{"id":2453806,"date":"2020-01-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-28T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=320015"},"modified":"2020-01-28T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-28T07:00:00","slug":"john-colson-trumps-trial-rolls-along-while-we-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/john-colson-trumps-trial-rolls-along-while-we-watch\/","title":{"rendered":"John Colson: Trump\u2019s trial rolls along while we watch"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As I watched, read and listened my way through the past several weeks of impeachment hearings, one of the more interesting things that came out of it was a news report citing an unnamed Democratic senator\u2019s staffer complaining, \u201cOur phones are not ringing off the hook! Nobody cares!\u201d<\/p>\n

The implication was that no one is watching the ongoing impeachment proceedings against President Donald J. Trump, despite being one of the most historic political clashes of our era and one that I believe millions of voters are watching closely.<\/p>\n

I checked, and learned that several national news sources reported that more than 11 million \u201cviewers\u201d tuned in to the first day of hearings before the U.S. Senate, a number that does not include anyone watching via online streaming or following things on social media (which probably is a lot of people, since we have been pummeled for several years with stories about how \u201ctraditional\u201d media are losing market share to streaming outlets and social media).<\/p>\n

One of those sources, the Reuters news agency, followed up a day later (Jan. 22) with a report that viewership had slumped by 19% \u2014 possibly due to a combination of weariness (the Jan. 21 opening day of impeachment proceedings went late into the night) and the nationwide understanding that the Republican-controlled Senate is not about to toss Trump out of office, no matter what Trump has done and regardless of what the House impeachment managers might say.<\/p>\n

The viewership numbers for the Senate\u2019s opening-day hearing fell short of the numbers for the opening day of the House of Representatives\u2019 impeachment hearings toward the end of last year, which reportedly amounted to more than 13.8 million \u201cviewers.\u201d<\/p>\n

I should note that, overruling vociferous objections from my usually very accommodating wife, I have been watching as much as I could of the hearings since they began. And I plan to continue doing so, believing as I do that the actual Articles of Impeachment only get at a small portion of Trump\u2019s illegal, immoral and anti-democratic acts and pronouncements since he was elected three-and-a-quarter years ago, any and all of which warrant impeachment in my book.<\/p>\n

I also should note that, according to two news organizations, The New York Times and, in an online subsequent article about the Times report, an outlet called The Intelligencer, Trump\u2019s former National Security Adviser John Bolton has penned a forthcoming book (which apparently already is circulating around Washington, D.C., in draft form) that \u201cblows up\u201d much of Trump\u2019s first line of defense in the impeachment trial.<\/p>\n

According to the reports, Bolton maintains that the president, at least as early as August of last year, was loudly calling for the Ukrainians to mount a smearing probe into Joe and Hunter Biden, and had long made it clear he would withhold needed military aid from the country until its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, at least announced plans for an investigation in order to cast a shadow over Joe Biden\u2019s bid to unseat Trump from the Oval Office.<\/p>\n

Bolton\u2019s book reportedly also claims Secretary of State Mike Pompeo \u201cacknowledged privately that there was no basis to claims by the president\u2019s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, that the ambassador to Ukraine (Marie Yovanovitch) was corrupt,\u201d which puts the lie to the president\u2019s stated reason for firing Yovanovitch and strengthens the case that she was fired because she stood in the way of Trump\u2019s and Giuliani\u2019s own corrupt schemes for coercing Ukraine into smearing the Bidens. In a recording that recently came to light, Trump at one point tells one of his shady henchmen to \u201cget rid of her \u2026 take her out,\u201d sounding just like a mafia don calling for a hit.<\/p>\n

No wonder the Republicans are falling all over themselves to keep Bolton and Trump\u2019s cast of thugs from testifying. I\u2019ve covered enough criminal trials in my time as a reporter to know that once a defendant\u2019s case begins to come apart, as Trump\u2019s might very well do, it can very quickly be reduced to dust.<\/p>\n

Of course, Trump\u2019s loyal cadre of Senate Republicans would simply dismiss all this even if it did somehow get worked into the evidence for the impeachment trial, repeating ad nauseum that Trump \u201cdid not do anything wrong,\u201d as if a president trying to get foreign actors to interfere with our presidential elections is not something to worry about.<\/p>\n

I was amused to see that the New York Times\u2019 Sunday Review section contained a piece by Nicholas Kristoff headlined, \u201cWhat if it were Obama?\u201d who had tried this stunt with the Ukrainians and been impeached over it.<\/p>\n

My own thinking along these lines led me to conclude that, at the very least, Republicans in Congress would be calling for Obama\u2019s head on a platter, and would be demanding the very same kind of witnesses at a Senate-held impeachment trial that they are now refusing to consider for the Trump trial.<\/p>\n

Of course, the whole idea is silly, because Obama was far too cautious and ethical a president to get involved in any such stunt, and probably would have quietly fired any aides who dared to suggest it.<\/p>\n

I mean, one of Obama\u2019s biggest failings, in my eyes, is that he did not blow the whistle on the Russian election meddling in 2016, even though he knew about it by the summer of that year. And his refusal to do so rested on his fears of being accused of \u201cmeddling\u201d himself, which shows clearly that he was cautious to a fault.<\/p>\n

But we\u2019ve got Trump on the hot seat, at least for a little while longer.<\/p>\n

And if he is acquitted by his Republican sycophants (I still harbor some hope he\u2019ll be kicked out), then we\u2019ll see the real Donald, unshackled, vengefully pissed off at his accusers and loaded for bear in his zealous quest to kill off as much as he can of our government, our social-welfare net, our environmental protections and our ongoing metamorphosis from a nation controlled by aging white men to a much more diverse culture.<\/p>\n

Yep, if it happens the way almost everyone thinks it will, we\u2019re in for a nasty ride, but on election day in November we can do something about it.<\/p>\n

Email at jbcolson51@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I watched, read and listened my way through the past several weeks of impeachment hearings, one of the more interesting things that came out of it was a news report citing an unnamed Democratic senator\u2019s staffer complaining, \u201cOur phones are not ringing off the hook! Nobody cares!\u201d The implication was that no one is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2453806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 18:35:23","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2453806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453806\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2453806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2453806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2453806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}