Well, I thought I had heard it all in terms of the Democrats’ shifting rationale for convicting the President in the Senate impeachment trial, but this one takes the cake. We have heard the following claims put forth by the House impeachment managers in order to embellish support for their unproven allegations of impeachable conduct by the President:

• Urgency. The Democrats claimed that their rush to impeachment was warranted, as it was “urgent” to remove the President from office for various reasons. Yeah, we heard ya, Nancy, but you proved already that you didn’t mean it, as you withheld sending your articles of impeachment to the Senate for a month.
• Threat to national security. The Democrats claimed that President Trump is a “threat to national security.” That one fell flatter than a pancake, especially after the Soleimani drone strike and the signing of Phase I of the trade deal with China.
• Threat to the future integrity of elections. The Democrats want to impeach the President for “future considerations.” I didn’t realize that the Democrats operated a future crimes unit as was depicted in the Tom Cruise movie, “Minority Report.” I think they are confusing the red ball that predicted a future crime in that movie with being red-pilled because a LOT of Americans have been red-pilled as they have watched this impeachment farce unfold. [Funny how the Democrats never seem to worry about the REAL threat to the integrity of our elections, which is voter fraud.]
• Obstructing a fair trial. The Democrats claim that the President’s refusal to offer up new witnesses and documents is “proof” that he is “obstructing” a fair trial. Never mind that the House Democrats could have subpoenaed witnesses and documents but chose not to do so in service of political expediency. It is the House’s job to investigate, and the Senate’s job to sit as a jury.
• Mind-reading. The Democrats have claimed that they knew what was in the President’s mind, as opposed to what he actually said during the phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky. Sharyl Atkisson skewers that argument here. That argument came up several times in the Democrats’ 24-hours talkathon, too. Who knew that Democrats have perfected mind-reading?
• Adverse inference. This was a new one from Angus King (I-ME) during an MSNBC interview on Saturday. He claimed that withholding evidence in a trial would allow people to draw an inference that that is in reality hiding one’s guilt. He conveniently “forgets” that the concept does not apply at all because the President was exercising his due process rights and using executive privilege to prevent testimony by his closest advisers without a judicial review first.
• Deflection, distraction, and doubt. This was the Democrat spin immediately after the White House counsel’s 2-hour presentation on Saturday, i.e., the President’s team was merely deflecting and distracting Republican senators with their “theatrics” in order to sow sufficient doubts that would enable Republican senators to “forget the overwhelmingly conclusive evidence” presented by Schiff et al and vote to acquit the President. That dog won’t hunt, as even CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin – certainly no friend of the President! – said on Saturday that “the Republicans are winning here, the President is winning here.”

These are just some of the arguments that somehow didn’t make their way into the Democrats’ two articles of impeachment. But this new one, floated by Democrat impeachment manager Val Demings (D-FL) in the usual Democrat-friendly interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, takes the cake. Here is what was discussed in the Q&A (plus a bit more worthy of dissection):

Stephanopoulos: One of the points the president’s team made is that those Javelin missiles were not actually even suspended. That that aid wasn’t held up. It was a different tranche of aid.

Demings: I understand what the president’s attorneys are saying, but we have to go back to what President Trump’s intentions were on the call that day and what President Zelensky heard. I also know that there’s been quite an effort to say, well, the Ukrainians were not even aware that there was a hold on the military aid, but we also know there’s testimony and supporting documentation that that just is not true. The information about the quid pro quo, we know there are several witnesses who testify that there were. But I’m reminded, too, of Michael Cohen, remember, the president’s former personal attorney who sitting in prison, one of the things that he said was that the president talks in codes, but everybody around him understands what he means. And if you remember, one of the witnesses, Ambassador Sondland, said that, yes, that the president, it was as clear as two plus two equals four. And so, while they are asking us, I believe, and the American people to not believe our lying eyes and our lying ears, I do believe that the information, the testimony, when you put it all together, is as clear as two plus two equals four.

Me: Did you catch all of that? “The President talks in codes, but everybody understands what he means.” So the Democrats have moved on from mind-reading to code-breaking? Man, they really ARE our rightful masters just as they have claimed for years, given everything they claim they can do! Except they’re none of the above because if they really could read the President’s mind or decipher his speech (including Twitter tweets), they would have been able to take him out long ago. Obviously, the President continues to drive them all crazy – the major side effect of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Stephanopoulos continued): In order to get a vote on witnesses, you’re going to need win over four Senate Republicans, including Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, yet this week she sounded fairly skeptical in an interview on CNN. … She said, the House made a decision that they didn’t want to slow things down by having to go through the courts, and yet now they’re basically saying you guys gotta go through the courts. We didn’t, but we need you to. She’s basically saying, you want the Senate to do the job you didn’t do.

Demings: George, let me say this. I think everybody who’s been paying attention knows now that the President refused to cooperate in any way with the House’s investigation. Not only did he prevent current administration officials from testifying, but he prevented former administration officials from testifying and did not give one single document to help. Now, you know, for me, I think if you are innocent and you have witnesses that can support your innocence – or documentation – you would freely be willing to hand that over.

Me: The President’s lawyers explained about the House’s illegal subpoenas and their unwillingness to subsequently submit legal subpoenas for witnesses and documents because the Democrats were only interested in rushing articles of impeachment through with a preordained partisan vote, regardless of whether there was any evidence of impeachable conduct. Furthermore, the President was protecting executive privilege for himself and future presidents, as Demings surely knows (and can’t successfully spin it otherwise).

Demings continued: … I’m just not going to give up on the Senate and I’m not going to draw any conclusions, although I know there’s a lot of speculation about what they may do or may not do. I’m not going to draw any other conclusions. My job is to present all of the facts and as much information as we possibly can. And I would think– finally I’ll say this, if they are interested in understanding the complete truth, then they would be willing, like every other trial and in every other courtroom across this country, because they are judges by the way, that they would want to hear from witnesses and see documentation, that can support this case. … I would expect that the senators would want to vote in favor of witnesses and supporting documentation. Remember, this is about hearing the complete story, while the evidence that we have is overwhelming in our case. And I think the American people clearly know that now. If you want to hear the complete truth, the complete story about what the president did or did not do, then you certainly want to hear from additional witnesses with direct knowledge, like Chief of Staff Mulvaney, who said, yes, that the aid was tied — that withholding the aid was tied to the DNC server, i.e. 2016 election. You’d want to hear from John Bolton, the national security advisor, who at the time said, if you remember, described the scene as a drug deal. He certainly got my attention with those words and I think the senators would want to hear from him.

Me: The rest of her commentary is the regular Democrat impeachment narrative pushing the need for new witnesses and documents, as well as a feeble attempt to put political pressure on Republican senators to “honor their oaths.” You have to prove your case, Val, and you haven’t done that, as evinced by Americans tuning out the 24-hour snooze-fest last week.

And insulting Republican senators with the fake news gambit about the President supposedly threatening Republican senators with “retribution” if they vote against his wishes, as well as accusing those same senators of participating in a “coverup,” didn’t help the Democrats’ case one scintilla. Somehow, I don’t think their latest crackpot notions of mind-reading and code-breaking of the President’s words will pass muster in both the court of public or during the Senate trial, either.

The end.