February 5, 2021 --

In all good conscience, LPR cannot refer to the former New York Times as anything but The New York Pravda. Its columns filled with anti-Trump lies, disinformation, misinformation and sheer balderdash requires this.

See, please the lead story, January 27, on the Senate vote on whether the second impeachment trial should be held at all.
As stated in a nearby LPR column, the vote failed 45 - 55, but indicated that the vote to convict will also fail.  Nicholas Fandos included this piece of sleazy propaganda in the second paragraph, arguing (not reporting) that most GOP senators likely would not convict in the face of former President Trump's "role in stirring up a mob that violently targeted lawmakers" at the Capitol on January 6.  Again, this is a leftist argument, NOT an established fact.  But as Andrea Widburg, a deputy editor at American Thinker points out at the Bookworm Room site,
leftists premise their facts only after the arrive at conclusions, conservatives reach conclusion on the basis of facts.

The Fandos propaganda piece has provides more  lies and disinformation.  It will suffice, however, to focus on the gross misinformation at the end of this anti-Trump hit job.

Fandos quotes "a group of 150 prominent legal scholars" as pronouncing: "'If an official could only be disqualified while he or she still held office, then an official who betrayed the public trust and was impeached could avoid accountability simply by resigning one minute before the Senate's final conviction vote"....   It is obvious that the concern of these "legal scholars" is that by avoiding conviction in th Senate, the alleged former presidential perp will avoid permanent disqualification from holding office again.

The "legal scholars" cited by Fandos are not fully scholarly in their argument; they ignore the guidance from Hamilton, in Federalist Paper No. 65.  Yes, LPR stands alone against 150 anonymous "legal scholars" on the basis of the following from Hamilton, who indicates quite plainly that a former president "will still be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law."  Hamilton puts this in the context of Senate conviction, but conviction or not, the operative phrase is "still...liable to prosecution."  Would the 150 legal scholar argue that a former president can be brought to trial only if he had been convicted on impeachment?  Logic would answer in the negative.

If the actual aim of the "legal scholars" is to ban Mr. Trump from further participation in public office, is it likely that he would gain elective office on conviction of a felony?  LPR thinks not.  Is it beyond probability that some district attorney might seek an indictment of private citizen Donald J. Trump?  This question might be addressed to Manhattan D.A. Cyrus Vance, Jr.

The issue, therefore, is whether a former president can be indicted, not whether a former president convicted by the Senate on an impeachment can be indicted.  The 150 "legal scholars" and The New York Pravda offer misinformation by suggesting that the future of a former president turns on Senate conviction, and not on subsequent proceeding following his presidential term, "in the ordinary course of law.   LPR has no doubt The New York Pravda will demand, after this impeachment trial fails to convict, the immediate indictment  and punishment, of private citizen Trump.  After all, the political hell hath no fury greater than a deep state opposed by a deplorable, however wealthy.