Legal Analysis: House Managers' Faulty "Evidence" in 1st 2 Days of Senate Trial

It is day two of the second impeachment trial, and the Left is attacking all conservatives.



Today on Sekulow, we discussed the unconstitutional Senate impeachment trial. Yesterday, fifty-six senators voted that the trial was constitutional and that it would continue. Yet the fact remains that this impeachment trial is political theater, meant to tarnish any and all of President Trump’s supporters.


As we were on the air, the House Impeachment Managers were making their presentation. They have up to eight hours today and eight hours tomorrow, if they choose to use all of their time. They have indicated that they might not, as have President Trump’s impeachment attorneys. That means that we could see a vote on acquittal as soon as Saturday or Sunday.



I called it an acquittal vote, because the key vote yesterday on constitutional jurisdiction only netted fifty-six votes, which assuming that holds, means President Trump will be acquitted. We knew that the votes needed to prevent this sham trial from going forward were just not going to be there, but that vote still made it a virtual certainty that President Trump will be acquitted.



The big question going into this trial was, would there be any major shift from a similar vote several weeks ago? In that initial vote, forty-five Republican Senators voted that an impeachment trial of a former President was unconstitutional. Only one Senator, Senator Bill Cassidy (LA), changed their nay vote to a yea, making it a total of six Republicans that sided with the Democrats, voting that it was constitutional to proceed.

The other Republican Senators who had previously voted with the Democrats and also voted with them yesterday were: Senators Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, Pat Toomey, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski.



ACLJ Director of Government Affairs Thann Bennett gave his analysis of where the trial currently is when he said:

"We’re now past that threshold question, so the trial is going to proceed. I really do think that fifty-six number, I really think that’s a ceiling now, because in the midst of the trial if you said the Senate does not have jurisdiction, I don’t think there’s any way you can vote to convict. Democrats needed seventeen Republicans to come along with them. To me, it looks like the maximum they have would be six, eleven short of conviction. I think acquittal now, is virtually an ironclad certainty."

Whatever you want to say about the legal arguments yesterday and which side did better or worse, at the end of the day all that matters is only one vote shifted. There is still a very large gulf between the votes they acquired yesterday and the votes they need to convict.



The full broadcast is complete with much more discussion by our team of the first day of the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump as well as some live analysis of day two.