Yeah, and if only there had been videotape from that day of O.J. telling someone he did it . . .
Everyone's entitled to their fantasies, I suppose. Ben Ginsberg, a Republican election lawyer, fierce Trump critic, and CNN legal analyst, has his: a witness who would testify at the Senate impeachment trial that President Trump told him to storm the Capitol.
Ginsberg twice shared his fantasy on CNN's New Day this morning. Asked whether he would call witnesses if he were a Democrat impeachment prosecutor, Ginsberg said his dream witness:
"Would be someone who could testify that Donald Trump actually told them to go break into the Capitol or was part of that planning . . . someone who said, yeah, we talked to Donald Trump or we talked to somebody involved in his campaign or the White House, and they told us if things didn't go right, we had to storm the building."
Well, yes, if you want to convict President Trump, such a witness would certainly be handy. But to date, there's no evidence—not the merest hint of a hint—that such a witness exists. So how appropriate was it for Ginsberg to float such a notion?
CNN wouldn't go there if a Clinton critic said "an ideal witness would be one that said Bill Clinton told them he raped several women." That witness didn't ever surface, and just imagining it sounds like a smear. It sounds like their rampant Russian collusion imagination all over again.
And isn't Ginsberg tacitly admitting that without such a witness, the case against Trump is lacking? Yes, Trump might have made intemperate remarks at the rally prior to the Capitol breach. But he also expressed his expectation to the crowd that, when heading to the Capitol, they would act "peacefully and patriotically."
If we're going to hold Trump responsible not for things he said or did, but for how others decided to act after hearing him, we're headed down a slippery slope. Do Dems want to be held liable for the things supporters did after hearing their many fiery statements?
And CNN displays its unending bias by inviting on a Republican legal "analyst" not to advise Trump's defenders, but to suggest how Trump's Democrat prosecutors could best make their case. Ginsberg is a Bush Republican, having served on W's 2000 and 2004 campaigns.
Anti-Trump Republican and CNN analyst Ben Ginsberg fantasizing about a witness who would say President Trump told him to storm the Capitol was sponsored in part by Carvana, Land Rover, New Day USA, Google, Expedia, and Nutrisystem.
Here's the transcript.
CNN
New Day
2/8/21
6:05 am ETALISYN CAMEROTA: Ben, if you were prosecuting this case, would you call witnesses?
BEN GINSBERG: I think I would call witnesses only in two instances. The first would be someone who could testify that Donald Trump actually told them to go break into the Capitol, or was part of that planning, and knew far more about the actual plans to break in that have come out so far. And number two, if I had a witness who was with Donald Trump on the afternoon of January 6th, who actually had his state of mind, saw his reactions to the rioting, knows what he did when the request for additional aid came in and he delayed it a great deal. I mean, I those would be the witnesses that I would want. Everything else, I think you can probably capture on video.
. . .
CAMEROTA: Here's a full screen of two people who were there who said they, beforehand, why they were going to be here. Here's one from Kenneth Grayson, who's been charged: "I'm there for the greatest celebration of all time, after Pence leads the Senate flip, or I'm there if Trump tells us to storm the f'in Capitol. Ima do that then." Okay, and here's Jessica Marie Watkins who says beforehand: "Trump wants all able-bodied Patriots to come. If Trump activates the Insurrection Act, I'd hate to miss it." So she's sending out a message via email to people she knows saying we need to go, because Trump wants us there. So, would you submit those things into the record?
GINSBERG: Well, I would certainly submit them into the record. I would even be more interested if the FBI in the course of its investigation has arrested someone who said, yeah, we talked to Donald Trump or we talked to somebody involved in his campaign or at the White House, and they told us if things didn't go right, we had to storm the building. That's the sort of direct, live, witness evidence that would actually change the minds of some of the Republican senators.
