Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, and Jay Sekulow, Trump’s personal attorney, plan to use their time in the trial to target the former vice president and his son, Hunter, according to multiple GOP officials familiar with the strategy.
They won’t bother trying to rebut the case the Managers made against Trump. The outcome of this farce is foregone so demonstrating reasonable doubt, etc, won’t change anything. It’s just a waste of time. Even worse, it would miss a splendid opportunity.
The purpose is to so damage Biden that he will not get nominated. And if he is nominated, there will be so much garbage about him out there — total garbage, but garbage with the imprimatur of a Senate trial — that people who haven’t been playing close attention (the vast majority of voters) will think he’s just as corrupt as Trump.
And the press — still in thrall to an ancient theory of objective reporting with the fatal flaw that it depends upon relatively good faith and honesty by its subjects — will mindlessly repeat all their garbage, in breathless headlines and made-for-tv soundbites. There will be peremptory fact-checking, of course, and long-winded nuanced attempts to clarify the half-truths mixed in with the lies — which no one will listen to or read.
But by simply repeating the Trumpists’ lies, misrepresentations, and distortions, the damage will be done.