President Donald Trump gestures towards members on the media on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2019, after returning from United Nations General Assembly. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

What a day.

As was covered here yesterday extensively at Red State, the “real” opening of the Impeachment of Donald J. Trump began and while boring, there were some mini gems found.

Both sides fired their opening shots where Schiff & Company tried to make their case that they need witnesses that they did not bother to call during the House proceedings. The President’s side, led by White House counsel Pat Cipollone, refuted those reasons given by the House managers. Something that Cipollone said, though, caught my ear and made me think of what the long term game here is.

His quote is this…

“It’s buried in the small print of their ridiculous articles of impeachment. They want to remove President Trump from the ballot. They won’t tell you that. They don’t have the guts to say it directly, but that’s exactly what they’re here to do.”

As I wrote here on Monday, I thought for sure that the Democrats were just shooting for retaking the Senate being they knew this effort would be a bust… Democrats Are Planning on McConnell Wins on Impeachment but Will Lose the Senate in November but maybe it does go deeper.

I still don’t believe that the Senate will get 67 votes to remove Trump from office. Yet, what if part of the reason for this show trial is for trying to deny him access to ballots in some states? If you get the base ginned up enough who knows what they are crazy enough to do.

I would believe that it would be illegal to keep a Presidential candidate off the ballot in let’s say Pennsylvania if they met all the requirements. However, a lil’ known fact about Federal elections is that they are actually held by the states. Each state does have different procedures for how to run things and who knows what each state requirement has hidden in the book of laws from long ago?

I know this is a conspiracy theory based on too many years of watching the West Wing but dammit, this whole political season since 2016 has gotten into my head. What did Pat Cipollone mean by this? What does he know that the rest of us don’t?

How in the hell do old crusty Senators know what to do with an Apple Watch?

Hopefully, some of these questions will be answered and soon because watching 12 hours a day of this for the next 2 weeks will make my brain mush. Even more so than the Democrats’ arguments so far.

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