Seeing as how CNN’s existence can be boiled down to gaslighting Americans by deeming most everything President Trump and those not in the Resistance utter as conspiracy theories, perhaps CNN should look themselves in the mirror.
On Monday afternoon’s CNN Newsroom, host Brooke Baldwin entertained a wild conspiracy theory about not holding a Senate impeachment trial. She began by eagerly telling University of Texas professor Jeffrey Tulis:
Jeffrey, let me start with you because I know that you recently wrote that Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, in your words, in literal violation of the oath he will have to take at the start of the Senate trial, can you tell me why?
Tulis replied that the Senate temporarily ceases to exist under its normal rules during trials and thus attempting to, in his book, game the system early shows that the declarations by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “rank among the most contemptible by Senators in American political history.”
Again, without any serious pushback, Tulis added moments later that perhaps Senators should sequester themselves like those “in the past” who were “so much more honorable than the ones you’ve just played” to the point that Chief Justice John Roberts should condemn them.
This unserious segment by an unserious “journalist” continued with CNN darling, crazy John Dean, who suggested (as the farcical Bulwark did hours earlier) that because the Senate was unlikely to convict Trump, the House could refuse to allow Articles of Impeachment to be handed to the Senate (click “expand”):
BALDWIN: Mmm. Mmm. If we wait to see if that potentially happens come January. John Dean, you say the House shouldn't even send these articles to the Senate, that they should continue to investigate, because to quote you, the Senate is rigged. Can you explain that?
DEAN: We just heard it explained by the majority leader and the chairman of the House — or Senate Judiciary Committee. As the professor mentioned, there is a oath [sic] these men have to take, and women in the Senate and it's to be impartial and do justice. That isn't the high standard. That is to not prejudge until you hear the evidence. This is exactly the opposite of what is happening here. They're prejudging and they're going to say this President is not going to be impeached or he's not going to be re — found guilty and be removed....What happens is, after they vote on the articles of impeachment, then they — there are more articles they — or resolutions they vote on to send managers over to the Senate. Well, at that point, in digging through the rules, I can find nothing that would prohibit or stop Nancy Pelosi from saying, I'm not sending these Articles of Impeachment officer to a kangaroo court. I want a fair trial for the House and the American people....[I]t’s something I've been talking about for a couple weeks now, and I hear from more and more people, Lawrence Tribe, for example, last night tweeted, that if Schumer's very, very minimal conditions are not accepted, then the articles should not be sent over, so I think other people are realizing there is no reason they have to be sent over, and it only will be done in a fair forum, that's better. But if not, they're just going to make fools out of the House. They’re going to make fools out of the American people. The Senate may want to put a resolution out of exoneration and give him a prize for breaking the rules of his oath of office and violating the Constitution.
(....)
TULIS: The other solution is what's being called a constitutional caucus. It only takes three upstanding, responsible GOP senators to join with like-minded Democrats to actually structure a fair trial, whatever McConnell and others think. This is a new ballgame and it only takes 51 to set the rules.
Of course, Baldwin didn’t interrupt or suggest this was lunacy. Instead, she merely wondered if this would be “unrealistic.”
Hours earlier, New Day dropped their latest installment of “Reality Check,” which was a fact-checking segment masquerading as a CNN editorial and lecture from the disturbingly obnoxious and smug John Avlon.
Fill-in co-host Erica Hill teed Avlon up by opining that “there's a disturbing number at this point of senators talking about shrugging that responsibility off” of being unbiased jurors.
Avlon and Hill both conveniently left out the pre-determined biases of Democrats, particularly the 2020 candidates, because they have a boss like Jeffrey Zucker and a liberal audience to please (though colleague Jim Sciutto would footnote it in the 9:00 a.m. Eastern hour).
After a clip of the Senate trial oath, the pompous prick boasted: “So that's the special oath administered to Senators in an impeachment trial — impartial justice. What a concept. But leading Republican Senators are already admitting they intend to violate that oath.”
Avlon played the tired game of flashing GOP clips from the Clinton impeachment to argue they’re raging hypocrites (and, again, leaving out Democrats) and then went for the jugular (click “expand”):
AVLON: So, this time around, Republicans seem to have decided to dodge, weave, and evade the truth by taking the line the President did nothing wrong at all, which disregards testimony from Trump officials. Even if you think it's not impeachable, but just as facts should matter, oaths should mean something as well, and when Republican elected officials ignore them for partisan purposes, they define deviancy down in our democracy. Listen to what Senator Lindsey Graham told CNN’s Becky Anderson over the weekend.
GRAHAM: This will come to the senate and it will die quickly. And I will do everything I can to make it die quickly. [SCREEN WIPE] I am trying to give a clear signal I've made up my mind. [SCREEN WIPE] I'm not trying to pretend a fair juror here.
AVLON: You get that? “I’m not trending to pretend to be a fair juror” is, of course, the opposite of an oath to ensure impartial justice. It's also the opposite of what Congress Lindsey Graham said in 1998.
GRAHAM [on 11/20/98]: Members of the senate said I understand everything there is about the case and I won't vote to impeach the president. Please allow the facts to do the talking. [SCREEN WIPE] People have made up their mind in a political fashion that will hurt this country long term.
AVLON: Wise words. He should take his own advice. The divides today are not simply partisan though. They are along the lines of who wants to deal with the facts and don't buy the line that impeachment shouldn't be pursued because the country is divided with 50 percent supporting impeachment and removal because when Republicans pursued Clinton's impeachment, only 35 percent supported it and one month before Nixon resigned, only 46 percent said he should be impeached and removed. More than polls, principles and precedent do matter and the core question for Congress right now is this: Should presidents ask foreign powers to investigate their domestic political rivals? And somehow I doubt that if a Democratic president did that to a Republican, Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham would be cool with it. Now, they'd be scheming bloody murder and they'd be right.
The self-righteousness! It burns!
Avlon may have written a book called Wingnuts and previously led the group No Labels, but in actuality, Avlon’s proven to be a wingnut of the liberal variety.
To see the relevant CNN transcripts from December 16, click “expand.”
CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin
December 16, 2019
2:05 p.m. Eastern[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Presidency in Peril; Top GOP Senators Admit They Won’t Be Fair Jurors in Trump Trial]
BROOKE BALDWIN: Jeffrey, let me start with you because I know that you recently wrote that Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, in your words, in literal violation of the oath he will have to take at the start of the Senate trial, can you tell me why?
JEFFREY TULIS: Well, there’s a new oath that take — all senators have to take, including McConnell that the Constitution requires, that's different from the oath they take as senators and it’s very important because it indicates that the Senate operating trial is actually a different institution, it recomposes itself into an institution in which the senators are no longer the senators as they used to be, but are a kind of combination of judge and jurors. The other important thing about this, they're all equal. He's no longer majority leader, there's no president pro tem and so forth. We’re all equal. We're in a process now in which they’re trying to negotiate the parameters of what will happen after the Senate changes its character, but when it does, it's a very different institution, and in the previous two, and we've only had two instances in which impeachment has gone to the Senate for a trial, the senate has operated extremely well, extremely fairly, it's not doing it now, and the comments that you just played by Senator Lindsey Graham in particular, and McConnell rank among the most contemptible by Senators in American political history.
BALDWIN: Wow. Let me — to your point about a judge and juror, Senator Ted Cruz would push back on you, this is what he said.
SENATOR TED CRUZ (R-TX) [on ABC’s This Week, 12/15/19] : Senators are not required, like jurors in a criminal trial, to be sequestered, not to talk to anyone, not to coordinate. There's no prohibition.
BALDWIN: So just, you know, professor, back over to you. You know, what are your thoughts on it?
TULIS: Yeah, the — the — the Senate —
BALDWIN: What about Ted Cruz who says this is political and not criminal. Therefore, the rules don't apply.
TULIS: Well, he's absolutely right that the Senate is the locust of the trial, and the Senate has the sole power under the Constitution over the trial, so they actually set the rules and they can determine whether or not to sequester themselves. They've decided in the past because senators are so much more honorable than the ones you’ve just played. They didn't have to do that sort of thing. But if in fact they keep behaving this way, the chief justice is going to have a tough decision to make on whether he admonishes some of these senators.
BALDWIN: Mmm. Mmm. If we wait to see if that potentially happens come January. John Dean, you say the House shouldn't even send these articles to the Senate, that they should continue to investigate, because to quote you, the senate is rigged. Can you explain that?
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Presidency in Peril; John Dean: House Shouldn’t Send Impeachment to Senate If No Fair Trial]
JOHN DEAN: We just heard it explained by the majority leader and the chairman of the House — or Senate Judiciary Committee. As the professor mentioned, there is a oath [sic] these men have to take, and women in the Senate and it's to be impartial and do justice. That isn't the high standard. That is to not prejudge until you hear the evidence. This is exactly the opposite of what is happening here. They're prejudging and they're going to say this President is not going to be impeached or he's not going to be re — found guilty and be removed. So, I think there's a lot of leverage in the House with the speaker. What happens is, after they vote on the articles of impeachment, then they — there are more articles they — or resolutions they vote on to send managers over to the Senate. Well, at that point, in digging through the rules, I can find nothing that would prohibit or stop Nancy Pelosi from saying, I'm not sending these Articles of Impeachment officer to a kangaroo court. I want a fair trial for the House and the American people and I think she'd have a lot of pressure if she and she could have a say in this.
BALDWIN: Would Speaker Pelosi go for that? I mean, don't you think that would be unrealistic?
DEAN: Well, I — you know, I don't know if she would go for it or not. It's — it’s something I've been talking about for a couple weeks now, and I hear from more and more people, Lawrence Tribe, for example, last night tweeted, that if Schumer's very, very minimal conditions are not accepted, then the articles should not be sent over, so I think other people are realizing there is no reason they have to be sent over, and it only will be done in a fair forum, that's better. But if not, they're just going to make fools out of the House. They’re going to make fools out of the American people. The Senate may want to put a resolution out of exoneration and give him a prize for breaking the rules of his oath of office and violating the constitution.
BALDWIN: Well —
TULIS: Brooke, Brooke, there’s another solution to this.
BALDWIN: Yeah? Sure.
TULIS: The other solution is what's being called a constitutional caucus. It only takes three upstanding, responsible GOP senators to join with like-minded Democrats to actually structure a fair trial, whatever McConnell and others think. This is a new ballgame and it only takes 51 to set the rules.
BALDWIN: That’s right.
TULIS: And it could be done well and it could be done efficiently.
BALDWIN: That’s right. The number is 51, and, you know, Abby I want to hear your voice in all this, because, you know, Republicans are the majority party in the Senate. They can set trial rules without Democrats if they, Tim’s point, vote unanimously. Will Mitch McConnell — will Schumer — hang on just a second, let's listen to Chuck Schumer.
(....)
2:29 p.m. Eastern
DEAN: I think it's fair, and as I said all along, I think the leverage is if the House says, we're not going to send the articles over if this isn't a fair trial.
BALDWIN: Mmmhmm.
ABBY PHILLIP: Well, I do — can I just —
BALDWIN: Please, Abby go ahead.
ABBY PHILLIP: — comment on that? You know, I think it's an interesting idea, but I think it's one that a lot of Democrats on the House side have already essentially rejected. Partly because, you know, there were a group of moderates who reportedly were interested in censuring President Trump instead of voting out articles of impeachment and that idea was really slapped down by a lot of prominent Democrats who say, that's not our constitutional charge and if you think there's something wrong, we must send this to the Senate for a trial. So I think it would be difficult for Democrats to suddenly take that route because there's so much — you know, even though there are a couple dozen moderates or people who are on the margins of this, on the Democratic side, the caucus is still largely controlled by — by Democrats who are crystal clear about how they feel about impeachment and I do think it would be difficult for Pelosi to take that step, considering the evidence is so strong on the other side of this issue.
—
CNN’s New Day
December 16, 2019
7:17 a.m. EasternERICA HILL: There is a special oath senators take promising to be impartial during impeachment proceedings. And as it turns out, there's a disturbing number at this point of senators talking about shrugging that responsibility off. Perhaps maybe not taking it quite as seriously. CNN’s John Avalon now running down now who, but first, just a reminder. Take a listen to the oath.
SENATE TRIAL OATH: You will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws so help you god.
JOHN AVLON: So that's the special oath administered to Senators in an impeachment trial — impartial justice. What a concept. But leading Republican Senators are already admitting they intend to violate that oath.
SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY) [on FNC’s Hannity, 12/12/19]: Everything I do during this, I'm coordinating with white house counsel. There will be no difference between the president's position and our position oz to how to handle this.
AVLON: By comparison, here's what Republican leader Trent Lott said in 1998.
TRENT LOTT [on 12/17/98]: We are going to make sure it is bipartisan and impartial and that everybody is consulted including, you know, the White House if this goes forward as well as Democratic leader Tom Daschle.
AVLON: Hear the difference? And as a junior senator, Mitch McConnell also had a different take.
MCCONNELL [on 02/12/98]: Will we pursue the search for truth or dodge, weave, and evade the truth? [SCREEN WIPE] The president has engaged in a pattern of obstruction of justice.
AVLON: So, this time around, Republicans seem to have decided to dodge, weave, and evade the truth by taking the line the President did nothing wrong at all, which disregards testimony from Trump officials. Even if you think it's not impeachable, but just as facts should matter, oaths should mean something as well, and when Republican elected officials ignore them for partisan purposes, they define deviancy down in our democracy. Listen to what Senator Lindsey Graham told CNN’s Becky Anderson over the weekend.
SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): This will come to the senate and it will die quickly. And I will do everything I can to make it die quickly. [SCREEN WIPE] I am trying to give a clear signal I've made up my mind. [SCREEN WIPE] I'm not trying to pretend a fair juror here.
AVLON: You get that? “I’m not trending to pretend to be a fair juror” is, of course, the opposite of an oath to ensure impartial justice. It's also the opposite of what Congress Lindsey Graham said in 1998.
GRAHAM [on 11/20/98]: Members of the senate said I understand everything there is about the case and I won't vote to impeach the president. Please allow the facts to do the talking. [SCREEN WIPE] People have made up their mind in a political fashion that will hurt this country long term.
AVLON: Wise words. He should take his own advice. The divides today are not simply partisan though. They are along the lines of who wants to deal with the facts and don't buy the line that impeachment shouldn't be pursued because the country is divided with 50 percent supporting impeachment and removal because when Republicans pursued Clinton's impeachment, only 35 percent supported it and one month before Nixon resigned, only 46 percent said he should be impeached and removed. More than polls, principles and precedent do matter and the core question for Congress right now is this: Should presidents ask foreign powers to investigate their domestic political rivals? And somehow I doubt that if a Democratic president did that to a Republican, Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham would be cool with it. Now, they'd be scheming bloody murder and they'd be right. Here’s Lindsey Graham again.
GRAHAM [on 12/11/98]: Let me just say this. It would be a good test for us if a Republican president had done these things would a Republican delegation have told him to get out of town? I hope so. [SCREEN WIPE] Only time will tell.
AVLON: Well, now we know the answer. And that's your reality check.
JOHN BERMAN: So, which is a phenomenal reality check, John, but just to — but just to follow up here. A month before Nixon quit, it was less than 50 percent of Americans who were in favor of impeaching and removing and you will hear people running around saying that 50 percent mark right now is somehow low?
AVLON: That just doesn't pass the fact test. That’s not the reality.
BERMAN: Reality. John Avlon, thank you for that reality.
