It’s true that the Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump is a massive waste of taxpayer’s time and money, but since it’s happening no matter what, at least Trump’s side of the defense could put up a decent fight.
That very clearly wasn’t the case on Tuesday, on day one of the opening arguments, as Trump attorney Bruce Castor left a majority of folks on both sides of the political aisle scratching their heads with confusion over his long-winded ramblings in which he seemed to spend more time praising various Senators than he did making an effective argument.
Castor appeared to be out of his depth and completely unprepared for his big moment, and social media took notice. From the everyday Trump supporter to high-profile politicians and advisers, Castor’s performance was panned by them all.
But according to the Washington Examiner, Castor played off the criticism as if it were no big deal — even after reports emerged that Mr. Trump was “pissed off” at the lawyer’s performance. Castor wrote off the harsh feedback as opinions that didn’t seem to bother him.
“You put 100 people in the same room, you’re going to get 100 different opinions,” Castor said to the Wall Stree Journal.
Sen. Lindsey Graham was one of the high-profile critics of Castor’s opening remarks, saying that he was left confused by where the impeachment attorney was going with his argument.
“I thought I knew where I was going, and I really didn’t know where he was going,” Graham said. “It took a long time to get to where I think the meat of the question is. The defense guys were accusing every Democrat of just hating Trump, and I’m not so sure either one of them are going to win the day.”
Even Sen. Ted Cruz weighed in with his high-level legal experience, commenting that he wasn’t impressed. “I don’t think the lawyers did the most effective job,” Cruz said.
But perhaps the biggest loss of the day was the fact that Castor’s argument was apparently so bad, it flipped another Republican senator to vote along with Democrats. Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy remarked that the reason he flipped was based mostly on Castor’s lack of convincing him to vote with the party, according to the Washington Examiner.
“President Trump’s team was disorganized, they did everything they could but to talk about the question at hand. And when they talked about it, they kind of glided over it, almost as if they were embarrassed of their arguments,” Cassidy told reporters on Tuesday.
Hopefully, Castor and Schoen do a much better job on Wednesday of making their case because if they don’t, I doubt that Mr. Trump will keep them around and risk the possibility of flipping more Republicans to the other side.
Article Source : thefederalistpapers.org
