Peggy Noonan Scorches ‘Coward’ Republicans Defending Trump in New Op-Ed: ‘Those Who Acquit Are Voting For a Lie’
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Peggy Noonan excoriated “coward” Republicans who are unwilling to vote to convict former President Donald Trump at his second impeachment trial in a scathing Wall Street Journal op-ed, writing: “Those who acquit are voting for a lie.”
In Noonan’s view, the House Impeachment Managers made their case most effectively when they argued, not with emotional appeals, but “through time-stamped videos and close argumentation, and their timeline linked in an undeniable way the statements of the president on 1/6 and the actions of the rioters who stormed the Capitol.”
She claimed that she could not see how Trump’s lawyers could argue his “innocence,” and instead expected that the defense would engage in whataboutism and argue “extenuating circumstances — Democrats now speak violently too, and they didn’t care when cities exploded in violence last summer.”
Noonan was also incredulous at the dubious argument that has become popular in conservative media: that “everyone knows” the storming of the Capitol was planned ahead of time.
“This exonerates him?” she wrote. “If the government Mr. Trump headed knew trouble was coming, it’s evidence of both imminent lawless action and Mr. Trump’s intent—the legal elements of incitement. It makes him more culpable, not less.”
“I do not see how Republican senators could hear and fairly judge the accumulated evidence and vote to acquit the former president,” Noonan continued, arguing that the only way to keep it from happening again was “all involved must pay the stiffest possible price” — including the disqualification of Trump from holding future office.
“History will see 1/6 for what it was,” Noonan concluded. “Those who acquit are voting for a lie. Conviction would be an act of self-respect and of reverence for the place where fortune has placed them.”
