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Senators also took individual votes to dismiss certain impeachment articles or to temporarily hold some articles in abeyance. They resoundingly rejected all motions. Six Republican senators voted yes on every motion to dismiss, while five Republican Senators voted to dismiss some of the impeachment articles. Seven Republican senators voted no on all of the motions, along with all Democratic senators.
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So it looks like there are 5 ‘critical’ Senators, as 19 seem prepared to vote to convict and 6 are die-hard ‘No’ voters (there are 30 Senators, 18 Republican and 12 Democrat). Should be an interesting time in Texas…
I’m pretty sure that is Tony Buzzbee. If that’s not him, it looks like him and he is an attorney present at that hearing for Paxton’s side.
He’s pretty infamous in Houston due to his Plaintiff lawyer TV ads, running for Mayor, and representing the Plaintiff massage therapists in the DeShaun Watson football/massage scandal (Rusty Hardin, another famous TX lawyer, represented Watson; Hardin is an attorney for the prosecution at the Paxton impeachment trial). Other stuff like that.
Agreed; if you look at the shades of color on the suits as well they look off too. I think the color and focus are not very good. It’s almost like a screenshot from an old VHS tape.
The first day of the trial’s over and I think it’s pretty representative of what we can expect to see. The House Managers offered a 17-minute opening statement that succinctly summarized the case their going to make through evidence and witness testimony over the course of the trial. Paxton’s attorneys offered a 57-minute stemwinder that jumped all over the place, denied everything, and made subtle (and some not-so-subtle) allusions to the political consequences for Senators of removing Paxton. Oh, and Tony Buzbee called the House Speaker a drunk.
They reconvene at 9:00 tomorrow. I’m not going to get any work done this week.
I happened upon part of the opening statements on Cspan or something during the middle of the night. I’ve never really seen too many real trial opening statements before. I wonder if it is typical to talk the way Paxton’s attorneys did?
The second guy was trying to be folksy (?) or something and he sucked at it. So much snark and insults and wandering from one topic to another. I was really surprised to see that sort of opening not in a bad movie.
I’m much more curious now about the case and especially about the 6’6" guy mentioned more than once. I admit I’m not sure why his height matters but it was brought up in such a way as to seem it does.
Comical isn’t really the correct word to use to describe what little I saw, but the correct word to use is elusive to me. smh
Paxton’s attorneys’ opening statement seemed like a perfect illustration of the old lawyer’s axiom: if the law’s not on your side, argue the facts. If the facts aren’t on your side, argue the law. If neither’s on your side, pound on the table.
Given the political clown car the defense attorneys are playing to, their approach to the case makes sense in that context. If this was in front of a neutral judge and 12 neutral citizens that’d be suicide.
Their goal is to convince the few R senators who aren’t already convinced, that the whole thing is a joke meant to score political points for the Demon-crats. and/or that if they (any of the R senators) do vote guilty, they will be run out of political town on a rail and/or be lucky to escape with their political lives, much less get away from a continuous barrage of death threats from RWT nutbags.
This is one of the most hilarious trial proceedings I’ve watched. Most of the arguments back and forth between counsels are over mundane procedural matters of evidence production.
The defense strategy on cross examination appears to present emails, letters, etc. to the witness that he has never seen and ask him do you know so-and-so, what do they do, do you understand what this document means. And then try and present a gotcha on things that were procedural in the office. What a waste of time.
No, but apparently dropping the name of the elected AG from official letterhead is a greater violation to Texans than using your position as an elected official to assist one of your donors in a civil dispute.
