more and more likely every day.
Not Truth and Reconciliation; Truth and Accountability.
That’s what’s needed to prevent another insurrection — the 2nd coup attempt being the more successful compared to the 1st historically.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney chairs the House Oversight Committee. She’s prepared to launch hearings into the origins of the Insurrection on January 6th.
Glenn Kirschner, MSNBC analyst and former federal prosecutor, is one of many that has expressed the need for a #TrumpCrimesCommission — a hashtag that has countless tweets amplifying the idea.
Pam Keith, a former JAG lawyer and FL-18’s candidate for 2020 has been adamant about the need for accountability too (and she has zeroed in on bad-faith actors in her home state quite a bit [Gaetz, Rubio, DeSantis, and on]).
Biden may be a centrist Democrat but he also respects the checks and balances between the Executive Office and Congress. He won’t get in the way if House and Senate Democrats go hard after Trump. I’d be stunned if he did.
The nomination of Merrick Garland as Biden’s AG — while Garland is qualified — has a kind of making-up-for-lost-time vibe for me. He isn’t my favorite pick for 2021 and going forward — and maybe that’s why I’m not the President. Don’t get me wrong — I’m not opposed to this nomination.
Merrick Garland was the face of Republican obstruction during the Obama era in many ways but he wasn’t the only one that was unjustly denied during that time. Now I have to wonder: has Pat Timmons-Goodson turned down an appointment already? Overdue if she hasn’t. And late is better than never. Especially with justice.
So Kamala Harris can always establish a Truth Commission after she is sworn in as President in 2025.
