On Monday during MSNBC’s coverage of President Donald Trump’s impeachment, network anchor Ari Melber called president’s defense lawyer Ken Starr a “total unmitigated legal and constitutional disaster.”
Melber said, “This is the first TV lawyer that we have seen deployed. That Donald Trump added to the team. This was a disaster for Republicans: a total unmitigated legal and constitutional disaster. Ken Starr, at no point in this dramatic at times mournful opening, explained in any factual or legal way what’s different. If anything, he drew attention, and there are senators in that body who understand the history, he drew attention to the fact that the last two times we’ve had these modern impeachments, Clinton and Nixon we had abuse of power among the original articles.”
“There were three articles for Nixon — one of them was abuse of power,” he continued. “There were four articles for Clinton initially. One of them was abuse of power. So Ken Starr brings that attention back. When you hear this mumbo jumbo of technical crime versus high crime — abuse of power is the ultimate high crime, and it is what presidents usually get impeached for and so listening to this, it was remarkable because Ken Starr is Mr. Abuse of Power, and I was listening interested, ready, open-minded to hear him somehow distinguish, explain, get into foreign policy. He had nothing. He came up empty.”
He added, “This Starr versus Starr. Usually, you want someone else’s name on the other side. He was shadowboxing with himself. I think constitutionally, it may or may not resolve this case. But for lawyers and senators watching constitutionally, we watched Ken Starr punch himself in the face and then walk off the floor.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.