“You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.” – Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
The conservative media entertainment complex aka the Republican propaganda machine has been trying to turn this adage on its head for decades.
In a famous exchange between a George W. Bush administration official and journalist Ron Susskind, the official – later acknowledged to have been Karl Rove – took the journalist to task for working in “the reality-based community.” He defined that as believing “that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” Rove then asserted that this was no longer the way in which the world worked.
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
(Ron Suskind, Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush, NYTimes Magazine, Oct. 17, 2004).
Years later, White House Counselor to President Donald Trump, Kellyanne Conway, during a Meet the Press interview on January 22, 2017, defended White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s false statement about the attendance numbers of Donald Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States. When pressed during the interview with Chuck Todd to explain why Spicer would “utter a provable falsehood”, Conway stated that Spicer was giving “alternative facts.” Todd responded, “Look, alternative facts are not facts. They’re falsehoods.” How Kellyanne Conway ushered in the era of ‘alternative facts’.
Dana Milbank writes at the Washington Post, Trump’s lawyers are absolutely entitled to their own facts:
For three days, impeachment managers presented the facts to the Senate. On Saturday, the president’s lawyers presented the alternative facts.
As outlined in two hours on the Senate floor, theirs is a world in which Ukraine interfered in the U.S. election in 2016; where the FBI and intelligence community are disreputable; where the United States, not Europe, gives Ukraine the bulk of its foreign aid; where there was no quid pro quo with Ukraine and where a “transcript” of President Trump’s call conclusively proves it; where the halt of military aid to Ukraine was routine, and where Ukrainian officials didn’t even know about it; where the president was barred from impeachment proceedings; and where Robert Mueller totally vindicated Trump.
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“You’ve heard you’re not going to hear facts from the president’s lawyers,” White House Counsel Pat Cipollone said. “That’s all we’ve done.”
This was true — only if you subscribe to Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts” theory of epistemology.
Alternative Fact: “President [Volodymyr] Zelensky and high-ranking Ukrainian officials did not even know — did not even know — the security assistance was paused until the end of August, over a month after the July 25 call.”
Actual Fact: Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Laura Cooper testified that the Ukrainians were inquiring about the status of the security assistance on July 25.
Alternative Fact: “They kept telling you it was Russia alone that interfered in the 2016 election, but there is evidence that Ukraine also interfered.”
Actual Fact: “We have no information that indicates that Ukraine interfered,” said Trump’s FBI director, Christopher Wray.
Alternative Fact: The administration fought subpoenas because “the subpoenas were not authorized because there were no votes” to start an impeachment inquiry.
Actual Fact: The administration fought the subpoenas even after the formal vote to open the impeachment inquiry.
Alternative Fact: “The transcript shows that the president did not condition either security assistance or a meeting on anything.”
Actual Fact: The “transcript” is not an actual transcript but a partial reconstruction of the call by the White House. It includes the Trump phrase “do us a favor though” immediately following the Ukrainian president’s mention of military help and immediately before Trump’s request for investigations.
Alternative Fact: “They design[ed] a mechanism here where the president was locked out and denied the ability to cross-examine witnesses” in the House impeachment.
Actual Fact: Cipollone declined an invitation to participate in the House impeachment hearings before the Judiciary Committee.
Alternative Fact: “The Democrats’ allegation that the president engaged in a quid pro quo is unfounded.”
Actual Fact: Told that what he was describing was a quid pro quo, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said at a news conference: “We do that all the time.”
[Politifact: There was a quid pro quo, Ambassador Gordon Sondland says in testimony for Trump.]
Alternative Fact: “The Mueller Report … after $32 million and roughly 500 search warrants, determined that there was no collusion.”
Actual Fact: “We did not address ‘collusion,’ which is not a legal term,” Mueller testified.
In the “epistemic closure” of the alternative-factual alternative-reality world in which Republicans now reside, this was a triumphant performance of defending their “Dear Leader” who has made 16,241 false or misleading claims in his first three years. Hey, “one man’s lie is another man’s truth,” it’s all a matter of opinion. There are no “known knowns” or “things we know we know,” to paraphrase George W. Bush’s secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld.
The reality-based community, however, where facts still matter, begged to differ.
The Washington Post’s team of reporters conclude “[I]n arguing that the case for Trump’s removal was partisan and misleading, lawyers for the president omitted facts, presented claims that lacked context or minimized evidence gathered by House investigators. Their most sweeping arguments did not specifically defend Trump but instead framed impeachment as no more than a politically motivated effort to remove him from the ballot in November.”
Buzzfeed News’s team of reports similarly conclude Trump’s Impeachment Lawyers Argued Democrats Ignored Evidence. Then They Went Ahead And Ignored Evidence..
Dan Friedman at Mother Jones reports that President Donald Trump’s Legal Team Opened Their Impeachment Defense With a Blizzard of Lies. His associate at Mother Jones, Ben Dreyfuss, astutely noticed that The Trump Legal Team’s Entire Defense Is Just Recycled Fox News Talking Points.
Li Zhou at Vox noted that Trump’s defense counsel attempted to cast doubt on facts of impeachment case but inadvertently helped Democrats make the case for calling new witnesses:
As part of their opening arguments, the defense team said that many witnesses Democrats brought in to testify in the House impeachment inquiry were unable to provide firsthand information about the hold on Ukraine aid and the political investigations demanded by Trump.
“Most of the Democrats’ witnesses have never spoken to the president at all, let alone about Ukraine security assistance,” Purpura said.
One key reason for this is that several witnesses with more direct knowledge about these developments, including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, did not respond to House subpoenas. These witnesses could still testify in front of the Senate if lawmakers vote in favor of it. By drawing attention to the role that these witnesses could play, Trump’s counsel suggested that there are unheard from officials who could, in fact, offer more information about the charges levied against the president.
Democrats emphasized this point after trial proceedings concluded for the day.
“They made a really compelling case for why the Senate should call witnesses and documents,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters. “They kept saying there are no eyewitness accounts, but there are people who have eyewitness accounts.”
Paul McLeod at Buzzfeed News similarly reports, Democrats Say Trump’s Lawyers Just Made A Great Case — For Calling Witnesses and Documents:
Leaving the trial, several Democratic senators said the obvious way to solve this dispute is to subpoena new witnesses and documents.
“The thing that most irks me, I mean really irks me, is that we’re having this conversation when there are literally people who could confirm directly — like [Trump’s acting chief of staff] Mick Mulvaney or [former national security adviser John] Bolton — they could confirm so much of this one way or the other,” said Sen. Cory Booker.
White House lawyers have opposed issuing new subpoenas. But Sen. Tim Kaine noted that one of their main objections to the impeachment process was that Trump’s lawyers were not allowed to cross-examine witnesses during their initial, closed-door depositions.
“They’re going to stand there and tell us cross-examination is the greatest engine for discovery of truth, but oh by the way we don’t want you to cross-examine witnesses,” said Kaine. “They made the case this morning for why documents and witnesses are absolutely necessary to resolve this.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a lawyer, said trials have shown the best way to resolve factual disputes between two legal teams is to call in witnesses and lawyers.
This was just the response to alternative facts. Paul Rosenberg at Salon addresses the alternative reality legal arguments. So much for “originalism”: Trump’s impeachment defense is a constitutional Dumpster fire:
In the absence of any exculpatory evidence, Donald Trump’s defense against impeachment increasingly relies on arguments that fly directly in the face of the Constitution. Trump himself set the standard last July with his grandiose claim that “Article II says I can do anything I want,” which encountered no serious pushback from his fellow Republicans.
Less blatant absurdities are Trump’s arguments of choice now, as the Senate trial unfolds — but built on a similar hostility to the constitutional order based on separation of powers and the rule of law. Whether it’s disputing the House’s “sole Power of Impeachment” (Article I, Section 2, Clause 5), the Senate’s “sole Power to try all Impeachments” (Article I, Section 3, Clause 6) or the well-settled meaning of “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” (Article II, Section 4), the absurdity of Trump’s constitutional defenses is no less than that of his superficial claim to care about corruption.
One little-noticed fact is that this hostility toward what the Constitution actually says is diametrically opposed to the pretense of “originalism,” which is the rallying cry of conservative judicial activism, and to a large extent the glue that holds today’s GOP together. Amid all the chaos, it’s easy to miss how profoundly self-contradictory the Republican legal establishment has become.
And this is even before we get to the Jeffrey Epstein legal defense team of Ken Starr and the disreputable Alan Dershowitz, hired by the serial sexual predator Mr. Pussy Grabber, to argue that “when you’re a celebrity they let you do whatever you want,” “you can get away with it.” (“I have an Article 2, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president“). Trump’s other celebrity-attorney defender at Fox News, Jonathan Turley, disagrees with this this nonsense argument.
“It’s a theme that has been replayed throughout Trump’s life: The lawyers he brings in to authorize and defend his behavior end up in their own legal morass.” Trump’s lawyers are also on trial:
Even before opening arguments, House Democrats warned White House counsel Pat Cipollone that they have evidence showing he’s a material witness in their impeachment case and that he should consider removing himself from the president’s defense team for ethical reasons or risk “seriously damaging the fairness of the trial.”
Impeachment Trial and Legal Ethics: Cipollone Should Be a Witness, Not a Trump Lawyer: A legal ethics rule – the “advocate-witness rule” — says that when a lawyer should be a witness at trial, he cannot also be an advocate in the courtroom.
Trump attorney Jay Sekulow had described Saturday’s short opening presentation as just a “trailer” of coming attractions for next week. This does not bode well for American justice.
What really pisses me off the most is watching the “potted plant,” Chief Justice John Roberts, just sit there in silence while he allows Trump’s attorneys to assert transparently false “facts” and make extreme legal arguments entirely unsupported at law. Lawyers are subject to disciplinary action for such unprofessional and unethical behavior. In a court of law, a judge would sanction them.
Justice Roberts is destroying what little credibility he has left as an impartial justice. “Balls and strikes” my ass! This partisan umpire is blind.