Thread by @bansisharma

1. Senate Impeachment Trial Day 10: Second Day of Q & A

Patrick Philbin, one of the counsels defending President Trump, in his respectful, studied and cogent style, continues to knock it out of the ballpark.

2. Patrick Philbin: "President Obama himself refused to turn over a lot of documents to Congress in the Fast & Furious investigation. His Attorney General was held in contempt by Congress. But no one thought that was an impeachable offense."

3. Jay Sekulow should drop the fire and brimstone demeanor. It is really off-putting and I am on his side in this trial, because this impeachment is bunk. Mr. Sekulow, watch Patrick Philbin and learn something. President Trump should fire you after the impeachment is over.

4. Adam Schiff: "Let us give the country a trial they can be proud of."

Bwahahahahaha!!!!!!!

5. Jerry Nadler just made this mind-blowing asinine assertion [I am paraphrasing]: The motive to get re-elected is inherently and incontrovertibly corrupt. Once you can prove it, there is no need to look for any good motives at all.

6. Of course Jerry Nadler used 'bribery' instead of re-election, but when have Democrats proved bribery in this case? The fundamental conceit of Democrats' shoddy impeachment game is the conflation of their mind-reading of the President with evidence of wrongdoing.

7. Patrick Philbin: "Yes, this entire proceeding is now the fruit of the poisonous free. It is the fruit of a proceeding that was fatally deficient in due process from the start, and as a result it has produced a record that is totally unreliable."

8. Patrick Philbin has meticulously blown the impeachment inquiry to smithereens as "a partisan charade intended to justify a preordained result and to get it done by Christmas, producing a record that cannot be relied upon here."

9. House Manger Sylvia Garcia: You must uphold the second article of impeachment because if you don't, future presidents may also ignore Congressional subpoenas unless ruled by a court.

10. Is Sylvia Garcia Out of Her Mind?

She is asking the senators to remove a sitting president lest a future president also take a Constitutionally arguable case of 'separation of powers' or 'executive privilege' to court.

Is this what the House Managers have been reduced to?

11. At this point House Managers are just begging the allegations they have not proven and lecturing senators on the consequences of them not removing a sitting president on the say-so of Democrats alone.

This is sheer incompetence.

12. In retrospect, I am imagining how wonderfully informative and rigorous the senate trial would have been if they just had Adam Schiff and Patrick Philbin debate the case with no time limit, until Justice Roberts called it a day.

13. The only, I repeat the only, persuasive House Manager is Adam Schiff. Like I said yesterday, give the devil his due, Adam Schiff is persuasive.

Republican side has a couple of good ones, but none better than Patrick Philbin.

14. House Manager Jason Crow: Delay in aid to Ukraine matters regardless of how long. A 4 day delay, a 40 day delay, or a 400 day delay are equally important. Also, in previous years 3-4% of aid remained undisbursed. In 2019, it was 14%.

Wow! We must remove President Trump!

15. Adam Schiff: "When we have a president who demonstrates corruption of his office, who sacrifices the national interest for his personal interest, unlike other countries we have a remedy."

See how he begs facts not in evidence to come up with his own 'self-evident' remedy.

16. House Manager Hakeem Jeffries: Steele Dossier cannot be considered foreign interference in our election because it was not opposition research obtained, it was opposition research purchased.

This is the level of argumentation being presented in the Senate by the Democrats.

17. House Manager Zoe Lofgren: You in the Senate have the opportunity to do something we in the House didn't, and that is to call witnesses.

Bwahahahaha!!!!

Why the heck did you not have the opportunity? Oh, because you had to meet the Christmas deadline ... why exactly?

18. Adam Schiff is now presumptuously conscripting Justice Roberts into his own jihad, and is saying that there will be no delays if witnesses are called because all the constitutional disputes will be resolved on the spot by Justice Roberts. Roberts must be laughing inside.

19. Patrick Philbin just cleaned up Alan Dershowitz's mess by saying what Dershowitz said yesterday is being misrepresented. Dershowitz was talking about an abstract, academic, and hypothetical example. Instead, let us talk about the specific case at hand. ...

20. Patrick Philbin: Here are two huge problems with the House Managers' theory of the case:
a) "Theory of an abuse of power that involves no allegation of a crime whatsoever. Instead, a theory that you can take an action that on its face is objectively permisssible ...

21. ... under the powers of the president and determine it is impeachable and impermissible solely on an inquiry into subjective motives. That's what the House Judiciary Committee report says. That is a theory that is infinitely malleable. It provides no real standard at all."

22. Patrick Philbin continues with the 2nd point ...

b) "They set a standard for themselves that to establish bad motive, they have to prove that there is not a scintilla of evidence that would suggest any possible legitimate national interest in ...

23. ... inquiring into 2016 election or Biden/Burisma affair. They can't possibly meet that standard. It is overdetermined that there IS a legitimate policy interest in at least raising a question about those things."

This is sheer music!

24. If you want to know how insidiously deranged Sen. Elizabeth Warren is at her core, look no further than the question she raised during the senate impeachment trial. 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

https://twitter.com/HOLYSMKES/status/1223027469302685696?s=20

25. Adam Schiff is now going through all the reasons he wants President Trump removed. It's for the sake of civility, decency, protection of whistleblowers, and so on.

26. Sen. Murkowski just asked President's counsel why should Bolton not be called as a witness.

Patrick Philbin: The important question that senate has to consider is that the House could have called Bolton as a witness.

27. Philbin continues ...
The Senate should not allow itself to be handed a poorly supported impeachment case and then be asked to do the House's work by issuing subpoenas to compel new witnesses and continue the investigation that the House did not complete.

28. Philbin: It's a little bit rich for Manager Schiff to claim that the Republicans are going to deny them a witness, when it was Adam Schiff who denied the President any witnesses in the House investigation.

29. Philbin has repeatedly and forcefully made the point that Democrats' claim that Biden/Burisma improprieties have been 'debunked' is completely false. No one has ever looked into the matter. No one has investigated. No one has produced any report. None. Nada. Zilch.

30. Pat Cipollone: "What are we dealing with here. We are dealing with a purely partisan impeachment, with bipartisan opposition, no crime, no violation of law, in an election year. Never happened before. No investigation. No due process. Nothing!"

31. Pat Cipollone: "We are talking about removing a President of the United States from a ballot in an election that is occurring in months. Who thinks that's a good idea?"

32. Pat Cipollone: "So the only appropriate result that won't damage our country, horribly, maybe forever, and certainly for generations, is a verdict of acquittal."