The Senate trial: There may be another reason Pelosi wants to keep things simple and direct.

[shockey80]

It is not hard to imagine Trump and his defense team will try to turn the Senate trial into a OJ type trial. Stretch the trial out, confuse people by creating a conspiracy, blame someone else. There defense will not blame racist cops, they will blame the Biden's. I can see it coming.

This is why I agree with Pelosi. Keep the charges simple and narrowly focused on Ukraine-gate. This will limit Trump's ability to turn it into a freak show. It will be easy for the American people to follow and understand what happened with Ukraine.

The main goal is to remove this piece of shit from office. After he leaves office we can go after him legally for the many crimes he has committed.

[empedocles]

1. Simple and irrefutable, like the Manafort trial.

Very limited charge, black and white guilt - that was able to overcome a hostile, republican judge, and a very stubborn trump juror.

Verdict guilty.

It took all that, to convince Manafort, team, and WH, to take a plea in the 2nd case against Manafort.

[kentuck]

2. Excellent point.

There is no doubt that they will look to distract and confuse the people. They need to keep it on track and not give them that opportunity.

[Captain Zero]

4. Ive worried about bringing 6 or 7 charges,

Which could easily be done, not for this reason, but for another. Just enough Republicans could vote to convict on each charge that none would pass, but every Republican could get on the record for having voted for at least one charge. See we just didn't agree on which charge.

[Wounded Bear]

3. Hmmm, if it actually gets to "trial" phase, John Roberts would have something to say about that...

Not sure he'd go all in on the Trump support bandwagon.

I get your point, though, and McConnell is certainly capable of all maner of chicanery.

[California_Republic]

5. Send over one charge at a time

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

6. Trump withheld appropriated funds to extort a foreign power into helping him politically.

This should be Article I of the impeachment document.

Article II - Trump ordered the entire Executive branch not to cooperate with a Congressional investigation, thereby obstructing justice.

The KISS principle - Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Stay on point. Ignore the GOP attempts at obfuscation. Ignore his rants. Don't respond to the Repugs attempts to muddy the waters. Stay on point. The goal is not impeachment (we already have the votes for that), the goal is to remove his ass from office, so he cannot keep screwing up U.S. security and the nation's economy. That will only happen if a huge percentage of the population is appalled by Trump's actions re: Ukraine, and put pressure on their Republican senators.

[Hortensis]

7. If the senate just censures or refuses even that,

the nation will not be confused as to the issues, far less vulnerable to manipulation.

And of course we need it not to suck up all the oxygen during the state primaries. We need the results to affect the vote. Just looked that up, Iowa's only 104 days from now.

[Talitha]

8. Like I've said before...

They zeroed in on Al Capone's tax evasion, and nailed him for it.

Keep it simple.

Nancy knows...