Talking impeachment with Joy Reid, Laurence Tribe urges Democrats to turn Donald Trump into "the O.J. Simpson of presidents" if Sen. Mitch McConnell refuses to conduct a full and fair impeachment trial in the Senate.
December 14, 2019

Appearing on AM Joy this morning, Laurence Tribe discussed McConnell’s admission he’s planning a sham impeachment trial in the Senate. But despite being in the minority, Democrats can and should go on offense, Tribe advised.

First, Tribe dismissed as now unrealistic his own and other suggestions that Democrats sit on their articles of impeachment rather than sending them to the Senate for a bogus proceeding.

His latest suggestion seems better, regardless, and that is for Democrats to demand the documents and witnesses the White House blocked from the House impeachment inquiry. He painted that as a win-win for Democrats who would likely only need four Republican votes to make a majority:

TRIBE: 51 votes can basically do anything in the Senate in this process. It's not completely up to McConnell, although he acts as though he is the ruler-in-chief of the Senate. So, it is possible to put pressure on him to have a real trial and I think there’d be a lot of public support for that.

They will then threaten, “Oh, if you do that, we will call Hunter Biden, we will out the whistleblower.” I think those are empty threats. I don't think the nation would stand for that kind of circus.

So I do think the Democrats should press hard to make this a real trial and remember, if it isn't, then I think what you said earlier, making this president the O.J. Simpson of presidents, would be his fate. That is, he would have not only a red asterisk next to his name but he would become the first president who was impeached in his first term who fundamentally was not really acquitted but just given a pass in the Senate, and he would then go down in history in the ignominious way that his misconduct deserves.

I think that would have effect for the future. It would make it less likely that future presidents would be as outrageously lawless as this one has been.

Reid added that Trump should remember a court eventually got Simpson and that there are other jurisdictions investigating Trump already.

Let’s hope the Democrats are listening.

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