Conrad Black:
“…As far as can be determined, the question of whether the Senate should conduct a trial or dismiss the spurious articles of impeachment as unworthy of trial by vote of the majority, is being addressed as a matter of President Trump’s political convenience.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is doubtless sincere and may be accurate in saying that the acquittal that is almost certain to result from a trial will clear the president more convincingly than the Republican majority determining at the outset that the charges are frivolous and vexatious harassment and simply should be rejected.
It is clear from the utterances of the authors of the malicious idiocy that has got impeachment to the Senate, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.J.), that the Democratic line will be they caught the president in wrongful acts but the trained Republican seals in the Senate voted with their partisan prejudices rather than their judicious and independent judgment.
Under the circumstances, then, it is better to go ahead with a trial. If the Senate majority’s wish is for witnesses, the president can invoke executive privilege in some cases, but the confection of the false whistleblowing and its apparent guidance by Schiff and his staff should also be exposed.
Since the legal case is nonsense and the outcome foreordained, it is only a public relations battle now. The farther the administration is seen to enable an airing of the facts, the better and more electorally valuable will be the result. The Democrats created this trap for themselves; they should be allowed to take the consequences when that trap snaps closed on them…”