As the Senate moves towards a full-blown impeachment trial, the impact of that trial upon the 2020 Democrat primary and the 2020 Presidential campaign are becoming more and more obvious.

The President stands accused of trying to enforce the laws of the United State even when the main skell in the wrongdoing is the dissolute and dissipated son of the former vice president of the United States. The Democrats and NeverTrump have taken the very anti-American position that investigating the son of a political figure is off limits (apparently they slept through the whole Neil Bush and Silverado Savings and Loan affair). But, if this is the main charge, it is hard to imagine that President Trump’s legal team will not take the opportunity to show that leaning on Ukraine President Zelensky to crack down on the endemic political corruption in Ukraine, corruption that resulted in Ukraine meddling in the 2016 presidential election to help Hillary Clinton, was a reasonable step. And a very reasonable part of that would be to call former Vice President Joe Biden as a witness.

Biden would be an epic witness. Truly epic. Every day would be another reenactment of putting the gloves on O.J. except this time it would involve O.J. snatching the gloves from the evidence bag, putting them on, and having the gloves fit perfectly. Every day would be a slow motion pursuit of a white Bronco driven by Biden. Because Joe Biden is a buffoon under the best of circumstances and an utter imbecile when under pressure of any kind (see Joe Biden Loses His Crap When Some Iowa Democrat Asks Him About Hunter Biden’s Corruption and Burisma).

Friday, Biden was in Iowa for a editorial board meeting with the Des Moines Register. Kudos to the Register for taking some precious time out of their busy schedule of examining the decade-old tweets of a young man trying to do a good deed and vilifying him as a racist to actually ask Biden some real questions and to post the video.

This is the set up: “Do you stand by your earlier statements that you wouldn’t comply if you were subpoenaed to testify in an impeachment trial before the Senate?”

The video is cued to the question.

Testifying before the Senate on the matter would take attention away from Trump and the allegations against him, Biden said. Not even “that thug” Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney and former New York City mayor, has accused Biden of doing anything but his job, the former vice president said. Biden also said any attempt to subpoena him would be on “specious” grounds, and he predicted it wouldn’t come to that.

Biden said even if he volunteered to testify in an attempt to clear the air, it would create a media narrative that would let Trump off the hook.

“What are you going to cover?” Biden said to Register Executive Editor Carol Hunter in response to a question. “You guys are going to cover for three weeks anything that I said. And (Trump’s) going to get away. You guys buy into it all the time. Not a joke … Think what it’s about. It’s all about what he does all the time, his entire career. Take the focus off. This guy violated the Constitution. He said it in the driveway of the White House. He acknowledged he asked for help.”

Biden has a point but all of his smack talk right now doesn’t mean a thing.

If President Trump’s team does subpoena Biden and he refuses to show up, he has just written off the support of any of the rabid NeverTrump base that all Democrats, other than, it seems. Tulsi Gabbard, are courting. Because as sure as night follows day, his refusal to cooperate will be cited either in the acquittal, or most likely, in the dismissal of charges. It is going to be very, very hard for a Joe Biden who claims he and his goofy and criminally inclined son did nothing wrong when they refuse to testify at the impeachment trial of the man he says is a danger to country.

Should Biden testify, he will create so much material of campaign ads that the Democrat primary will have to be extended just to allow sufficient for them to air.

In short, should Joe Biden be subpoenaed, this is a no-win situation for Biden. There is no plausible reason, other than guilt, that he can give to explain his refusal to cooperate and Trump gets to claim, truthfully, that he is not being given a fair trial because a witness refuses to appear. He and his staff know that an appearance will mean the death of his presidential campaign. I think that in reality, if Biden is called he has no choice but to appear. If he doesn’t, he will have to campaign for his party’s nomination wearing the Scarlet Letter of being the one man who can be blamed for Trump’s acquittal. His rivals for the nomination will not let him get away with it. Neither will the Democrat party.