Category: Political Analysis

President Trump Emphasizes Reopening the U.S.

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As a nation we are all sacrificing to achieve a victory over the invisible enemy. However, we have another threat to with which to deal that involves an essential part of the American fabric, gainful employment.

President Donald Trump touched upon our need for honest and productive work in a recent briefing when he spoke about the importance of restarting the U.S. economic engine.

“Let me be extremely clear about one point. We will move Heaven and Earth to safeguard our great American citizens,” the president said. “We will continue to use every power, every authority, every single resource we’ve got to keep our people healthy, safe, secure and to get this thing over with.”

“We want to finish this war. We have to get back to work.”

This is a message we have heard from the president before. Rightly so because a shut down nation is not only unsustainable but actually poses a clear and present danger to all of us. The reality is that financial health has a great deal to do with the physical and psychological well being of the nation. For those who understand the risks economic damage is posing via a self induced-economic sleep, especially President Trump, the objective of getting the economy up and running as soon as possible is paramount.

The president indicated he had hoped to open up businesses by Easter, April 12, but he made an adjustment to the original time frame, extending our national social distancing effort to the end of April on the advice of his task force members.

President Trump also said he’s “thinking about” forming a panel to examine how best to restart the country’s economy, which he called a “good idea.”

“I’m thinking about it,” President Trump said at a White House Press briefing. “I continue to say, the cure cannot be worse than the problem itself.”

The president tweeted an endorsement of a such a plan offered by Dana Perino, former press secretary to President George W. Bush, and now a commentator on Fox News, among other public figures.

She had suggested putting together a group of experts well suited to advise the president about dealing with the economic ramifications resulting from the economic shutdown created by the coronavirus pandemic.

Perino said this group would complement the team led by Vice President Mike Pence, “Let 1st task force focus on crisis at the moment,” Perino tweeted.

Reopening the businesses of the country would be the focus of such a task force. As the president has emphasized the shutdown of our enterprises goes against our nature. “The U.S. economy wasn’t meant to be closed as it is…We’re not going to have separation for the rest of our time on the planet,” he said.

President Trump hinted only a couple of weeks ago that he was thinking about balancing public-health restrictions with economic concerns.

“WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF,” he tweeted and was predictably attacked by the media and craven politicians for the idea.

It is clear that the cure has already cost millions of Americans their jobs. The leisure and hospitality sectors have been decimated.

The fact is that we can plan for our nation to go back to work and we can do it while simultaneously protecting those most likely to harmed by exposure to coronavirus infection, those immunologically compromised, those with chronic diseases, and the elderly.

Younger people without complicating medical conditions who have recovered from the virus and have demonstrable immunity could be allowed to return to work.

At an appropriate time, we also can reopen businesses with social distancing limitations and restart a significant part of our economic engine.

Retailers that have been allowed to operate because they sell groceries have already shown the way by establishing new procedures to sanitize shelves and shopping carts, and regulate the number of shoppers present in the store aisles.

A host of retail uses such as clothing, furniture, and jewelry, etc. should be allowed to innovate and reopen following the same kinds of safeguards that grocery and drug chains have implemented. If Walmart, Target, and CVS can be open during a pandemic so can a long list of other retail chains and small shops.

Two sectors that employ even more people in the nation than leisure and hospitality are manufacturing and construction.

Workers in these sectors do not normally interface with the general public and could be allowed to start again with safe operating practices and with workers practicing social distancing.

Getting factories and construction sites back online would bring back needed jobs and move the country further along the road toward a total economic restart.

Seeing these sectors open up again would remove some of the uncertainty, instill hope, and allow a significant number of Americans to engage in gainful employment, the productive pastime our people love.

How Trump’s Impeachment Record Can Be Wiped Clean

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An idea has been floated by Republican leaders to pass a resolution that would fundamentally alter the impeachment record of President Donald Trump.

The means that would be used to bring about the auspicious outcome is a legislative approach commonly known as expungement. When finalized, the “impeached” label would be amended in the record books, as would the “forever” characterization attached to it by the House Speaker.

More than merely a sound idea, expungement is a necessary one because of the fatally flawed process that the House of Representatives used to pursue the impeachment of the president in the first place.

The impeachment inquiry began without a vote. The hearings featured secret witness “auditions.” The evidence produced was largely inadmissible hearsay and opinion. And rules that were imposed during the process prevented the accused from mounting a defense.

The above mentioned, as well as other defects in due process, make it imperative for the GOP to re-take the House of Representatives and for the new leaders to expunge the impeachment of the president, which will thereby restore integrity to the record.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is on record as being in support of this concept.

“This is the fastest, weakest, most political impeachment in history,” McCarthy told the New York Post. “I don’t think it should stay on the books.”

In addition to McCarthy, influential GOP members of the House, including Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.), Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), Rep Lee Zeldin, (R-N.Y.), and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.), have all voiced approval of the idea.

So has President Trump. When asked by a reporter whether he believed the House should expunge his impeachment from the congressional record, the president responded, “They should because it was a hoax. It was a total political hoax.”

Expungement of a presidential impeachment remains the subject of debate by legal scholars. In my personal legal opinion, though, it clearly can be done.

If we take a look back at the seventh U.S. president, Andrew Jackson, we see where the precedent for an expungement was set

In 1832 President Jackson, a Democrat, ran for re-election. His opponent was National Republican Party candidate Henry Clay. Jackson won.

However, Clay’s party took control of the Senate. Under Clay’s leadership, the Senate demanded the delivery of documents from the Jackson cabinet related to a dispute over a presidential veto. After President Jackson refused to release the documents, Clay introduced a resolution to censure him, and after weeks of debate the resolution was passed.

Then in 1837 the Democrats regained the majority in the Senate. They proceeded to have President Jackson’s censure expunged from the record.

If a federal legislative body has the power to expunge a resolution that censures the president, I contend that it likewise has the ability to expunge an impeachment.

Some cable news experts have argued that if the House could expunge an impeachment, it would have done so with President Bill Clinton. Interestingly, this is precisely what Democrats tried to do.

The year was 2010. A dozen years had passed since the impeachment of President Clinton had taken place for misconduct relating to an affair with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky.

Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.) introduced legislation to expunge the Clinton impeachment. He was unsuccessful in his effort, and later he himself wound up in prison for bribery, money laundering, and fraud.

A Republican House can and should work to expunge from the record the impeachment of President Trump. A GOP-controlled House would not be bound by an impeachment resolution passed by a previous House.

Although it is unlikely that some of the more vocal opponents would be silenced, an investigation by a GOP-controlled House may have an effect on the way in which history would be interpreted.

House Republicans plan to investigate lead impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and/or his staff’s potential connections to the so-called whistleblower. There is an origin story to the manner in which the whistleblower’s information came to light and the reason why it conflicted with the actual transcript of the president’s telephone call.

The withholding of the 179-page transcript of testimony given by the eighteenth witness, a.k.a., the inspector general of the intelligence community, will be one of the first documents a future Republican House will want to see.

Supporters of President Trump and many independent voters observed how the House hearings were conducted and largely concluded that the impeachment process was unfair to the president.

Increasing public awareness of the potentiality for an expungement will have a ripple effect in the political world and may ultimately boost an already high GOP enthusiasm level, which will assist Republicans in flipping the 18 seats needed to regain control of the House.

Expungement just may be right around the 2020 corner.

Democrats Try to Undermine a Trump Acquittal

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As the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump comes to a close, Democrat resistors are having a hard time coming to grips with an impending acquittal.

Perturbed members of the opposition party have now chosen to engage in a smear campaign that characterizes the Senate proceedings as illegitimate.

Using a worn-out playbook from past attacks, some of the more spiteful Dems are trying to massage the minds of a would-be unsuspecting public that the acquittal of President Trump somehow lacks legitimacy because of a supposed deficiency of witnesses or documents.

In an appearance on Bill Maher’s HBO show on January 17, 2020, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the following: “You are impeached forever,” punctuating her comment with the line, “No matter what the Senate does, it [impeachment] can never be erased.”

On January 30, 2020, the day before the Senate voted against subpoenaing additional witnesses or documents, Pelosi said to a reporter, “You cannot be acquitted if you don’t have a trial. You don’t have a trial if you don’t have witnesses and documentation and all of that.”

The very next morning, which was also prior to the pivotal Senate vote, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “The president’s acquittal will be meaningless, because it will be the result of a sham trial. If there are no witnesses, no documents in this trial, there will be a permanent asterisk next to the acquittal of President Trump written in permanent ink.”

Other Democrats joined in with the spin, as did most of their willing media accomplices.

Many will recall when the Democrats flooded the media with a similar set of talking points at the conclusion of the confirmation process for then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Some of the more spiteful Dems contended that the process would be unfair and tainted if there was not a delay for an FBI investigation.

After the president and the GOP relented to a week-long FBI investigation, certain Democrat office-holders ran to the microphones to assert that the investigation was insufficient and the confirmation process flawed.

Once again, it really would not have mattered how the GOP senators had proceeded with the impeachment trial. If the trial did not match the outcome that the removal-oriented Democrats wanted, they would have followed up with a coordinated negative message anyway.

The Constitution grants the Senate the sole power to try all impeachments. The Speaker of the House has no real role in an impeachment trial. However, as Pelosi did when she conditioned the delivery of the Articles of Impeachment, the House speaker is attempting to exercise influence and exert control over the Senate impeachment function.

In stark contrast to the way in which the House hearings unfolded, the Senate conducted the impeachment trial process in a fair and dignified manner. While carrying out its constitutional duty, the Senate received and considered a record produced by the House of Representatives. Seventeen of the 18 witnesses from whom the House obtained testimony had their transcripts released. Noticeably absent was the transcript of Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who gave testimony that is widely believed would have been helpful to the president’s case.

During the Senate trial, members of the Senate, acting as a jury, listened to more than 190 portions of testimony from 13 of the House witnesses, and additionally had access to almost 29,000 documents.

It was the House Democrats who made the decision to disallow any witnesses that would support the president’s case. It was also the House Democrats who chose not to subpoena other witnesses, because they apparently did not wish to take the time to allow the judicial branch to do its job; that is, the job of dealing with the important constitutional issue of executive privilege.

Some of the more spiteful Dems seem to enjoy projecting the image of wrapping themselves in the Constitution, while they slice it to ribbons with deceitful words and duplicitous conduct.

Democrats Implement ‘The Big Reverse’

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“The Big Lie” is a form of propaganda that has been used over time by manipulative figures in and out of government, politics, and institutions. It has generally been adopted and applied with the specific intent to surreptitiously alter the beliefs of large groups of people.

Adolf Hitler utilized “The Big Lie” phrase in his 1925 book “Mein Kampf,” describing a lie that was so enormous in size those hearing it would be compelled to believe it.

As members of the human race, the positive side of our nature does not allow for us to accept the notion that any of our fellow human beings would ever lie to us in such a massively brazen way. Our line of reasoning, as well as our unconscious processing, leads us to believe that the lie we are hearing just may be the truth.

Hitler put it in the following way: “It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation.”

And so it is that if the lie is big enough, people will oftentimes come to the conclusion that it is true, particularly if it is repeated over and over again.

Chiseled on an unholy invisible stone tablet, the insidious principle persists to this day. It was embodied in a quote from Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, which read as follows: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

Our customary psychological defenses endow us with the ability to filter out falsehood from truth so that we are able to deal with the commonplace types of lies that we encounter in everyday life.

However, “The Big Lie” is so extraordinary that it is able to pass through psychological defenses that exist within us. Our minds are temporarily short-circuited and ultimately manipulated to a sufficient degree that allows the lie to emerge as “truth.”

Various members of the Democratic Party have either wittingly or unwittingly come upon a variant of “The Big Lie,” which they have used in their “resistance” efforts against President Donald Trump, his administration, his personal relationships, and his family.

I have given this variant of “The Big Lie” the label of “The Big Reverse.”

Lying, of course, is part and parcel of “The Big Reverse.” However, “The Big Reverse” involves an additional component with an individual or group displaying a sudden and dramatic turnaround of language and conduct. This creates in the recipient population what media psychology refers to as “cognitive dissonance.”

Cognitive dissonance is an intellectual and psychological discomfort caused by the intake of information that involves a conflict between what has been said or done in the past and what is presently being said or done.

As human beings, we will instinctively seek to alter one of the opposing beliefs or behaviors to restore the sense of balance that needs to be maintained for individual stability and functionality.

How does all of the above information relate to where our country finds itself in a political, psychological, and societal sense?

Some recent examples may be instructive.

“Impeachment is a very serious matter. If it happens it has to be a bipartisan initiative,” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi stated in the spring of 2018. “Unless you have bipartisan consensus, impeachment is a divisive issue in the country.”

In an interview with The Washington Post in the early spring of 2019, Pelosi remarked, “I’m not for impeachment. Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country.”

Then the turnaround occurred.

It was the fall of 2019. Without a single Republican vote, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives voted to approve an impeachment inquiry. Two hearings were then conducted, where partisan rules were imposed, restrictions were placed solely upon Republican committee members, witnesses that Republicans wished to call were denied, and evidence, fairness, and due process were ignored.

The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives brought the articles of impeachment up for a vote. Not a single solitary Republican voted in favor. In the most partisan way imaginable, the articles passed.

In another turnaround example, Democrats stoked the flames of fear and anxiety for months about the urgency that existed to remove the president from office. They even used the culturally familiar phrase “clear and present danger.”

Democrat committee chairs Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler had pushed through the proceedings without having waited for the judicial branch to decide on the legality of the president’s assertion of executive privilege.

After the articles passed the House, Pelosi suddenly put on the brakes. Shirking her constitutional duty, she held back the articles from the Senate for almost a month.

During the impeachment process, the Democrats went to great lengths to portray themselves as being “prayerful” and the process itself as being a “solemn” and “somber” one.

Then the impeachment signing ceremony happened.

Pelosi and her Democrat colleagues celebrated with abandon. Pens with Pelosi’s name stamped on them were actually handed out as souvenirs.

This caused a bit of short-lived cognitive dissonance on the part of otherwise Democrat-adoring personalities on cable news shows.

CNN’s Dana Bash commented, “We are used to seeing signing ceremonies handing out pens at moments of celebration, when a president is signing legislation.” She added, “It was unusual to see that kind of ceremony and handing out the pens and smiling for a picture in this kind of situation where the House speaker has bent over backward to say publicly and privately that this is somber, this is not a time for celebration.” And Bash’s colleague Nia-Malika Henderson called the odd festivities “a little jarring and certainly off message…”

Note of caution in the upcoming days: Expect to see more use of “The Big Reverse” in the Senate impeachment trial.

The Trump Doctrine in Real Time

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The mainstream news and entertainment media are once again in a frenzy trying to figure out what just happened on the world stage and how they can make the latest Trump victory look like a loss.

The president does not expect to receive accolades for his successes from those who have hated from the start. No credit given for the safe return of hostages, no singing his praises for facilitating the meet-up between North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and South Korea’s Moon Jae-in, no congrats for making changes in trade policy that resulted in better deals for average working folks, and on and on.

But prominent among President Trump’s many accomplishments is the re-building of the United States military and the re-shaping of our foreign policy. The president’s approach to national security issues has at times been referred to as the “Trump Doctrine.” With the recent turn of events, however, it has become enshrined.

A brief explanation of terminology. The sum and substance of an administration’s foreign policy carries the label given by analysts and experts of “presidential doctrine.”

A presidential doctrine serves an important purpose; that being, to inform the public and signal to the world the manner in which foreign affairs will be conducted in accordance with a president’s worldview. It is essentially a summarization of the distinctive approach taken by the president to the nation’s relations with other nations.

The U.S. air strike that killed Iranian Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani and Kataib Hezbollah leader Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes has spelled out the Trump Doctrine in a way that the president’s detractors, and thankfully America’s enemies, did not expect.

It may have come as a surprise to Bret Stephens, who wrote a biting critique of President Trump in the New York Times back in September of 2019. In his piece, he catalogued the ever increasing attacks purportedly made by Iran against the U.S. and its allies. The attacks included six on tankers, a shoot-down of a U.S. surveillance drone, the seizure of a British ship and its crew, and strikes on oil processing facilities that halted half of the Saudi’s critical oil production.

Stephens claimed in his article that the Trump administration was “bluffing” in its condemnation of Iran and characterized the administration’s position as “weakness masked in bluster.” His critique was written prior to the time Iran committed an act of war by attacking a U.S. embassy.

Two simple phrases have been used to describe President Trump’s foreign policy: “principled realism” and “America First.” The president himself has articulated these concepts in formal speeches, press conferences, verbal statements, campaign rallies, and the like. Half the country understands exactly what he is saying and enthusiastically supports him in his efforts.

The Trump Doctrine is simple and honest in its content and end goal. It embodies the notion that our country is best served by putting the interests of our own people first.

It also brings to a screeching halt a worldview that seeks multilateralism, celebrates the demise of sovereignty, and embraces the practice of appeasement.

After Iran committed an act of war by orchestrating the attack on our embassy, the targeted limited action in which the Trump administration engaged was the correct approach in dealing with the rogue state. The administration sought real deterrence yet did not seek an escalation of military conflict. It was, and remains, the only option with which we could defend ourselves while simultaneously sending the necessary message.

There is another thread that quietly winds its way through the Trump Doctrine.

The president built his field of dreams before stepping on that escalator. With fame and fortune already in hand, unlike others before him, he views his options with clearer eyes. Unclouded by concerns that produce weakness, he projects a strength that springs from a genuine love of the country.

That’s the Trump Doctrine in real time.

U.S. Leftists Ignore UK Elections

U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson as they take part in a session on reforming the United Nations at U.N. Headquarters in New York

The recent landslide election triumph of Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson may prove to be an accurate predictor of what is likely to happen in U.S. elections come 2020.

The same hatred that has held Democrats in its bitter grip since President Donald Trump first took to the political stage is the same rage that is likely to blind them to the lesson that is there in the UK election results.

Prime Minister Johnson’s electoral victory resulted in the largest majority in the British Parliament since Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher held office.

Conversely, Johnson’s adversary, Jeremy Corbyn, managed to drag his Labour Party to its lowest levels since the 1930s. The conservative Tories won 365 seats in Parliament’s lower chamber, with Labour gaining a mere 203.

Labour was left shell-shocked after a night that saw once safe seats in working class areas jump to the conservative side of the spectrum. Such a profound change to the political landscape would have been unthinkable just a few short years ago.

Interestingly, the place with which we share a common language, culture, and history currently has a political climate that is remarkably similar to the one that is occurring in the U.S. In both places, there is a seemingly perpetual struggle that exists between globalist elites who embrace trans-national institutions and national populism that is aligned with working class citizens who are trying to navigate the waters of the current economic reality.

Political occurrences in the U.S. and across the pond appear to run jointly at times. In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher strove together in fierce opposition to communism. The 1990s saw President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair hike the “Third Way” road together of supposed middle ground politics. And in 2016, the political earthquake election of President Trump caused comparable seismic waves to that of Britain’s prior Brexit vote.

It then comes as little surprise to the politically and culturally astute that the right in both countries seeks border integrity, individual empowerment, fewer regulations, lower taxes, and innovative approaches to international trade, thereby favoring the nation state.

The left in both countries, on the other hand, has a preference for multilateral international organizations, embraces ever-expanding government, elevates open borders, is expert in crafting draconian regulations, and is endlessly preaching about the supposed environmental doomsday that is to come.

Corbyn campaigned on a set of extreme left-wing policies that sound eerily similar to the current crop of Democrats that are seeking the presidential nomination. Corbyn would have increased government spending to gargantuan amounts, ballooning the public sector. During his first 100 days in office, Corbyn promised to nationalize utilities, give 10 percent of corporate stock in companies to workers, and implement a 32-hour work week.

His planned policy solutions were almost in lockstep with the so-called democratic socialism offered by Democrat presidential wannabes Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

A couple of their fellow Democrat opponents attempted to capitalize on the UK results. At a fundraiser, former Vice President Joe Biden referenced Johnson’s victory, saying, “Look what happens when the Labour Party moves so, so far to the left. It comes up with ideas that are not able to be contained within a rational basis quickly.”

And former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg used his Twitter account to declare that “Jeremy Corbyn’s catastrophic showing in the U.K. is a clear warning: We need a Democratic nominee who can defeat Donald Trump by running a campaign that appeals to Americans across our divides.”

Much like their denial after President Trump’s watershed victory, the left in America cannot accept the results of the UK election either. Leftists are already following the same pattern of rationalization, falsification, and resistance that was exhibited in 2016 and thereafter.

Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast characterizes Corbyn as someone who was “never suited to be a national leader of a major political party in a major industrial democracy,” adding that he “was an ineffectual backbencher and should have remained so.”

Others such as Kate Aronoff, a senior fellow at Data for Progress, which is a progressive U.S. think tank, dismiss Johnson’s massive win by claiming that it was only about Brexit. Aronoff used the Guardian to explain that, in her assessment, “the UK election was ultimately an election about Brexit, and Brexit won. There’s no clean analogue to that in the US.”

Eric Levitz of the New Yorker Magazine rationalizes that Sanders’s “political vision is less radical than Corbyn’s, particularly on foreign policy.”

Another Guardian writer, Cas Mudde, posits, “Centrists say this is proof Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren can’t win. They are wrong.”

Two infamous names, Fusion GPS’s Glen Simpson and “dossier” author Christopher Steele recently surfaced to precondition the UK public in a virtual re-run of the debunked narrative of 2016.

Even before the electorate in the UK had cast a single vote, Simpson and Peter Fritsch wrote in an editorial that appeared in the Guardian that Russia was the reason Prime Minister Johnson won.

The article actually urged the British government to launch a Mueller-style investigation into Russian interference in the UK elections, claiming, “The British political system has become thoroughly compromised by Russian influence.”

Weeks earlier the Guardian had drudged up yet another so-called dossier derived from an “analysis from Britain’s intelligence agencies, as well as third-party experts such as the former MI6 officer Christopher Steele…”

It seems as though the American left, lost in its impeachment obsession, is calloused to the growing disgust and anger on the part of the public on both sides of the Atlantic.

Why Democrats Should Fear a Senate Trial

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In the next few weeks, the U.S. House of Representatives may vote to approve articles of impeachment.

The governmental activity that the public has been witnessing over the past few weeks regarding the potential impeachment of the 45th president would be transferred over to the U.S. Senate, which unlike the House of Representatives is under Republican control.

If the Democrats actually pull off a vote to impeach the president, they just may find themselves ruing the day. The politically charged impeachment drama could play out in the following manner:

Republicans in the Senate would make the case that the House articles of impeachment are the product of a highly flawed process. They would point out that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff kicked off the hearings in a shroud of secrecy. Curiously, only information favorable to the Democrats was allowed to leak out.

Senate Republicans would also note that the chairman ran a series of closed-door depositions, a.k.a. “auditions,” followed by open televised testimony sessions that posed as committee hearings.

Much of the above mentioned was in flagrant violation of constitutional norms and is easily recognizable as an assault on due process.

GOP senators would highlight that Schiff’s rabidly partisan proceedings were devoid of fairness. Ranking Republican members on the committee were blocked from calling witnesses. Ukraine interference in the 2016 election was off the table, as were former Vice President Joe Biden, the business dealings of Biden’s son, the corrupt Ukraine energy company Biden’s son worked for, and of course, the identity and origin of the so-called whistleblower.

With the above described sham circumstances in mind, the Senate could reasonably dismiss the articles of impeachment and skip the trial altogether. But interestingly, the president and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have both weighed in, indicating their preferences to have a full Senate trial.

A Senate impeachment trial would involve each side having the right to call witnesses and perform cross-examinations. The House members, known as impeachment managers during the course of the trial, would present the prosecution case. The president would have the right to mount a defense with his own attorneys. The Constitution requires a two-thirds super majority to convict and remove a sitting president.

Should a Senate trial take place, it would have some unfortunate fallout for Democratic presidential candidates in that it would pull a number of them off the campaign trail at a most inopportune time. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Michael Bennet would be compelled to stop campaigning mere weeks before the Iowa caucuses.

McConnell recently alluded to this aspect of an impeachment trial, saying, “How long it goes on really just depends on how long the Senate wants to spend on it. I will say I’m pretty sure how it’s likely to end. If it were today, I don’t think there’s any question it would not lead to a removal. So the question is how long the Senate wants to take. How long do the presidential candidates want to be here on the floor of the Senate instead of Iowa and New Hampshire?”

When the Senate starts its impeachment preparation, not only do the proceedings occur in a forum in which the GOP holds a majority, key committees are also chaired by supporters of the president. The Senate Republicans will be able to bring forth evidence on issues and topics that the left and the mainstream media have routinely dismissed out of hand.

Democrats may already be experiencing high anxiety over the recent communications of GOP Senate leaders. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, requesting documents related to communications between former Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko and Biden.

Graham also sought documents pertaining to a meeting between Biden’s son’s business partner and former Secretary of State John Kerry. Additionally, Graham has said he will insist that the Senate call the so-called whistleblower to testify.

It is legitimate as well as relevant for the Senate to explore, as they likely would, the former vice president’s apparent role in placing pressure on the Ukrainian government to fire a prosecutor by the name of Viktor Shokin, who had been investigating the natural gas company, Burisma. Burisma paid huge amounts of money to Biden’s son, who by all appearances was an energy neophyte, for his membership on the company’s board of directors.

The telephone conversation between President Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, which ostensibly prompted the impeachment inquiry, involved a reference to prosecutor Shokin, making the facts concerning Burisma and Biden highly relevant to legitimate U.S. concerns over corruption in the Ukraine.

Additionally, the Senate would likely look into Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election by calling as a witness former DNC consultant Alexandra Chalupa to determine whether, with the assistance of Ukrainian officials, she was improperly engaging in opposition research on the Trump campaign.

Homeland Security Committee Chairman Sen. Ron Johnson and Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley have already written a letter to the head of the National Archives and Records Administration, seeking to obtain records of meetings between Obama administration officials, Ukrainian government representatives, and DNC officials.

The Johnson-Grassley letter specifically references a meeting in 2016 in which U.S. officials “brought up investigations relating to Burisma Holdings.” The letter also makes reference to officials in that meeting who asked that the Ukraine government “drop the Burisma probe and allow the FBI to take it over.”

According to the letter, White House records will indicate that Chalupa was present in “numerous meetings at the White House, including one event with then President Obama.”

Senators Johnson and Grassley have also sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray, seeking information on Chalupa. The letter states, based on reports, that “it appears that the DOJ and FBI have in their possession material relevant to our Committees’ ongoing investigation into collusive actions Chalupa and the DNC took to use foreign government sources to undermine the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.”

Should an impeachment trial take place, President Trump has indicated that he intends to bring in to testify both Schiff and the so-called whistleblower. Findings from U.S. Attorney John Durham’s probe into election-related controversies of 2016 would also likely become available should a Senate trial occur.

A witness list that includes Schiff, Biden, Biden’s son, Burisma board member Devon Archer, Chalupa, Fusion GPS researcher Nellie Ohr, and the so-called whistleblower, among myriad others, is the stuff of Democrat nightmares.

A little something for Dems to ponder before they take that all-important vote: Be careful what you wish for.