Thread by @MarcACaputo

As Trump's 2nd impeachment trial starts, his legal team notably abandoned its Feb. 2 defense — that the former president of the United States is dumb

Otherwise, Trump's team would've admitted he asked GA's Secretary of State to commit election fraud

Tweet 1/10

2/10 Background: Trump was secretly recorded asking GA's SOS in Jan. to "find 11,780 votes...find 11,000-plus votes." He kept raising the false claim there were 100s of thousands of fraudulently cast absentee ballots

The problem with the task: it's impossible

Here's why...

3/10
When absentee ballots are received @ a county election office, they're in envelopes voters are supposed to sign. If signatures check out, BALLOTS ARE SEPARATED FOREVER FROM THE ENVELOPES

Thenceforth, it's impossible to "find" the ballot related to the envelope

4/10
Now most people don't know that absentee ballots are separated forever from envelopes after processing.

But the U.S. President should know this, especially after spending months complaining about the process.

There's no excuse for him not to know unless he's dumb

5/10
So in the game of dumb or evil, let's check out the evil side of this, namely why ballots are separated from envelopes. It helps ensure

1) a secret vote

2) that election officials don't retroactively "find" ballots of voters they oppose & cancel them

6/10 To be clear: Trump lawyer Bruce Castor clearly linked the word "find" (which Trump said repeatedly in relation to the additional votes he wanted) & the signature verification process in his Feb. 2 answer bit.ly/2YXzfRQ

7/10 In contrast to the initial answer Trump filed, his Feb. 8 memorandum (politi.co/3jvPcIq) was almost 6 times longer but omitted the innocent-because-he's-clueless defense

Seems someone got a clue

My colleagues noted the change in this story politi.co/3jFskGn

8/10
Though the legal team has abandoned Trump's dummy defense in GA (which is mentioned in the impeachment article against the president but isn't central to it), his spokesman is still spinning that the call was appropriate

Again, only if Trump's dumb

https://twitter.com/AllisonLHedges/status/1359138802741174272

9/10. Read the transcript of the Trump call in light of how the process works

Trump made an impossible ask in Jan, to "find" more votes. That would require:

1) canceling votes against Trump

2) inventing new votes for Trump

Dumb or evil?

wapo.st/36VslRe

10/10
All of this evidence at least leads to this question:

Since Trump's defense for exhorting fraud is that he's ignorant, and since GA investigations, recounts & court cases failed to validate his claims of widespread fraud, why should anyone believe he's trustworthy?