Opinion | Trump's Republicans, Brought to Their Knees
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
They stand for nothing. The Senate trial proved that.
By Frank Bruni
Opinion Columnist
- Feb. 13, 2021
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During the first of the three presidential impeachments in my lifetime, we contemplated the smudging of a blue dress. During the second, the smearing of a political rival.
During this one, which ended with Donald Trump's predictable but infuriating acquittal? The shrieking of a police officer as a mob crushed and bloodied him. It was rawer and uglier. So is America.
But I keep thinking about the late 1990s, Bill Clinton, that whole melodrama and how Republicans used it in the service of a particular identity for their party. I keep thinking about what a lie that identity was then and what an absolute joke it is now.
Republicans sought to define themselves as the caretakers of tradition, the guardians of propriety, the proudly old-fashioned champions of honor, order, patriotism and such. Clinton's background, especially the accusations of infidelity, helped them do that. They turned him into a symbol of America's turpitude. They reasoned that the more thoroughly they demonized him (and Hillary), the more persuasively they sanctified themselves.
He was lies and they were truth. He was lust and they were modesty.
Monica Lewinsky dropped into that crusade like a gift from the gods. What you saw on the faces of many Republicans as they discussed Clinton's dalliance with her wasn't indignation. It was glee, and it fueled the charade that men like Newt Gingrich — who was then the House speaker and was cheating on his second wife with the much younger woman who would become his third — were the bulwarks against moral chaos.
Chaos. That's precisely what Donald Trump wrought. Not metaphoric chaos, but actual chaos, deadly chaos, on grueling, gutting display in the footage of Jan. 6 that House Democrats presented at his Senate trial. It showed rioters coming for lawmakers like lions for lambs. ("Hang Mike Pence!" "Naaaaaancy, where are you?!?") It showed lawmakers fleeing for their lives. It showed stampeding, smashing, stomping, screeching.
It showed hell, or something close enough that when all but seven Republican senators shrugged it off so that they could vote to acquit Trump, they finally forfeited any claim to virtue or to "values," a word that had long been their mantra. They irrevocably lost all rights to lecture voters on such things. They affirmed that they, like Gingrich, were gaseous with hot air all along.
They're fine with hell, so long as they're re-elected.
The era of Trump has been the era of Republican unmasking, and many Republicans didn't have their masks successfully affixed in the first place. This trial and that footage left them nothing to hide behind. What Trump incited — the insanity of it, the profanity of it, the body count — represents the antithesis of everything that the party purported to hold dear.
Trump's lawyers excused it and gave Republican senators their rationale for acquittal by talking about free speech, but that cast the president of the United States — the most powerful person in the world, entrusted with the security of his country — as just any old crank spouting off. It minimized his station. It trivialized the stakes. It also overlooked that it's not OK to yell "fire" in a crowded theater, though Representative Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, reminded them of that, describing Jan. 6 as "a case where the town fire chief who's paid to put out fires sends a mob not to yell 'fire!' in a crowded theater but to actually set the theater on fire."
The lawyers also turned history on its head, essentially bookending Trump's presidency by minting the precise sorts of "alternative facts" that Kellyanne Conway smugly heralded at the start. "Unlike the left, President Trump has been entirely consistent in his opposition to mob violence," one of his lawyers, Michael van der Veen, said, scaling new summits of preposterousness. Trump blessed mob violence at his campaign rallies. He blessed mob violence in Charlottesville, Va. He's against mob violence the way I'm against spaghetti carbonara. Which is to say that he thrills to it and eats it up.
Both before and during the Senate trial, Trump's defenders asserted that there's no clear causal link between his malfeasance and that police officer's screams. But the House Democrats effectively destroyed that argument by documenting not only Trump's words in the days, hours and minutes before the mob attacked but also his long, painstaking campaign to erode trust in democratic processes, so that if those processes didn't favor him, his supporters were primed to junk them. He's a study in slow-motion treason. Jan. 6 was simply when he slammed his foot down on the accelerator.
It was also, in retrospect, the climax that his presidency was always building toward, the inevitable fruit of his meticulous indoctrination of his base, his methodical degradation of American institutions, his romancing of right-wing media and his recruitment of the most ambitious and unscrupulous Republican lawmakers. At his behest, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz and several other Republican senators promoted the lethal falsehood that the election was fraudulent, yet that didn't disqualify them from sitting as jurors to render a foregone verdict on a man whose delusions they had already endorsed. What a system. What a farce.
They were distracted, cavalier jurors at that. Rick Scott, who of course voted "not guilty," was seen studying and then fiddling with a map or maps of Asia. Dare we dream that he's plotting his own relocation there? Hawley, who also voted "not guilty," at one point moved to the visitors gallery above the Senate floor and did some reading there, his feet propped up, his lanky body a pretzel of petulance. What happened to Republicans' respect for authority? What happened to basic decency and decorum?
Clinton was a supposedly unendurable offense against that, but then along came Trump, and Republicans decided that decency and decorum were overrated. Truth, too. Heck, everything that they claimed to stand for in the Clinton years was now negotiable, expendable, vestigial. Nothing was beyond the pale.
But that footage was beyond the pale. Did you really look at it, Senators Hawley, Scott and Cruz (yet another "not guilty")? Did you see the blood and the terror on that police officer's face? Do you honestly contend that there's no connection between Trump's lies — refined over years, repeated incessantly and rendered in the most incendiary fashion possible — and the officer's pain?
Do you sleep soundly at night?
On Friday, as the trial drew nearer to the moment when senators would render their verdict, President Biden was asked for his thoughts on the proceeding. "I'm just anxious to see what my Republican friends do — if they stand up," he said.
What a generous statement. Trump brought these Republicans to their knees long ago. Stand? They can barely crawl at this point.
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Yes and it gets back to the electorate. Our elected officials have two overlords: the party leadership and their constituents. They (most of them) make daily political calculations between the two. Their objectives (seems to me) is simply to maintain or better their own political careers.
So in the case of Trump's second impeachment, it looks to me as though the senators voted primarily to follow what they believed were the wishes of their constituents. Not what is right, but what is best for them politically.
They should have convicted Trump (rightly) and distanced the R party from this miserable malignant narcissist and pathological liar. But they have been held back, it seems, because of the inexplicable sycophantic Trump worship that persists in those whose votes are needed to reelect these senators.
In short: the electorate is the problem. Specifically those who inexplicably (stupidly IMO) still support Trump.
A lot of Democrats left their party and went to Trump in his first election. Its not because he was a "Republican", its because he appealed to their vision of what "America" should be.
Trumpism was never about partisanship, it is about an idea, although many Republican politicians are caught up in it because their voting base coincides with Trumps.
Yes. And assuming they would never vote for an R senator, the senators should not be heeding their positions.
That is correct. Trump hijacked the R party. The Rs resisted him at first but eventually acquiesced given his popularity with their constituents. And this also is the dynamic that has a very real chance of splitting the R party and essentially killing a viable opposition to the D party. There are plenty of Rs who would never want another PotUS like Trump but, inexplicably, even today, there exist strange-thinking people who actually want this miserable POS to run again for PotUS.
If they do not come to their senses, they stand a very good chance of reducing the R party to a strong but nonetheless secondary party status.
Yes I also believe that many of the no votes were because of fear. Fear of trump and trump followers (including their votes but Not limited to votes alone).
trump is vicious, people are smart to be wary of this megalomaniac.
The
RepublicanNew Fascist Party leadership shows no belief in anything... and that's probably an accurate impression. Each will vote however they suppose is to their own personal advantage.It is their base that is deeply Fascist! Deeply authoritarian and deeply xenophobe. We can expect a fascist salute and ''Hail Trump!'' greeting any time now...
Trump wants them on their knees because it is more zipper accessible.
Good one Paula.
Personally I am very sad to see that so many especially the more financially conservative ones have bought into trump.
To me trump's means and ways of accomplishment disqualified this jackass long ago.
Y'all simply can't accept reality and move on. All the Dems have done is to taint their message (whatever that is) by this ill advised and failed impeachment clown show.
Trump and his bluster and BS will fade away, but the Republicans will make a strong comeback in the midterms
I think your time frame is too short. If people have not dropped their support for Trump at this point, with all the obvious evidence that this guy should never hold a political position much less PotUS, then I do not see much hope for the R party in the midterms. It will be a party divided into sensible Rs and those who inexplicably stick with Trump.
If the Dems leave him behind Trump will never win another primary but if they keep up the hateful rhetoric and foolish revenge tactics he will retain his high profile and his power in the Republican Party. It is the Left with all their insults and condemnations of republicans that gave Trump his power and now the continued Trump Bashing is just causing them to double down on their Support of Trump. The thing to remember is Biden didn't win with a wide enough margin to call it a mandate no matter what he thinks, even with all the things going against Trump if the pandemic had never happened he would have won. So if Biden doesn't get the economy roaring again and if he keeps enacting anti-energy EO's he'll likely lose in four years. Gas prices in my area have already risen 40 cents since the election and 25 cents since the inauguration and they had been low and steady while Trump was in office. Biden's policies are taking money out of peoples pockets at a time when they can ill afford it. Biden's doing everything he can to make sure he's a one term president and the Democratic Party and left wing Media are doing everything they can to make sure Trump will be there in Four years.
Did the impeachment trial encourage you to vote for Trump in 2024?
If we're lucky, he'll be on trial in the SDNY for the next several years and/or finally behind bars.
Or if we're really, really, really lucky - he'll drop dead before then of a heart attack or a stroke or whatever . . . .
'White grievance' gave Trump his power. Not 100% of his "power", but a good part of it.
Losers tend to be drawn to losers.
Including on forums.
On a positive note, Rush is taking the big dirt nap.
I wish that would happen, I doubt it does.
.bing.com/search?q=trump+comeback+kid+2016&form=CHRDEF&sp=-1&pq=trump+comeback+kid+2016&sc=0-23&qs=n&sk=&cvid=A68D2EE51FBA45B983AAB16092B16C65
The political left continues to flail, grasping for any emotive bunkum they can lay their hands on. Now the political left is attempting to resurrect the Clinton impeachment to stoke resentment.
The facts are that Nancy Pelosi did not send the articles of impeachment to the Senate until Jan. 25. That was entirely Pelosi's choice and her's alone. There wasn't any way that the Senate could possibly try Trump before he left office. Pelosi deliberately held the articles until after Biden's inauguration.
Nancy Pelosi ensured that questions would be raised concerning the Constitutionality of impeaching a President after leaving office. Since Trump was no longer the President, Trump was denied the resources to defend himself that a sitting President would have available. Apparently Pelosi deliberately stalled the process to intentionally hamper Trump's ability to mount a defense.
The House Democrats managing the prosecution did not put forward evidence. They presented carefully edited tidbits with emotive overtones as propaganda to sway public opinion. Democrats didn't put forward a prosecution; they mounted a marketing campaign speaking to voters and not to Senate jurors.
Pelosi deliberately played political dirty tricks. And Pelosi's dirty tricks ensured the outcome of the Senate trial. Democrats used the impeachment trial to make bogus claims supported by edited tidbits of video in hopes of swaying public opinion.
As a consequence of Democrats using impeachment solely for political purposes, Trump is now politically stronger than ever. Trump can fight the political left and win. The results speak for themselves. And Trump won't engage in the anonymous passive-aggressive resistance that the political left favors.
Democrats must now live up to the standards they used to impeach Trump. The word 'fight' has been removed from the Democrat's politically correct lexicon. We'll see how long Democrat's hypocritical pretense can hold up to that standard. I'm guessing that standard will be quickly swept under the rug at Chuck Schumer's next press conference. Hypocrites can't claim the moral high ground. Hypocrisy has a name and that name is Democrat.
NYET!
I'm very concerned for the future. Impeachment has been weaponized now, so when will it next be raised and who will be targeted? I'm already seeing articles that lay out if the Republicans take the House in 22 they should start impeachment proceedings against Harris for what she did last summer in regards to the defense funds she helped set up. Lord I hope they don't go down that rabbit hole. We need to pull back from this partisan bullshit. But I'm afraid it's only going to get worse as I don't think we've seen the bottom of this well.
Well, we've already seen Marjorie Taylor Greene file an article of impeachment against Biden, one day after he was sworn in.
Kind of funny that you think Impeachment has been weaponized considering republicans were "all in" in applying it in a case of consensual sex back in the 1990s, yet think a situation where a mob was called up, and descended on the capital to where people were killed is considered "partisan bullshit".
What a load of shit.
Acting like McConnell had no part to play on when the articles could reach the senate is complete bullshit.
They also voted on the constitutionality of it.
No matter how blind some continue to willfully be, the truth is donald started a fire and fanned the flames. Even McConnell was bold enough to stick his head out from his shell and say that.
Saying that impeachment will now be used as retribution is talk from people that want to do exactly that. So any threats or scare tactics about it are only some lame defence of donald and his supporters continual attempt to burn down the house.
I keep hoping one of these days some of the trumpers will finally pull their heads out of their asses and see their savior for what he is. An empty suit that spews nothing but empty rhetoric with no basis in fact.
What could Mitch McConnell do to prevent the articles of impeachment being sent to the Senate? The choice was Nancy Pelosi's and her's alone.
Seriously, Nerm? Pelosi explained it, but here it is again:
McConnell's excuse for voting to acquit was that Trump wasn't in office during the impeachment hearings. Of course, he was the one who made it impossible for impeachment hearings to take place while Trump was in office. He created the situation that he used as an excuse. It's pretty transparent to most people.
moving the stakes, the boundaries, the goalposts ... same old shit, different day. republicans simply cannot be trusted to negotiate in good faith.
Add a little deliberate obtuseness, and yeah, you pretty much nailed it.
The House voted on the articles of impeachment on Jan. 13 after the scheduled start of the Senate recess. As I said, this was Nancy Pelosi's choice and her's alone.
Of course, Nerm. The Senate was scheduled to go into recess the day after the certification of the election, which, as it happens, was the day on which the insurrection occurred. Unless the House voted to impeach before the insurrection, they couldn't have done so before the Senate was scheduled to start recess.
Good thing that Nancy did it too..... Somebody needed to defend the constitution and the rule of law. That sure wasn't going to come from McCarthy and that ilk.
What the Republican party stands for is an open question on many issues, but that isn't a result of this sorry impeachment drama. It has been a problem for many years. For example, the party of fiscal responsibility has a problem with spending just like the Democratic party does. Their real disagreement is not on spending per se, but what to spend the money on. Also, the supposed party of limited government is likewise not interested in limiting the power of government to enforce things they care about. So again, the parties don't disagree on the power of government, just on what the government should focus on. Individual liberties are important to both parties, but only the liberties each party cares about protecting and the people they care about protecting.
So this article thinks something has been revealed about the Republican party, but it hasn't. The argument here is basically "if you don't agree with us, then you don't stand for anything." That is self conceit and arrogance in the extreme.
Instead, this article looks like an attempt to polish the turd of impeachment. We have seen the Democrats in Washington abuse the impeachment power while pretending they haven't been looking for a way to impeach Trump since November of 2016 (and even earlier for some folks). They should be embarrassed, but that is not in the makeup of most politicians.
The latest expression of this abuse has been Hypocrisy on Parade. All year long (and even in the years before) we have see chaotic and violent demonstrations that were encouraged, excused, or ignored by Democratic elected officials, their constituents, and their media.
This includes riots in late May and early June of last year that lit fires all over Washington D.C. The chaos, violence, and destruction went on for days.
They even went to our nation's Capitol building, where they shouted at police to take a knee. Multiple fires were lit near the White House. The president and his family were compelled to hide in a bunker as hundreds of people surrounded the building and marched across the lawn.
While the president called for order, then candidate Biden declared:
Set aside for a moment that he just accused Trump of being the one to sow chaos. That's insane enough. But the rest of it sounds a lot like what Trump said at his rally before the January 6 riots:
Of course, in the hypocrisy parade, one is ok and the other is not.
Discussing the president's response to the riots, at the time, Speaker Pelosi condemned the use of force against the rioters:
This from the lady who called for the usual complement of National Guard troops to be tripled at the inauguration and kept them there for days after. To do what?, I wonder. If a riot had broken out, I suppose all those troops would have not used tear gas and clubs? Sure!
The summer DC riots went on for over a week .
The January 6 riot was over in a few hours . But as far as Democrats were concerned, the summer riots were no big deal. Trump was a bully for trying to break them up at all. Pelosi and other Democrats made public appearances to show solidarity. All the while, the city burned and dozens of police officers were injured. But fast forward to January 6 when a much smaller uprising was quickly put down (by comparison) and suddenly Trump is responsible for a one-man 9/11 event.
To be clear, it's all bad. In no way do I think what happened on January 6 was ok. But at least I can say that I objected to all the violence and not just one brand of it.
The impeachment didn't bring the Republicans to their knees. (Democrats do so love to talk about having their opponents on their knees, don't they?) Rather, it shined a bright light on political hypocrisy.
If Biden runs for and loses reelection in 2024 and then engages in a campaign for months after losing the election wherein he blatantly lies to his supporters that:
If Biden also engaged in dozens of frivolous lawsuits, tried to pressure officials into 'finding votes', changing electors, etc. And if his frenzied supporters then stormed the Capitol to stop the counting of the certified electoral votes and Biden let it happen for hours and then later gave a lukewarm 'go home' message, would this be viewed as abiding by or violating his oath of office? Would this be viewed as ensuring the integrity of the government of which he is head or an attempt to violate the processes of government to steal an election?
My answer is that Biden would have violated his oath of office by abusing his office in an attempt to steal an election.
Not sure what that has to do with anything in the comment you are replying to.
This:
Trump's second impeachment was not frivolous. One could argue that it was unconstitutional to conduct the trial after office but any PotUS who engages in acts Trump did after losing the election has placed legitimate impeachment on the table.
Um ok. Thanks for stopping by.
You may not like it Tacos, but T,G covered all the bases..... The current GOP is not a pretty picture.
You may not like it, but I don't have to care about everything you guys want me to care about.
You don't have to care about defending the constitution Tacos....... But you should.
We can't even get you to hold those on the right accountable for their oaths of office. (remember.... uphold and defend......?)
I defend the Constitution harder than anyone on this site.
You think spraying revenge all over the place holds someone accountable? It might, but it sure doesn't defend the Constitution. It's partisan posturing. And doing it in a way that is arguably unconstitutional harms the Constitution. Even TiG acknowledged that it was arguably unconstitutional. Both impeachments have been like lynchings. It's pure luck that at the trial phase, Trump had more allies than enemies.
I have said from the very beginning of this second impeachment talk that true accountability was to be found in the criminal and civil courts, not in the chambers of Congress. I have said it over and over for weeks. That is true accountability that respects the Constitution.
Your whataboutism, projection and denial are SO TIRESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
First off, you are conflating rioting and protesting in your post, which are not the same thing.
As did most people, Biden included. From
Nice try, Tucker.
No, I didn't. I even included pictures in case there was any attempt to confuse the issue as you just did.
As we saw with Trump, it doesn't matter if you say a good thing while also saying an allegedly bad thing. If you're going to ignore the encouragement Biden gave, you should ignore the encouragement Trump gave. Or it's hyprocisy.
I am not confused. Here is your statement from 7 :
While I am sure that some people and more radical media outlets may have been for the violence, the overwhelming bulk of Democratic elected officials, their constituents, and their media (whoever that is) was undeniably not encouraging, excusing or ignoring the violence of the riots. Just Google it. Here is Biden's statement again:
Does that look like he is encouraging violence to you? It surely does not look that way to me.
I don't know how you measure the "overwhelming bulk" of those people, but I could say the same things about their Republican counterparts. Would you care? Would anybody care?
There is CNN video of a reporter describing a peaceful protest as the town burns behind him.
You can say the "overwhelming bulk" of people were peaceful, but you can't just ignore or dismiss the fire. And yet, it was dismissed. "Fiery" almost sounds like a positive adjective.
You can say the overwhelming bulk of politicians didn't encourage, excuse, or ignore the violence, but so what? Does that erase the highly placed people who let it go on? When I can point you to quotes from the Speaker of the House, the Senate Leader, presidential candidates, states governors, and city mayors encouraging, excusing, or ignoring violence, does it really matter what the overwhelming bulk is doing?
OK, so I gave you some words from Biden and you gave me words from Biden. And you think that those words condemning violence and promoting peace should be listened to over the words that arguably imply support of the violence.
Fair enough. Will you do the same for Trump or Republicans? Multiple times, Trump has advocated for peace, and condemned violence and bigotry. Multiple times. But people want to take his other statements and say he is encouraging an insurrection. I could argue that the overwhelming bulk of his statements have been in support of peace, law, and order. I could point out that the overwhelming bulk of his rallies have been peaceful. I could point out that all of his actions have been pursuant to his legal rights under the law. Would you care?
I see a double standard.
These words do not arguably imply support of the violence. They compel one to look beyond the violence to see what the issue really is instead of simply conflating all of the violence and protests into one, declaring it all bad, and simply trying to quash the whole thing. To do that merely pushes the problem of racial double standards down the line where it will undoubtedly crop up again at some point. Instead of attempting to cover everything with dirt, we had ought to be sweeping clean and studying our history so that we can find a way out of the endless cycles of violence. Riots are engendered by a feeling of being held down while others are allowed to rise.
So, when does a protest become a riot? At what point, what level of or threat of violence triggers the term? It would seem as if that determination would be made individually based upon perception, and these individual perceptions would be made based on what one knows and thinks about a given event, which in turn can be based on the coverage that one is cognizant of about the event. It is factual to note that the vast majority of last years Black Lives Matter protests were peaceful. It is also factual to note that some of the protests devolved into chaos and rioting. It is disingenuous to say, however, that BLM protests were on balance overall violent protests.
Yet we heard a daily cacophony of caterwauling from certain sections about how violent and destructive they were while lending no credence to the validity of the protesters reality. This, in my analysis, is simply encouraging the protests and the riots to continue because we are denying the protesters lived reality.
In the case of the January 6th Save America March, the ideas of the participants were skewed by the fact that they were lied to repeatedly so that their perception was that the election had been stolen from them and from the then president. They perceived their president to be calling on them to take over the Capitol. The facts are that the election was not stolen. The participants were deceived. They were called to DC to save America, by the president. Given a time, date and place to be. There is a double standard in America, just not where you think it is.
There were 11 Republicans in the House and 7 in the Senate that voted for impeachment and then conviction. It may be difficult for some people to understand, but this is very strong evidence that Trump is guilty as charged. Members of Congress from the impeached president's own party are not going to vote him guilty unless the proof is overwhelming. It would be political suicide and non- sensical for people from the same party to vote guilty. What we see is that a few of them actually have a conscience. Not "many", but more than one or two.
There are conservative pundits that very well understand that Trump's actions, taken as a whole, from even before the election when he was telling everyone that if he lost it be only because the election was stolen from him, until January 6th itself, clearly indicate someone who was urging and grooming the most activist of his followers to take action on his behalf. Anyone who thinks that Trump wanted his followers to march to the Capitol and hold hands and sing protest songs does not understand Trump at all. And even after they had broken in and were fighting with the police Trump would not try and call it off when asked to by the Republican leader of the House.
One wonders how much more proof you need Tacos, but I would note that based on many of your past comments there is no amount of proof that would effect you.
Um, how people voted isn't evidence of guilt.
Not here in America, anyways.
Nothing can help you understand. Don't worry about it.
Yah, nothing can help me understand how someone votes is proof of guilt.
If that is all it took, our court system would be operating very differently.
The comment was not about how people voted in the election, it was about how the 11 House Republicans and 7 Senate Republicans voted for impeachment and then conviction in Congress.
But carry on. It's entertaining.
It's quite amusing
Yes, I KNOW. After all, it IS what the fuck we are talking about.
My statement stands.
Public opinion on crimes is often premature. People see a thing in part, either in person, or on TV. They listen to people expressing their opinion. Based on this, they think they understand all they need to decide guilt. They are often wrong.
Do you understand that impeachment is purely political and has nothing to do with criminal law? Claiming he is guilty of anything - based on a kangaroo court trial with no sworn testimony, no consideration of actual law, and no actual judge - is pointless?
I will now repeat two things that I have said MANY MANY times on this site. 1) I totally disapprove of all of Trump's election nonsense, even though I defend his right to pursue the matter in court. and 2) If you think Trump is guilty of a crime, then PROSECUTE him in a criminal court. Otherwise, all this talk of guilt is political BS.
While criminal courts are the next stop for the Trump train, the US Congress has a special task that only it can enforce. That is holding a president to his oath of office. What the 44 acquitting senators voted for was to allow some future president with a better plan a stronger opportunity to actually overturn the results of a fair and free election in order to stay in office.
Do you honestly think Trump hadn't considered calling for martial law in an effort to stay in office?
I need evidence that he violated his oath. You think he's doing something stupid and unwarranted (and I would agree), but that can be said of any president. It doesn't mean he has violated an oath just because he's pissing you off.
He tried incessantly to get people in authority to make lawful calls on his behalf. As near as I can tell, he didn't ask anyone to ignore the law for no reason. He asked people to interpret events according to the law. We might disagree with him, but everything he did - no matter how thin his evidence and arguments were - was within the law.
I have seen some crazy shit argued in courtrooms, and I would have bet you every bit of money I had on me that the argument would fail - and then it won. You don't win if you don't try. Trump tried way beyond what I think most people would consider reasonable, but he was within his rights to do it.
I'll need evidence of that. I don't convict people on the basis of partisans assuming the worst in someone.