Jeffrey T. KuhnerDemocrats set an ominous precedent by holding a Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump. They have crossed the Rubicon, which will haunt this country for years to come.
The trial is a sham. It is illegal and unconstitutional for one simple reason: Trump is a private citizen. He no longer holds office. Therefore, he cannot be tried by the Senate. Democrats in the Senate do not have the power, authority or jurisdiction to conduct the impeachment proceedings. It is a show trial — a kangaroo court — masquerading as a valid impeachment.
The Democrats, however, are consumed by Trump Derangement Syndrome. Their hatred for Trump is so deep and irrational, they are now willing to trample upon the Constitution, violate his due process rights and overthrow 240 years of legal precedent and tradition.
The heart of their argument is that Trump “incited” an insurrection on Jan. 6, when rioters stormed the Capitol building. Hence, according to the House managers, the former president committed the most “grievous constitutional crime” in U.S. history. This is false — and frankly, ludicrous on many levels. In fact, it is stunning in its ignorance and mendacity.
Even if you accept the Democrats’ central premise (which I don’t), the mini-riot on Jan. 6 is far from the greatest constitutional crime perpetrated by an American president.
Woodrow Wilson threw thousands of anti-war dissidents into prison for years and lied the United States into entering the First World War — resulting in the deaths of over 116,000 U.S. soldiers.
FDR placed Japanese-Americans into internment camps, illegally surveilled and wiretapped his political opponents, and handed Eastern Europe over to Stalin’s communist butchers.
LBJ fabricated the Gulf of Tonkin incident in order to draw America into Vietnam, leading to the loss of nearly 60,000 U.S. service members.
I could go on — but why bother? The Democrats are not interested in truth. Their objective is propaganda; to use impeachment as a political weapon to criminalize Trump and his supporters.
The FBI and Capitol Hill police now admit the riot was planned several days before Jan. 6. In other words, it was going to occur no matter what Trump said or did in his speech at the Ellipse. Which begs the question: How can Trump be charged with inciting an insurrection when it was already orchestrated and plotted way in advance? The answer is obvious: Trump not only did not incite or encourage any violence, but he specifically told the crowd at the “Stop the Steal” rally to make their voices heard “peacefully” and “patriotically.”
Only in an Orwellian totalitarian world does calling for people to peacefully and patriotically express their grievances equal violence, incitement and domestic terrorism.
In fact, Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has dropped a bombshell. Days before the Jan. 6 rally the president personally asked the Capitol police to beef up security, the National Guard to be on standby and for the Defense Secretary to order extra troops to be ready in case of mayhem or trouble on Capitol Hill.
Just like when Trump had repeatedly asked Democratic governors and mayors to deploy National Guard troops to deter and stop Black Lives Matter/Antifa terrorists from rioting all summer, the president’s request was denied. That’s right: denied.
And it was rejected by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser. They are responsible for the breakdown in Capitol security that led to the tragic deaths of five people. The attempt to impeach Trump is to deflect blame for the real culprits of the tragedy that took place on Jan. 6.
Yet, Democrats and their allies in the corporate media (but I repeat myself) argue that Trump’s real incitement to insurrection occurred right after Nov. 3 and for months afterwards, when he consistently accused the Biden campaign of engaging in rampant voter fraud and stealing the election.
Trump’s impeachment lawyers have rightly said this is c0nstitutionally protected free speech under the First Amendment.
The Democrats, however, are now making a remarkable and very dangerous argument: The president is not protected by the First Amendment. In other words, Trump does not have the right to free speech. And by extension neither do his supporters.
This is the ultimate objective of the impeachment trial: to criminalize the notion that electoral theft and voter fraud occurred during the 2020 election, making it tantamount to sedition or treason.
It is a frontal assault on free speech, free expression and open debate in a democratic society. If Trump is convicted, the First Amendment — and all of its protections — will be abrogated.
The irony is that, the more liberals, Democrats, Big Media and Big Tech seek to censor and outlaw any mention that the election was rigged and stolen, the more evidence continues to pile up.
Mike Lindell, the CEO and president of My Pillow, has produced a two-hour documentary, “Absolute Proof,” detailing through numerous witnesses and election experts that rampant voter fraud was committed, especially in key battleground states. Progressive Democrats now want to ban the documentary.
The Gateway Pundit, a conservative blog and website, has obtained official video footage from the TCF Center in Detroit the night of the election. It conclusively shows that a white van arrived at 3:30 am EST on the morning of Nov. 4th dropping off over 50 ballot boxes — hundreds of thousands of votes nearly 100 percent of which went to Joe Biden. Michigan law explicitly states that no ballots — none — can be received and counted following the 8:00 pm EST deadline on Nov. 3rd. In other words, those ballots were clearly illegal and illegitimate. Trump won Michigan; Biden stole it.
Yet, the most damning evidence comes from the Left. In an extraordinary expose in Time magazine, ultra-liberal journalist Molly Ball reveals that there was a “secret campaign,” a “conspiracy” (her word) to rig the election — and defeat Trump — by a “well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information.”
In particular, Ball says massively expanding mail-in voting by going around the state legislatures in the battlegrounds of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia, which was blatantly unconstitutional and illegal, was the key to Democrats winning.
Ball believes it was a great thing Trump lost, and those who engaged in the shadow campaign are heroes. I believe the very opposite: they are traitors and criminals. But what Ball or I believe is irrelevant.
The fact is her piece unwittingly and irrefutably proves Trump’s point: The election was rigged, there was massive election theft and the Democrats used illegal, undemocratic and fraudulent means to deny Trump victory.
This is why Democrats are desperate to suppress and criminalize the notion that Biden is an illegitimate president, who has no business being in the White House.
This is because they know that, when Trump said the election was stolen and tainted by egregious voter fraud, he was telling the truth. Hence, they want and need to ban the truth in order to stay in power. The only way to do that is to engage in more repression, censorship and intimidation of Trump supporters and conservatives.
Trump is the radical Left’s sacrificial lamb in their quest to create an authoritarian, socialist America. The impeachment show trial is their Black Mass. He must be acquitted.
Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a columnist at WorldTribune.com and the host of “The Kuhner Report” weekdays 6-10 a.m. EST on WRKO AM-680 in Boston.
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