Thread by @MontyBoa99

Can we *please* have a Speaker of the House who can speak?

Pelosi is incredibly inept at being clear, cogent, crisp, and sharing the limelight.

Everything she said could have been communicated in about 6 sentences.

1/

a. McConnell used subterfuge to create an unnecessary delay.

b. He claimed his own subterfuge justified acquittal; it did not. At most, it justified a dissenting Senator's *not participating*. Acquittal *only* means the defendant is not guilty.

2/

c. The 43 GOP Senators objected on the grounds of jurisdiction *before* the trial, fabricating a technicality as an out.

The prosecution showed 2 precedents. 244 scholars mocked the claim.

d. The Senate held a vote upholding jurisdiction.

3/

e. In bad faith, having failed to establish the legality of their claim that impeaching a former official is unconstitutional, and having taken an oath to be bound by their own votes and the law, and having voted on it, 43 GOP Senators recanted the vote, breaching their oath.

4/

If McConnell had been forced to retreat from using a 'time limitation' argument to undermine the prosecution, he would have created another subterfuge, just as he did when switching from the "last year of president's term" limit to block Garland to ignoring it to seat Barrett.
5/

Trump wasn't "acquitted on a technicality"; the technicality was fabricated as a subterfuge.

When that subterfuge was refuted, the GOP just ignored reason, facts & votes and adhered to it anyway.

That's bad-faith dealing, and in a parliamentary body, it is a republic-killer.
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