Trump’s Trial Reveals a Weak Presidency
The former president accomplished little while in office. Perhaps that’s because he didn’t understand the job.
Little that will last.
Photographer: Andrew Caballero/AFP
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The trial brief submitted by Donald Trump’s lawyers on Tuesday leans heavily on the claim that a former president, having been impeached, is no longer subject to a Senate trial. That’s not a particularly strong argument, but it is a legitimate one with some scholarly support, and in practical terms it’s clearly the best they have — given that 45 Republican senators have already indicated that they’re inclined to buy it and clearly would rather talk about such constitutional provisions than about what Trump did in the final 10 weeks of his presidency.
What I found more interesting in the brief was an argument that, if we attribute it to Trump (and not just to lawyers throwing anything they have at the wall and hoping it sticks), helps underline exactly why he was such a bad president. What’s fascinating here is a “free speech” claim: that Trump’s various attempts to subvert the election were protected by his First Amendment rights, and therefore not subject to legitimate impeachment.
Jonathan Adler knocked this argument down last month: