Quite a lot of undecided people were calling into cspan making a comparison to the grand jury model. Some of these people study law. I've only ever watched Better Call Saul. They're also saying they'll not vote again for their republican senators. While these people sound like they know there stuff and speak well I think they have it wrong.

The first thing is that while the house acts approximately like a grand jury and the senate acts approximately as a court in respect to impeachment, they are not identical either. They should adhere to the same standards but how they achieve that can differ. I think people can get genuinely confused as to where it should and should not mirror practice and procedure in criminal law.

The argument people put forward is that in a trial you can call new witnesses and introduce new evidence. This point is correct. It's actually the same as the on Trump's council is making but in different words. They're saying it's wrong to have a trial but not witnesses. They're also right.

Where they're wrong however is that this is what's happening. It's an understandable mistake because it's not being made explicit what they're really voting for.

It's not really about to call witnesses but whether to have a trial or not. Trials can be discontinued or indictments rejected for reasons that make sense such as lack of evidence.

It's valid to throw out a case without sufficient probable cause or where the process of discovery taken from having probable cause reduced probable cause to below a reasonable threshold rather than advancing the suspicion.

It's valid to throw out a case that's not valid. For example, if you're taken to court and it turns out what you did wasn't a crime in the first place. This is what they mean by not impeachable.

People forget about these cases because they're not normally that prominent. Usually the legal system tries to hire people who for example bring charges that can actually be brought against someone. That is competent enough people. Often people don't even conceive of the possibility that there might be incompetence such as being charged with a crime that doesn't exist and that prosecutors can't charge people for. In law you have specific things you can charge someone with. Anything else you can't charge someone.

In this situation the democrats have invented charges. That's not an opinion but a fact.

It's the same as if a police officer wants to arrest someone they lost an argument with and makes up the charge such as wearing odd socks.

There's no valid charge of wearing odd socks. You can't make it up as you go along. Even lawmakers can't do that, there are procedures.

People think this is just one motion the house sent up to the senate. That's wrong.

The first motion they have sent up to the house is to make abuse of power and obstruction of congress impeachable offences.

The second motion is to they put Trump on trial to be impeached for those offences.

The second one, the trial, depends on the first one. If the republicans vote no on the first which they should because its ridiculously broad and subjective, then there is no trial. The whole grand jury and whatever the other thing that would represent the senate was analogy falls apart.

So this wasn't a vote on how to conduct a trial but if to ratify the first motion which would lead to a trial.

The problem is most people, might not realise that. It's mess because technically the senate is meant to run a trial but the addition of new impeachable offenses actually puts the trial decision in the hands of the senate as to if those are impeachable charges. If there's no valid charges there's no trial, no verdict, case is just dropped as invalid. What's special here is that senate also has a double duty to also approve new law which basically democrats are trying the sneak in. Under the new law the bar is so low they could have probable cause to impeach Trump or any president perpetually so impeach forever really is their plan.

This is a dangerous misunderstanding to have. The senate makes law and in the case of impeachment enforces it. They're being asked to enforce new law except only the enforce part and not being clear about the new law part. If Schiff had gotten his witness in the vote from that moment on it has to be a full trial. The senate would have voted on enforcing the new law which would have passed the new law. The house was deceptive about what they were asking the senate to vote on. Only Trump's defence team was honest to the senate about what they were voting for.

The only relevant vote now is to acquit or resume. Resumption would end up extending the trial and could well require witnesses as trials do.

Though an acquittal or not guilty verdict is preferable to case thrown out the impeachment not being valid in the first place dropping the case is in fact the correct ruling technically speaking.

If what you were accused of wasn't a crime it's not in the domain of the legal system to produce a verdict. If what you did wasn't impeachable its not on the senate to produce a verdict.

In that case as an analogy that would most often be gross incompetence or criminal malpractice.

Although Trump's legal team wants no trial, or in this case no witnesses, that doesn't necessarily mean either option would have been strictly against Trump. There are ups and downs to both though nipping the whole thing in the bud rather than passing the new impeachable offences setting a terrible precedent is the superior option. In fact they may be serving the country and law with that first and foremost because a trial could work out better for Trump in various terms (though it goes both ways) but in this case they're putting protecting legislation, the constitution first by disallowing the creation of this new political weapon that would give the house disproportionate power over the executive branch. Another reason is that it's just not right to be someone on trial for something they shouldn't be on trial for.

People might have a point that a not guilty verdict with out a real trial (there should be no verdict if no trial) is a mismatch but then they might forget presumption of innocence. A not guilty verdict isn't a new verdict unless on appeal but a resumption of the verdict already afforded from the outset. The one advantage of a full trial is that it would be a confirmation rather than a resumption of the presumption of innocence. What's going to happen now is that the democrats won't stop crying they never had a trial and won't put it to rest. They also won't understand these nuances. However between that and passing new law that would wreck the balance of power between the functioning political units and amount to the same refusal to just let it go Trump and his legal defence have done the right thing. The democrat voters don't know how good they have it to have Trump.

Either case dropped or found not guilty both are good in some sense but really, the only valid choice is to drop. Drop the first motion and there's no impeachment so not impeached forever would be a nice salt mine. The ideal outcome is somehow both though presently the legal team is focusing on not being impeachable. By both, it would be that acquittal convinces the democrats to abandon their moronic crusade. Even without a full trial you can argue there's sufficient evidence already to confirm innocence especially as the democrats are insisting the evidence they have confirms guilt. They can't argue really with the verdict even without a full trial on their own terms as they're willing to come to and stick to a verdict without a full trial.

We'd like to see a not guilty verdict resulting from a full trial and further investigation on many fronts. Many might feel this was a lost opportunity but ultimately is the right thing. Trump's defence did not directly defend Trump as their key strategy. They were defending the constitution and the political integrity of the country which was under attack. You can't have the trial the house wants without injuring those.

Also an obvious point is that not only are the charges not impeachable making it an invalid indictment using the analogy but the proper procedures required weren't carried out such as with the subpoenas. In holding the senate to the full rigours of a court yet failing to hold the house to the full rigours of a grand jury someone might inadvertently introduce a double standard that needs to be carefully scrutinised. It might seem like either should be held to the same standard but then it's hard for the court to take an improper indictment seriously, that would be a failure as well for the court to abide by the highest standards, it would be abiding by an indictment secured through low standards. At the end of the day it's not Trump that's first in line to go on trial. It's the indictment or the impeachment itself that is currently on trial.

A grand jury is not a trial and Trump was not given a trial in the house. That is, a grand jury can't convict or produce a verdict. It's not a stand in for a trial which requires the accused to have full defence. It also means you can't convict based on the indictment at least as I understand.

To that effect, in principle at this point a guilty verdict is invalid because no trial. Based on the presumption of innocence and that only a trial can establish guilt then it's already determined. Innocent.