THE OPENING STATEMENT DONALD TRUMP DREADS

©Wendell Griffen, 2020

January 23, 2020

Little Rock, Arkansas

Adam Schiff, the lead prosecutor from the House of Representatives for Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, knows his way around a courtroom and how to prepare for trial.  He was a federal prosecutor for six years and prosecuted the first FBI agent indicted for espionage. This week Schiff has demonstrated his sense of presence, diligent preparation, and skillful delivery during what is probably the longest opening statement of his career as House impeachment managers state the case they want to present to the U. S. Senate.  And in doing so Schiff and his team are showing they mean business.

House managers know they are in a hostile environment.  They realize that many Republican Senators who count themselves staunch Trump supporters don’t want a trial, let alone a trial with testifying witnesses and damning documents from the White House, Office of Management and Budget, State Department, and Pentagon showing how Trump held up almost $400 million in appropriated security assistance intended for Ukraine.  Schiff and his team know how much Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tried to rig the trial process to prevent Senators from hearing witness testimony and seeing documentary evidence.   So Schiff and his team prepared to show the Senate, nation, and wider world they can prove Trump abused his office and obstructed Congress during the one part of the trial McConnell, Trump, and Trump’s cult of diehard followers are powerless to hinder and could not prevent – during their opening statement. 

On January 23 they detailed what Trump did to abuse his power.  They proved that abuse of power is impeachable without an underlying criminal statute.  They showed Senators that founders of the nation said so.  They showed that Senator Lindsey Graham said so when he was an impeachment manager during the trial of President Bill Clinton.  They proved that Jonathan Turley, the expert witness called by the Republican minority before the House Judiciary Committee, said so.  They proved that Alan Derschowitz, one of lawyers on Trump’s current team, said so.  And they proved that Trump's current Attorney General, William Barr, said so.  

Yesterday the House managers dissected the elements of abuse of process and obstruction of Congress.  Then they proved how Trump directed the shakedown of Ukraine. 

·        They proved his illicit motive for the shakedown. 

·        They proved the quid pro quo Trump wanted. 

·        They proved that Trump’s Chief of Staff and OMB political leaders implemented the shakedown after Joe Biden emerged as a likely candidate for the Democratic nomination for president. 

·        They proved Trump knew Biden was ahead of him in polls even run by Fox News. 

·        They proved Trump’s people knew holding up the appropriated funds for Ukraine violated the law. 

·        They proved Trump’s people concealed what they were doing, a clear sign they knew the hold on Ukrainian aid was wrongful and illegal.

·        They knew Trump engaged Rudy Giuliani to advance his aims in Ukraine.

·        They proved the Ukrainians knew Trump wanted a public announcement that Joe Biden would be investigated and knew he wasn’t going to release the aid until they produced it.

·        They proved that the hold on aid was not lifted until Congress learned about it thanks to a complaint from an anonymous whistleblower.

·        They proved that Trump didn’t hold up aid for Ukraine in 2017 and 2018, when Biden wasn’t a likely opponent to his reelection.

·        They proved that Trump invited China to investigate Biden and said he still wants Ukraine to investigate Biden even though the FBI and Justice Department were never tasked to do it by the White House.

·        They proved that Trump knew what he was doing, did it deliberately knowing it was contrary to the national security interests of the United States and our ally Ukraine.

·        They proved that Trump deliberately blocked all efforts by Congress to investigate the holdup of funds to Ukraine. 

·        They proved that Trump, Vice President Pence, OMB director/acting Chief of Staff Mulvaney, and Secretary of State Pompeo were in on holding up the aid.

·        They proved that Pence, Mulvaney, Pompeo, and the White House Counsel have been complicit in Trump’s obstruction of Congress.

·        They proved that Trump isn’t truthful or trustworthy.

·        They proved that his conduct was unconstitutional.

·        They proved that his behavior was not an accident, mistake, or based on a legitimate disagreement in policy.

·        They proved that Trump’s conduct makes him a clear, present, and continuing threat to U.S. national security and our constitutional democracy. 

·        And they proved that current and former White House, OMB, State Department, and Defense Department personnel can provide testimony and those agencies have relevant documents bearing on Trump’s conduct that prove his guilt, the need for his conviction, and the urgent justification for removing him from office now.

Adam Schiff delivered a masterful summary last night to what the House managers proved yesterday.  Now the nation and world knows what happened.  The nation and world knows what Donald Trump has been desperately and illegally trying to conceal from Congress how and why he held up almost $400 million in vital aid in order to force Ukraine to announce an investigation of his political opponent (Joe Biden) based on a known conspiracy theory put forth by Russia, an adversary to the U.S. that invaded and is currently at war with Ukraine, a U.S. ally. 

Good lawyers know how to make opening statements that leave jurors eager to learn more about the case.  Schiff and the other House managers have done that over the past two days.  Today, we can expect them to focus on the arguments Senators are likely to hear from Trump’s legal team beginning tomorrow. 

·        Expect Schiff and the other managers to deliver a point by point counterattack to Trump’s claim that the impeachment inquiry was unfair. 

·        Expect them to counterattack Trump’s claim that he did nothing wrong.

·        Expect them to counterattack Trump’s assertion that his July 25, 2019 phone conversation with the leader of Ukraine was “perfect.”

·        Expect them to counterattack Trump’s argument that there was no quid pro quo sought, demanded, or threatened from Ukraine.

·        Expect them to counterattack Trump’s argument that the impeachment inquiry is an effort to “undo the 2016 election.”

·        Expect them to counterattack the contention that Trump shouldn’t be convicted because he met with the Ukrainian leader in Warsaw and released the aid Congress appropriated.

·        Expect them to counterattack Trump’s assertion that he shouldn’t be removed from office because doing so will harm the U.S. economy and produce more and deeper political and social discord in the nation.

·        Expect them to counterattack Trump’s maniacal hypocrisy, deceitfulness, and his pattern of trying to distract attention from his wrongdoing such as by his deliberate and blatant attempts to identify and expose the anonymous whistleblower whose complaint led Congress to undertake the impeachment inquiry.

·       Expect Schiff and the impeachment managers to counterattack Trump’s claim of exercise executive privilege and his ongoing attempt to obstruct Congress by classifying relevant records from the Office of Management and Budget, State Department, Defense Department, and White House, and expect Schiff to argue that Trump's blatant recent boast that he has all the evidence concerning how the aid to Ukraine was held up (as in control over the witnesses who can testify about it and the documents concerning it) creates a reasonable inference that the witness testimony and documentary evidence would prove his guilt of abuse of office and obstruction of Congress if it is presented at trial.

Donald Trump is about to have the most dreadful day of his presidency because Mitch McConnell can’t stop Adam Schiff and the other impeachment managers from delivering a compelling counterattack to everything Trump's defense team plans to say and do.  Trump’s day will be dreadful because Americans are contacting Senators and demanding they vote to subpoena witnesses and documentary evidence.  We can expect a new record of Twitter messages, insults, and angry lies from Trump and his enablers throughout today.

Sometime in the coming days Mitch McConnell is likely to be confronted by several Republican Senators who will demand that he allow a vote to recall some or all of the amendments that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced at the beginning of Trump’s trial.  Sometime in the coming days, Trump will call on his base of white religious nationalists and free market imperialists to pressure their Senators to vote to dismiss the charges against him and end the trial.  Then he will call on Republican Senators to protect him by voting against issuing subpoenas for witness testimony and documents from the White House, OMB, State Department and Pentagon. 

And sometime in the coming days, Schumer will rise, address Chief Justice John Roberts, and move that Roberts allow Schiff to make his case to Roberts, as the presiding judge, for witness testimony and documentary evidence.  Expect Schumer to ask Roberts to hear Schiff argue why witness testimony and documentary evidence are relevant proof in Trump’s trial given all the managers have established so far.   And expect McConnell and Trump’s defense team to angrily insist that the Chief Justice has no power to entertain Schumer’s request. 

When that happens, we will learn if Chief Justice Roberts has decided to join Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell as a villain and opponent to constitutional democracy.  We will learn if Roberts prefers infamy with Trump and McConnell over duty, honor, and respect for the rule of law.  If so, remember what Adam Schiff argued last night and what I mentioned in a previous commentary about the incurable and fatal effects of Donald Trump’s presidency on democracy in the United States. 

I hope Chief Justice Roberts decides against casting his lot with Donald Trump.  I hope Roberts reminds Trump, McConnell, the nation, and the wider world that the judicial branch of government is independent, impartial, and that judges swear allegiance to the Constitution of the United States, not to any political party or politician.  I hope John Roberts, the highest judicial officer in the nation, declares that as Chief Justice his power to rule on Schiff's motion does not depend on Mitch McConnell or the Republican majority he leads in the Senate, but is inherent in his office.  Then I hope Chief Justice Roberts grants Schumer’s request to hear argument from Schiff about issuing witness and records subpoenas and rules (after listening to arguments from both sides) that the witnesses and records are relevant about whether Trump abused his office and obstructed the Congress from investigating how he did so.  If and when that happens, we will see whether Republican Senators will vote to sustain a ruling by Chief Justice Roberts that orders the Senate to issue subpoenas for witness testimony and documentary evidence.

Donald Trump dreads what is about to happen today because it could lead to the trial he fears and the result he never imagined possible – that Trump might actually be compelled to obey rules of law and basic human decency.  He might actually find himself unable to bully, boss, and bribe his way to get what he wants.  He might actually find himself in the middle of a trial at the time he delivers the State of the Union Address in the House of Representatives with Speaker Nancy Pelosi looking over his shoulder and the Chief Justice of the United States sitting to his right front with other members of the Supreme Court of the United States.  And he might actually find himself waiting for Senators to vote whether to convict him and remove him from office. 

Thanks to the opening statement Adam Schiff has led House Managers to present this week, Donald Trump is getting a long overdue lesson about respect for the rule of law and our three co-equal branches of government.  He doesn’t like it.  He can barely suppress his rage. 

Expect Trump to display his sociopathic character with unprecedented forcefulness today and in the coming days.  Expect him to threaten a civil war – literally – unless his trial is ended without witness testimony and documents.  Expect him to trigger another national security crisis similar to his murder of Major General Qassam Suliemanei in what will be a naked attempt to distract attention from the trial, witness testimony, and damning documentary evidence.  And expect Senators Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Mark Rubio, and Jon Kennedy and others to support Trump despite mounting demands for witness testimony and documentary evidence. 

Thanks to the skillful trial advocacy of Adam Schiff and the other House managers, there is still reason to hope Donald Trump’s impeachment might produce a trial worthy of our democracy.  Let’s hope for that together even if Donald Trump dreads it.