On Tuesday, House Democrat impeachment managers and lawyers for former President Donald Trump squared off in opening arguments.
Unfortunately for the Trump side, the performance didn’t go over very well with the public, high-profile Trump supporters or even reportedly the president himself. Bruce Castor, who opened for team Trump, was heavily criticized for his long-winded ramblings that didn’t make much sense to anyone watching.
According to Newsmax, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich joined the chorus of those who believe Trump’s impeachment lawyers didn’t do the former president any justice and, in fact, hurt the overall case.
Gingrich made his assessment of the lawyers during a Fox News interview on Tuesday.
“I have no idea what they thought were doing,” Gingrich said. “There is a good case to be made. I thought they were going to make it. I think it is amazing they only lost one Republican, given the absolute lack of a coherent defense.”
Gingrich was referring to Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, who voted with Democrats on whether or not the impeachment trial was constitutionally sound to proceed as scheduled.
Speaking after Castor on opening day was David Schoen, who was mildly better than Castor and escaped the harshest criticisms, but not by much. Gingrich signaled that he was truly surprised that the duo wasn’t immediately let go after they spent hours on an argument that seemed to be going nowhere, fast.
I’m surprised he didn’t fire him during the afternoon, it was that bad,” said Gingrich. “I think, you know, bad lawyers can lose good cases. That’s the danger here. The case, basically, is very hard for the left to make. The fact is, that is to say to 75 million Americans that we’ll dictate to you who you are allowed to vote for is not sustainable. It is not going to happen.”
Prior to Castor and Schoen fumbling on Tuesday, there was an overwhelming general consensus that aside from a handful of five Republican senators who typically break with the former president, that no other senators would be convinced to join them. But Cassidy flipping early on signaled just how poor the attorneys performed when they needed to hit a legal home run.
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Though Gingrich firmly believes that Democrats don’t have much of a chance at securing a conviction against the former president, like other Republicans, he praised the House impeachment managers for putting on one heck of an emotional showing.
“I think the Democrats, as the party of Hollywood, did a great job putting together a video and then managed to convince us that this was a vote about whether or not Jan. 6 was intolerable, unacceptable, and outrageous as opposed to something about Donald Trump,” Gingrich said.
“Well, everybody is going to say, I think, this was a totally unacceptable riot and that everybody who was engaged in rioting should be prosecuted and sent to jail. The Democrats very cleverly switched what the topic was,” he added.
Article Source : thefederalistpapers.org
