As The Impeachment Trial Begins, Democrats Are Losing Their Minds

The Federalist

Having realized their impeachment gambit is failing, Democrats have resorted to accusing Sen. Mitch McConnell of a coverup and calling the trial 'rigged.'

"On Monday, as senators and House impeachment managers prepared for the opening of President Trump’s impeachment trial Tuesday, Democrats and their courtiers in the mainstream press decided to ratchet up the their rhetoric to the point of delusional hysteria.

"The House managers—led by Reps. Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler—issued a statement that essentially accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of a coverup, saying his proposed rules for the trial are “rigged,” nothing more than an “effort to prevent the full truth of the President’s misconduct from coming to light.”

"That wasn’t all. Schiff and the impeachment managers also called on Trump’s lead impeachment lawyer, Pat A. Cipollone, to disclose what he knows about the president’s alleged behavior underlying the two articles of impeachment, saying Cipollone is a “material fact witness,” and that, “The ethical rules generally preclude a lawyer from acting as an advocate at a trial in which he is likely also a necessary witness.”

"Funny they should mention that. As my colleague Mollie Hemingway pointed out on Twitter, Schiff is himself a material fact witness to this entire impeachment imbroglio, beginning with his office’s coordination with the whistleblower.

"As for McConnell’s rules being some kind of coverup, compare them to the House impeachment inquiry, which turned up no evidence of a crime despite Schiff stacking the deck in Democrats’ favor by not allowing GOP members to call witnesses or ask substantive questions.

"By those standards, McConnell’s proposed rules are generous to Democrats, stipulating a four-day calendar in which each side gets two days, 12 hours per day, just for opening statements. After that, senators would have 16 hours for written questions for the prosecution and defense, then four hours of debate—all to adjudicate a purely partisan impeachment probe that after months failed to persuade even one GOP member of the House that Trump had committed an impeachable offence." . . .