Impeachment trial: Van der Veen’s “doctored proof” declare, unpacked

Within the days following former President Donald Trump’s acquittal on an article of impeachment alleging incitement of rebellion, his attorneys and allies have tried to weaponize the trial with allegations that Home impeachment managers resorted to manufacturing proof.

These claims are extraordinarily flimsy and may’t face up to fundamental scrutiny. However they supply individuals like Trump lawyer Michael van der Veen and Donald Trump Jr. with a pretext to go on TV and complain about how unfairly Donald Trump was handled.

In a Saturday interview with CBS that has been considered almost 10 million occasions as that is printed, van der Veen went so far as to equate the January 6 rebellion that left 5 useless with Trump’s remedy through the impeachment trial.

“What occurred on the Capitol on January 6 is totally horrific, however what occurred on the Capitol throughout this trial was not too far-off from that,” he stated. “The prosecutors on this case doctored proof.”

CBS Information host Lana Zak responding by making an attempt to unpack what van der Veen meant in saying Democrats “doctored proof.” It didn’t sound like a lot.

“To be clear for our viewers, what you’re speaking about now’s a verify mark that’s a verification on Twitter that didn’t exist on that specific tweet, a ‘2020’ that ought to’ve truly learn ‘2021,’ and the selective enhancing, you say, of the tapes. Is that the doctored proof of which you’re talking?” she requested.

Zak’s characterization of van der Veen’s allegations was correct. However earlier than she might even end asking the query, van der Veen — maybe cognizant of how flimsy his allegations sound when laid out like that — angrily fired again.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait — that’s not sufficient for you? No, no, no. It’s not okay to physician a bit of little bit of proof,” he stated, including later: “I can’t imagine you’ll ask me a query indicating that it’s all proper to physician just a bit little bit of proof.”

Van der Veen’s adversarial efficiency was extensively praised by right-wing pundits. Much less adversarial however equally telling was Donald Trump Jr.’s look on Monday evening’s version of Sean Hannity’s Fox Information present, when he went so far as to counsel the Home managers ought to be imprisoned.

“The truth is that this: If this wasn’t a kangaroo court docket, you’d have the Republicans clamoring to go after the supposed prosecution for actually manufacturing proof,” he stated. “I imply, think about any prosecutor in America was caught manufacturing proof towards a witness. That may be a jailable offense. They’d be disbarred, they’d be thrown out of their positions, they’d be impeached. That’s what ought to occur right here, after they’re manufacturing, placing up faux blue verify marks, altering tweets, doing all this stuff for impact.”

The truth is that regardless of Trump’s acquittal, 57 senators — together with seven Republicans — voted to convict him. And even GOP lawmakers who voted to acquit on procedural grounds, together with Minority Chief Mitch McConnell, made clear that they maintain Trump liable for the January 6 rebellion.

Nonetheless, van der Veen and Don Jr. are attempting to make it appear as if Trump’s second impeachment trial was simply one other installment of the anti-Trump witch hunt. However they’re banking that individuals received’t take the time to look into the deserves of what they’re alleging, as a result of there’s no there there.

The outrage is performative, not substantive

Claims concerning the Home impeachment managers manipulating proof first got here up throughout Trump lawyer David Schoen’s presentation throughout Friday’s portion of the impeachment trial, when he stated “we have now motive to imagine the Home managers manipulated proof and selectively edited footage.”

Schoen’s aim was to discredit the prosecution’s case by impugning the Home managers’ credibility, however the particular examples he cited had no bearing on their case.

One needed to do with a photograph from a New York Instances article wherein lead prosecutor Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) is proven getting ready for the trial by taking a look at a pc monitor that’s displaying a Trump tweet with the wrong date on the backside. Schoen cited this picture to assert Democrats had been cooking up proof, however as even he admitted, the error was corrected earlier than the trial.

The opposite particular allegations made by Schoen and van der Veen had been equally weak. One needed to do with the 12 months on a Trump tweet that managers displayed through the trial studying “2021” as a substitute of “2020.” One other needed to do with a Twitter account retweeted by Trump being proven with a blue checkmark verification badge when the account in truth was not verified. Schoen additionally quibbled with the prosecution over the importance of misspellings in tweets that Trump retweeted, and accused Democrats of “selectively enhancing” footage offered through the trial by exhibiting quick clips of Trump’s pre-insurrection January 6 speech as a substitute of longer swaths of it. (The implication being that as a result of Trump as soon as in passing urged his followers to stay peaceable throughout a speech wherein he referenced “combating” greater than 20 occasions, it’s not the case he incited something.)

To be clear, the discrepancies on the tweets are legit errors, however that they had completely no bearing on the precise content material of the posts in query or the substance of the Home managers’ case. And as an aide to the Home managers defined after Schoen made gentle of those discrepancies, the errors occurred as a result of prosecutors needed to recreate Trump’s tweets from scratch after his account was completely suspended.

“The textual content is totally unchanged,” the aide advised The Hill. “The ultimate graphic unintentionally had a blue verification checkmark on it, however the substance of it was totally correct. So what’s Trump’s attorneys’ level?”

The purpose, in fact, was to not supply a substantive protection of Trump, however to attempt to discredit Democrats whereas giving individuals like van der Veen grist for performative outrage throughout TV hits. And to that finish, mission achieved.