The fractious and bickering people of the United States finally found some common ground on Tuesday, coming together in a wonderful and refreshing show of… bewilderment.
The source of this new-found unity? Bruce Castor, one of the defence lawyers defending Donald Trump during his unprecedented second impeachment trial.
To be clear, Bruce Castor is a lawyer, a lawyer with years of experience currently undertaking his biggest job yet and one of the most important in recent US history.
So how did he garner reviews such as this…
Wow. What was the defence trying to argue?
Castor’s job was to open the defence’s case in the impeachment trial and argue that the proceedings are in fact unconstitutional and should be thrown out.
According to the defence, this is because when Trump told supporters at a rally on January 6 to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell” to overturn his election loss to Joe Biden, his remarks were protected by the First Amendment and he cannot be convicted as a former president.
Is that what he did?
Not really.
In fairness, Castor didn’t set his own bar very high, telling the Washington Post before his opening remarks: “You’re not going to get a law professor’s explanation.
“I’m a guy who gets up in court and talks.”
And talk he did. For 40 minutes.
It included such gems as: “Nebraska is quite a judicial thinking place.”
And: “A high crime is a felony, and a misdemeanour is a misdemeanour.”
And also this: “I worked in this building 40 years ago. I got lost then and I still do.”
If you’re hoping for some context to make sense of these remarks, there wasn’t any, despite, as noted, the fact he talked for 40 minutes straight.
In fact, the only time Castor appeared to put forward a logical point was when he acknowledged Joe Biden had rightfully won the 2020 US presidential election.
He said: “The American people are smart enough to pick a new administration if they don’t like the old one. And they just did.”
This is doubly curious as it’s the one thing his client, Donald Trump, has refused to admit.
What was the prosecution’s presentation?
Before Castor’s turn to speak, the prosecution simply played a video of the violent storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters and Trump’s speech which immediately preceded the ugly scenes.
The senators sitting as jurors, many of whom fled for safety themselves the day of the attack, watched and listened, unable to avoid the jarring video of Trump supporters battling past police to storm the halls, Trump flags waving.
“If that’s not an impeachment offence, then there is no such thing,” Democratic representative Jamie Raskin, who led a team of nine House members prosecuting the case, told the assembled senators.
He wept as he recounted how relatives he brought to the Capitol that day to witness the election certification had to shelter in an office near the House floor, saying: “They thought they were going to die.”
What was the verdict?
The trial is still ongoing so there’s no verdict yet in that sense but there was much judgment on Castor’s monologue.
Perhaps the most damning was that from Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, who represented Trump at his first impeachment trial.
Appearing on right-wing network Newsmax, he was asked where he thought the defence was heading as live footage cut away from Castor’s speech.
“There is no argument,” Dershowitz said. “I have no idea what he’s doing. I have no idea why he’s saying what he’s saying
“Come on. The American people are entitled to an argument. A constitutional argument.”
The criticism of Castor was a non-partisan issue. Several Republican senators said they found Trump’s defence, particularly Castor’s argument, disjointed and unclear.
“The House managers made a compelling, cogent case. And the president’s team did not,” said Republican senator Bill Cassidy, who voted to advance the trial.
Susan Collins, a Republican senator of Maine, said she was “perplexed” by Castor, saying he “did not seem to make any arguments at all, which was an unusual approach to take”.
How come it was so bad?
Trump’s defence team has been in chaos with two lead lawyers quitting just days before the trial.
Butch Bowers and Deborah Barberi, two South Carolina lawyers, left the team after a “mutual decision” with the former president, thought to be caused by Trump still contending that he was the victim of mass election fraud.
But there may have been another, slightly more tactical reason for the shambolic display – the defence was trying to distract from the emotive case put forward by the prosecution.
Castor hinted at this when he said: “I’ll be quite frank with you, we changed what we were going to do on account that we thought the House managers’ presentation was well done.”
Did it work?
Nope. The Senate voted 56-44 to proceed, rejecting Castor’s defence.
What did Trump say?
Nothing publicly given he no longer has access to Twitter but according to one report he was “borderline screaming over what was going on”.
After the Senate adjourned for the day, Castor told reporters: “I thought we had a good day.”