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'Thin to win': How Democrats are building the case against Trump
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/05/democrats-build-case-trump-impeachment-065690
Veteran prosecutors see a clear strategy in how Adam Schiff and his colleagues are approaching impeachment: Keep it simple, stupid.
NATASHA BERTRAND
11/05/2019 05:01 AM EST
The Democrats’ drive to impeach Donald Trump was more ambition than reality before an anonymous whistleblower gave House investigators a far more straightforward case against the president.
The two-year Russia probe led by special counsel Robert Mueller — a byzantine inquiry that spanned several countries, involved 500 interviews and spawned a dense, 450-page report — failed to produce slam-dunk evidence that Trump had engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Russia to win the 2016 election, allowing him to claim “total exoneration.”
But now, armed with the clarity of the president’s demands that Ukraine investigate a political rival, investigators led by House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff are methodically building their case with a strategy that mirrors the preparation of an indictment, ex-prosecutors say—primarily by telling a very simple story with more than a dozen corroborating witnesses to back it up.
“I see a prosecutorial approach being used here quite effectively,” said Elie Honig, a former New Jersey and federal prosecutor.
One of the most fundamental questions House Democrats have been grappling with in the impeachment inquiry, Honig said, is one prosecutors have to confront “all the time.”
”That is, do you take the kitchen sink approach, and present jurors with every damaging thing you have, which might overwhelm them?” Honig said. “Or do you go ‘thin to win’ and get the best, strongest argument out there, front and center, and waste no time?”
Democrats appear to be ditching the kitchen sink for simplicity.
</snip>
Veteran prosecutors see a clear strategy in how Adam Schiff and his colleagues are approaching impeachment: Keep it simple, stupid.
NATASHA BERTRAND
11/05/2019 05:01 AM EST
The Democrats’ drive to impeach Donald Trump was more ambition than reality before an anonymous whistleblower gave House investigators a far more straightforward case against the president.
The two-year Russia probe led by special counsel Robert Mueller — a byzantine inquiry that spanned several countries, involved 500 interviews and spawned a dense, 450-page report — failed to produce slam-dunk evidence that Trump had engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Russia to win the 2016 election, allowing him to claim “total exoneration.”
But now, armed with the clarity of the president’s demands that Ukraine investigate a political rival, investigators led by House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff are methodically building their case with a strategy that mirrors the preparation of an indictment, ex-prosecutors say—primarily by telling a very simple story with more than a dozen corroborating witnesses to back it up.
“I see a prosecutorial approach being used here quite effectively,” said Elie Honig, a former New Jersey and federal prosecutor.
One of the most fundamental questions House Democrats have been grappling with in the impeachment inquiry, Honig said, is one prosecutors have to confront “all the time.”
”That is, do you take the kitchen sink approach, and present jurors with every damaging thing you have, which might overwhelm them?” Honig said. “Or do you go ‘thin to win’ and get the best, strongest argument out there, front and center, and waste no time?”
Democrats appear to be ditching the kitchen sink for simplicity.
</snip>
2 replies
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