I took my info from Alexandra's interviews. Please let me know if her story has changed. I hope too that you and she understand that if hubris—the unwillingness by well-intentioned Democrats to admit *any* error—gets Trump off, Democrats' righteous indignation may be *ferocious*.
1/ I can't conceive of a situation in which I'd run *any* info from a foreign embassy to the DNC during a national election while I was a paid DNC consultant, rather than going *only* to the FBI or media. *But* I understand Alexandra is rightly influenced by Ukraine being at war.
2/ My point is that in a national emergency, a circling of the wagons or echo chamber is *very* dangerous. Alexandra and her defenders *must* hear from Democrats who are concerned that what she/the DNC did in 2016 was *unwise* but *not* illegal. If they won't, disaster may ensue.
3/ I laid out carefully in my thread *why* (a) what Alexandra did has some moral justification, (b) why it was *not* illegal, (c) why Trump could never have cause to complain about it, (d) why it's overblown, (e) why it's irrelevant to impeachment, and *still* I will be attacked.
4/ What that says to me as an attorney who's been before countless juries—which Sarah hasn't—is that what's called "trial psychosis" is in play here: such a fervent belief that one has the correct defense to an allegation that one ceases to see how anyone else sees the situation.
5/ With the nation in a state of emergency, *many* Democrats will be *livid* to learn that the DNC receiving info—even if *public* info, even if *unused* info, even if *Manafort-specific* info—from the Ukrainian embassy during the 2016 U.S. election could let Trump off the hook.
6/ And if the response from the DNC to this situation, or from any potential impeachment-trial witness, is to be angry at *me*, which is 100% what Sarah will now offer, I am telling you as a legal professional as well as a political journalist that this is the *wrong play here*.
7/ This is no time for partisanship to make a coherent prosecution of Donald Trump impossible. The Democrats made a few bad decisions in 2016—but there are *innumerable reasons* that this has nothing to do with Trump, his defense, his trial, or his efforts to secure an acquittal.
8/ There's *no attorney* who'd prep Alexandra for testimony who'd tell her to go into any testimony she provides feeling 100% vindicated that she made all smart decisions in 2016; it would be wiser for her to presume others' *circumspection* and humbly think about how to meet it.
9/ Anyway, I'm a proud Democrat and have been my whole life—but won't engage here with the shoot-yourself-in-the-foot wing of the party that's so blinded by partisanship that they could cost America the opportunity to make the necessary, coherent and *correct* case against Trump.
10/ Anyone who (like me) is on the left but (unlike me) wants to marinate in the view that *only Republicans* ever make mistakes—and in so doing threaten America's rule of law, and the proper administration of justice with respect to Trump—can do so. But I won't participate. /end
PS/ If anyone tells you there's no value to Democrats gaming out not only Trump's defense but Trump's response to any Democratic attack on his defense—in other words, if anyone tells you doing that is disloyalty or disinformation, not *trial advocacy*—have them Google "red team."
