Thread by @ShannonFreshour

People seem really confused about this impeachment vs last one.

There is almost nothing similar which is why there is significant differences in the House Managers.

Comparing them is not accurate.

A Thread about trials vs impeachment

The biggest difference isn't Dems in control of Senate which it's massively help

It's the DOJ/FBI returned to non-partisan only interested in justice and the rules of law.

This is incredibly critical to how the Mangers present their impeachment

The reason is Ollie North

In 1987, during Iran-Contra hearings Dems were so desperate for his testimony they gave him immunity for his testimony.

DOJ tried him for his crimes related to Iran-Contra and he was convicted. A federal judge overturned his convicted based on the Congressional immunity deal

Many House Dem leaders at the time because they believed it was the only way to find out what happened.

That isn't the case here.

If Senate grants immunity, DOJ can't go after them for their (potential) criminal liability.

The risk/reward doesn't make sense.

Keep in mind, trump can be tried for his liability in inciting and organizing the insurrection. DOJ can try and a former federal trial attorney and federal appellant court judge will be AG making the calls.

Bill Barr won't be sacrificing the rule of law for his nefarious ends

Managers tying DOJ's proverbial hands is silly when there is ample evidence to convict and send to prison and other penalties.

Now Managers bringing on witnesses without immunity grants face a few big problems:

A) any witnesses called without immunity will almost certainly invoke their 5th amendment right yo to self-incrimination. So limiting their actual testimony to almost nothing.

Now the idea of getting them on the record pleding the 5th is a popular fantasy. To what end?

That doesn't do anything but give them publicity

Them continually plead the 5th before criminal (and/or civil juries) can help a jury convict them

Now this is presuming that they even respond to a Managers' subpoena and show up.

If they don't, Managers must fight it in Court

That's months, if not years of litigation and no way to know the outcome.

This litigation issues comes into play as well. Any dream of getting a WH/West Wing staffer to testify is quixotic at best.

The trump team will object based on "executive privilege."

Now there are two separate privileges that make it up but that's a whole law school class on it's own.

The problem is the Courts will have to decide the validity of the claims. Again months of effort without assurances it will go Managers' way.

Yes, witnesses are almost always st trials.

They almost never have the issues this one does getting them.

They almost never have the a criminal trial after one trial because of double jeopardy protections

They almost never have this amount of evidence of the crime in progress.

They never have witnesses as jurors and jurors working with one side or the other

None of this is normal but it's almost not even the same as the last one.

The other massive difference is the evidence, the quantity & more importantly the quality

In 1st one, there was a readout of a call, there was a whistleblowing hero, but there was an enormous amount of wiggle room and witnesses and docs were absolutely necessary to make the case

That's why the defense and gop at large, fight was to stop getting them at all costs. It worked.

Here, witnesses are the jurors, and the witnesses are the cameras on people's phones and the videos posted on social media.

It's better than live person witnesses

Video & audio don't lie on the stand,

It don't plead the 5th

It doesn't claim executive privilege (Thanks Nixon)

It doesn't hurt potential future criminal prosecutions

It is almost aprox 1000,000,000 more effective in swaying a jury than a live witness (in my experience)

(My experience includes well over 100 jury trials, some with a lot of video, some with none)

There are two full juries: the Senate and the public.

The public's extreme outrage is the only possible way GOP Senators stop protecting trump.

Video and audio will motivate them

Most won't have seen most of the videos or the trial but the clips will circulate online and on the news.

There's no parsing or legalese, there's just full color, birds eye views of what the hell trump caused and how

It is a layered approach to stop trump.

It is the best strategy to get rid of him given all the circumstances and probably move criminal cases forward too

*please forgive grammar and typos

There is done spectacularly bad grammar and typos here. Very very sorry