Trial of the Century by Lord Serious

THE TRIAL OF THE CENTURY

By: Lord Serious

Today the Senate will read two Articles of Impeachment on the Senate floor against the 45th President Donald John Trump. Chief Justice of the U.S Supreme Court John Roberts will be sworn in as the presiding judge and the Senators will be sworn in as the jury. For all intents and purposes this is a trial!

The only difference is, the fix is in on this one. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, has already admitted that he is coordinating with the White House to quickly get this matter over with. McConnell doesn't want any evidence or witnesses to be presented.

Now many Republicans blame the Democrats in the House for rushing through the proceedings. And they insist that if the Democrats wanted additional witnesses then they should have called them to testify during the impeachment inquiry proceedings in the House of Representatives.

Now on its face this argument seems to hold some merit. Mitch McConnell and other Republican Senators are correct that House Democrats did have the authority to subpoena witnesses. And let's even assume that the White House would not have tried to bar their testimony as privileged should they had attempted to subpoena John Bolton, and Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Pranas.

The question now becomes should their testimony be permitted during the impeachment trial before the Senate? Yes, both John Bolton, Lev Parnas, and any other relevant witness or evidence should be presented regardless if it's exculpatory (proves Trump's innocence), or if it's inculpatory (supports Trump's guilt).

Trump's impeachment marks only the third time that a sitting president has been impeached. Therefore, the Republicans in the Senate will argue that there is no historical precedent to support allowing new witnesses to testify during the impeachment trial phase. Well there's no precedent that prohibits it either. But I am not relying on that fact alone to support my rationale. There is a much stronger argument to be made, and here it is:

The impeachment proceedings are comparable to the proceedings of a criminal trial. Before the accused can be brought before Judge and jury to answer for the charges and present a defense, there must first be a presentment of the facts before a body to determine if the threshold of probable cause has been met. In the criminal proceedings this body is called the Grand Jury. During an impeachment inquiry, the House of Representatives is tasked with performing this same function.

The impeachment inquiry is the phase where this body must examine all of the evidence presented to determine if enough probable cause exist to charge/impeach the accused. However, in a criminal proceeding the prosecution is not required to present all of their witnesses or evidence at this juncture. The only requirement is to present a sufficient enough case to show that a strong probability exist that the accused committed the acts. To accomplish this the prosecution may use whatever witnesses and evidence they deem necessary.

The trial phase of the impeachment proceedings is comparable to the trial phase of criminal proceedings. In both there is a judge presiding over the matter and a jury to be the trier of fact.

Because so many similarities exists between criminal trials and impeachment, we can deduce that the framers of the constitution did not want to prohibit new evidence from being presented at the trial phase of an impeachment.

Like I said the House inquiry, similar to Grand Jury proceedings is just a threshold test. A criminal prosecutor is not barred from presenting new evidence or witnesses, simply because they did not want to expose their hand in threshold proceedings. Likewise, the Democrats should not be barred from calling John Bolton, Lev Parnas, or any other relevant witness from testifying before the Senate.

If a criminal defendant was caught coordinating with a member of his jury, the judge would either strike that jury from serving or in the alternative declare as mistrial.

It is clear that Mitch McConnell is not an impartial juror. Yet, not only will he remain on the jury, he will also make the rules for the trial. If Senators want us to believe that they are really putting the U.S. first and not just their political party then they will take heed to the wisdom of these words.

The impeachment trial of President Trump will be remembered as the trial of the century and the world is watching.

Written by Lord Serious, author of Apotheosis: Lord Serious Hakim Allah's Habeas Corpus Appeal

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