Yes let the stupid fuck talk his way into jail...

Donald Trump himself is Democrats' star witness

Opinion by Elie Honig

Now that House Democrats have announced they will introduce two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump -- one for abuse of power and one for obstruction of Congress -- the focus will turn to the evidence supporting those charges at a seemingly inevitable Senate trial.

The witnesses who have testified before the House Intelligence Committee over the past month -- Ambassador Bill Taylor, Fiona Hill, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and the rest -- have provided important context to Trump's effort to withhold foreign aid and a White House visit from Ukraine in exchange for a public announcement of investigations of former Vice President Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and the 2016 election. But the star witness of the case against President Trump is and always has been Trump himself.

In Monday's House Judiciary Committee hearing, House Democrats sought to put the spotlight right back on Trump, whose own words and actions make the case for impeachment more directly and powerfully than any other witness could. Throughout his opening statement, House Intelligence Committee lead attorney Daniel Goldman prominently featured Trump's own words. Rep. Pramila Jayapal astutely noted that "the President himself is the smoking gun" and that Trump is "the first and best witness" against himself.

The President himself discussed foreign aid with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and then infamously stated, "I would like you to do us a favor though." Trump himself then asked Zelensky to conduct two (and only two) specific investigations -- one of the Bidens and the other of the 2016 election.

Just to drive home the point, Trump publicly stated from the White House grounds that "President Zelensky, if it were me, I would recommend that they start an investigation into the Bidens." For good measure, he added, "And, by the way, likewise, China should start an investigation into the Bidens." Donald Trump said those words, in public and on the record. There's no way around it.

Beyond his own damning requests for Ukraine to launch investigations into his political rivals, Trump also obstructed Congress, in broad daylight and in his own words. He issued a blanket order to stonewall Congress' investigative efforts: "We're fighting all the subpoenas." And he directly attacked various congressional witnesses including Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch -- as she testified before the House Intelligence Committee -- plus Jennifer Williams, Taylor and Vindman.

Even if no other witnesses had come forward to testify, Trump's own words are enough to merit impeachment based on the Ukraine shakedown and obstruction of Congress. And the trick about Trump's own words is that Republicans can't run from them. They can try to twist and dodge, but ultimately to no persuasive effect. Trump supporters can don all the "Read the Transcript" T-shirts they can get printed up at the screening shop, but it still doesn't make the actual transcript any less incriminating.

House Republicans have attempted from the start to deflect attention from Trump's own incriminating statements by contending that the case against Trump relies on "secondhand" or "hearsay" information. That is only partly correct; for example, Ambassador Gordon Sondland had direct conversations with Trump about Ukraine, David Holmes directly heard one such conversation between Sondland and Trump, and Vindman, Williams and others listened to Trump's July 25 call with Zelensky.

And there is simply no contesting the fact that Trump's own words are the most firsthand of all firsthand information. Any prosecutor knows that there is no more damaging evidence than a defendant's own incriminating statements -- particularly if they have been recorded.

Trump and his defenders can deflect, or they can take the position that his conduct is not impeachable, or they can simply refuse to engage on the merits. But they can never escape the stark reality laid out by the President himself, in his own words.