trump's likely defense against impeachment has two historical precedents...and it's scary.
In the early days of the republic Aaron Burr, running against Adams, Jefferson, and Pinckney, worked with the British to try to take territory from the US. trump's argument before the Senate once the Articles of Impeachment are presented to the body will most likely be that Adams, Jefferson, Pinchney or even Washington, who was president and finishing up his second term, would've been justified in asking for help from other foreign countries in finding out about Burr's treachery.
Adams won the election by the way as he got more Electoral College votes than any of the others. There was no popular vote then, which is an issue for another thread.
A more recent example is in 1968 when Johnson found out that Nixon was working with Vietnamese elements to delay the peace talks and wait for a better deal with him once he won the election, which would damage Johnson's chances of winning. Johnson would've been justified in seeking assistance from other countries who had knowledge of Nixon's treachery.
Johnson, who had announced he wouldn't run again because of the Vietnam debacle, found out about it and planned to use the info to get back in the race at the '68 Dem convention but the Secret Service told him they couldn't guarantee his safety if he ventured going to the tumultuous conditions at the '68 convention so LBJ shelved the plan to get back into he race and Nixon's treason wasn't disclosed then. I don't know why Humphrey didn't use that info to run against Nixon. Maybe Johnson didn't disclose it to Humphrey either.
Anyway, both of these examples are precedents that repugs and trump may use in the Senate trial to be found innocent. trump's strong arming of Ukraine has nowhere near the merits, IMO, of these two historical precedents but that won't stop trump and his repug henchmen from trying to use them as examples to show he was justified in trying to root out Hunter and Joe Biden's so-called corruption, which of course is not accurate but don't think they won't try it and the repug majority in the senate will certain go for it.
Scary, right? Thoughts please.
This hisorical info was offered up by an Ohio State history prof on Smerconish's CNN show this morning.
= new reply since forum marked as read
