You may think I'm just a cranky old dude with a blog and this is a very important thing to remember: Yes, I am indeed just a cranky old dude with a blog.
I am no one significant or special by any objective measure. I'm just a cranky old dude bouncing a metaphorical rubber ball of frustration against a wall.
But while I may be lacking in significance or any particular special gifts or insights, I see things. And I understand things.
Back on Friday, January 31, 2020, I put a post called The Impeachment Inevitability where in I said the following:
We know the fix is in. The Republicans are already lined up to vote to not remove Trump from office. The inevitability of this action is assured.
On Thursday, February 6, 2020, under a post entitled The State Of His Union, I noted the following regarding the aftermath of that first impeachment:
Yep, the Senate voted to acquit Donald Trump on both articles of impeachment.
Wow.
What a shock.
I am surprised.
I am bowled over by that surprise.
I might just keel over dead from that surprise.
OK, is my sarcasm too subtle?
As I've said all along....
"Ain't nothin' gonna happen."
And nothing did.
And then on Thursday, February 13, 2020 in the post I called Li'l Donnie Learns A Lesson, I made this observation:
In her vote to acquit Donald Trump on the articles of impeachment against him, Sen. Susan Collins explained her vote that Donald Trump has learned his lesson about abusing the power of his office.
Yep, Li’l Donnie has learned his lesson about abusing the power of his office.He's learned he can get away with it.
And we yes, we know what happened next with Donald Trump: the motherfucker abused the power of his office to incite an insurrection on January 6th, 2021 and attempted to overturns the results of a lawful and certified election.
I'm going over this ground to reaffirm that while I may be no one significant or special by any objective measure, this cranky old dude bouncing his god damn metaphorical rubber ball of god damn frustration against a wall is once more proven to be right.
In “Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump,” Politico’s Rachael Bade and The Washington Post’s Karoun Demirjian offer behind-the-scenes insights that prove everything I knew looking in from way on the outside to be true.
The first impeachment, which began in 2019 and culminated in an early-2020 Senate trial, dealt with Trump’s withholding of aid to Ukraine on the condition that the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, would announce an investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
The House impeached Trump for abuse of power, but the GOP-controlled Senate acquitted the president with just one Republican dissent: Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah.
During the trial, Trump's defense team insisted there was no “quid pro quo” even though the fucking moron was was caught on tape telling Zelensky to “do us a favor” by launching a probe of Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential election which is the very definition of a damn “quid pro quo”.
Now a number of Republican Senators were going on TV to assert that the Democrats had NOT made their case that Donald Trump had done anything wrong. One person asserted that since the words “quid pro quo” were not used in Trump's conversation with Zelensky, then there was no “quid pro quo”.
Away from the cameras, these same Republican Senators had a decidedly different view.
Get a load of this quote from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas): “Out of one hundred senators, you have zero who believe you that there was no quid pro quo. None. There’s not a single one.”
Which is in total contradiction to what Cruz was spouting off on national television.
I think it's important at this juncture to remind everyone of the official position of I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You, it's staff and management on the subject of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas):
TED CRUZ IS A LYING FUCK BASTARD!
Thank you.
Upon hearing the impeachment case there was a “quid pro quo” at work in Trump's pressure on Ukraine and Trump's defense team simply saying, "No, there isn't", Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) made this cogent observation: “We are FUCKED. We are FUCKED!”
Then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell explained to his fellow Republicans what was at stake in Trump's impeachment: “This is not about this president. It’s not about anything he’s been accused of doing. It has always been about November 3, 2020. It’s about flipping the Senate.”
McConnell did not give one damn about Donald Trump.
McConnell did not give one damn if what Donald Trump did was actually wrong or not.
What McConnell did give a damn about is what McConnell has always given a damn about, expanding and holding his grip on political power.
Vindicating Trump (who no one liked) of wrongdoing (which everyone knew he did) was the price to pay for that power.
During an impeachment proceeding, Senators are supposed to be neutral jurors, hearing the facts and making a decision on those facts.
Per the reporting by Bade and Demirjian, the Senate Republicans were most decidedly not neutral.
McConnell’s top legal counsel Andrew Ferguson dictated an answer to an overtly leading question posed by Republican senators and urged Trump’s legal team to deliver it before the Senate. The answer essentially conceded that even if Trump had done what Democrats alleged, it wasn’t impeachable.
“Is Trump’s team going to answer this the right way?” Graham asked.
“I will go down there and tell them to answer it the right way,” Ferguson vowed.
In case that wasn't clear, the Republican Senate arranged for Trump's defense team to not only know a question in advance but crafted the exact answer Trump's team was expected to give.
Let me remind you of what one not significant or special person wrote back on Friday, January 31, 2020:
We know the fix is in. The Republicans are already lined up to vote to not remove Trump from office. The inevitability of this action is assured.
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