Dear President Trump,

This afternoon’s WP article about Dershowitz joining your legal team (Sonmez & DeBonis) is something else. The authors quote Dershowitz extensively and make clear that he’s no fan of yours, and that in fact, he thinks you’re a menace. In another piece, your buddy George Conway wonders very out loud what Dershowitz can possibly do for you, a consternation that also comes through the S & D piece. My favorite part of all this, though, is that in one breath Dershowitz essentially says you did enough crooked stuff that he’d be unhappy if the Senate acquits you (he’s your lawyer!) and in the next breath claims that even “if” the Democrats prove you did all the misdeeds in the articles of impeachment (they already have, thus the scare quotes on if), he doesn’t think those misdeeds constitute impeachable offenses. He also notes that you brought him onto your legal team because he’s a Constitutional scholar.

So my question is this – which country’s Constitution is he referring to? Certainly not ours – ours is pretty dang clear that bribery and extortion of foreign countries for personal/political gain is out of bounds. But hey, go for it, dude – if you think he and Starr are going to save your bacon, more power to you.

I can’t find it now, but another article I read today quoted one of your Republican toadies questioning the Democrats’ logic with regards to making the case for impeachment/removal based on the available evidence and wanting to call witnesses. Obviously the implication is that if they have enough evidence, they shouldn’t need/want more witnesses OR if they need/want more witnesses then they must not have a case. On the face of it, it sort of makes sense, so it’s not bad, as far as Republican tricky-double speak goes. However, one only has to pause for a nanosecond before seeing that it’s just another lame-ass attempt to protect you from reality.

This is how these things work: whoever is concerned about potential wrongdoing gathers up the evidence they can (and in this case, even in the face of unprecedented obstruction by you, they gathered a lot of shit) and then they see if it indicates there was likely wrongdoing done. If the conclusion is “yes, it appears highly likely that So-and-So did engage in wrongdoing so let’s take this to the next level and have a full trial.” And from there, uhm, I’m pretty sure the idea is to get definitively to the bottom of whatever is alleged to have happened to see if, in fact (remember facts? – they used to be important around here), So-and-So did the misdeed(s) they are accused of having done, or if, in fact (and there would need to be real facts) they didn’t do the misdeed(s). So the trial part is supposed to be the part when all the relevant (definition: closely connected or appropriate to what is being done or considered) information is presented and scrutinized and the impartial (definition: “treating all rivals or disputants equally; fair and just”) jury of Senators weighs the evidence and, to the best of their ability, render their verdict regarding guilt or innocence.

In this situation it wouldn’t be unreasonable to say that there’s already enough evidence on the table to go ahead and remove you from office, but since you have your toadies wrapped and your peeps snowed, the country needs to hear from the close-in witnesses who you’ve blocked from testifying. And – here’s a critically important part of all this – if, as it’s looking, Pence, Nunes, Barr, Bolton, and goodness knows who else were/are all involved, we damn well need to know it and the lot of you need to be out on your assess. So in addition to bringing millions more Americans around to accepting your craven corruption, we need the new testimony and the documents you’ve been hiding out in the light of day so that we can root out as much of the rot as we possible. It simply won’t do for you to be out while your buddies to stay in (and pardon you). Says me.

May we be safe from our leaders.
May we be willing to push for the truth.
May we value the health of our democracy over expediency.
May we make peace with the messy reality of getting to the bottom of things.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson