A staggeringly inappropriate time for this private lunch to occur
(There's a difference between two Senate jurors engaging POTUS publicly, or even privately as part of their Congressional policymaking duties, but a private lunch with no specified topic—away from the prying eyes of the press—gives the appearance of a corrupt play to sway jurors)
(Media reports this was an "unspecified discussion," meaning there'll be no readout, all topics are on the table, and the meeting will produce no documents that can later be subpoenaed; Trump has a long history of witness tampering and inappropriately raising his legal situation)
(We're a matter of weeks from Trump's trial, and there's *no* analog for something like this happening in the run-up to a conventional U.S. trial; every effort should've been made, by *all* parties, to create the appearance *and* reality that Trump receives no special treatment)
(And now this—the below—has appeared, making my point. By analogy, the defendant has just had a meeting with his jurors, at which he discussed—with no press or prosecutors present—his upcoming trial. And we will never know what was said or if he tampered.)
(And what then gets produced? Headlines like the one below, which—in a form of damage that must be laid at the president and the GOP Senate's feet—severely harms our rule of law.)
