Top Ten Satirical Impeachment Defenses

The House impeachment managers failed to say "Simon says" when they presented the article of impeachment, so the article is constitutionally invalid
The former president is alleged to have incited the insurrection when he was in Jets territory, so it's unfair to prosecute him now that he's back on Sharks turf
When he said "fight like hell," he meant "protest peacefully." There's no law against peaceful protest in the Unites States
The lawyers plan to argue that Chrissy's cause of death was a boating accident, so the beaches should remain open on the 4th of July
The former president didn't hit the batboy with the flagpole until after he'd touched home plate, so the run still counts
You better not find him guilty, because then we might change the card game to "52 pickup."
Our client would like to request a "do over." (Nancy Pelosi was offside.)
The cops who would be taking him into custody are from Philadelphia and Detroit, so any such arrest is disallowed
Mom, it was antifa that broke the window. When the whole thing happened, me and Eddie Haskall were singing hymns and reading scripture—otherwise we would have tried to stop it. Honest!
If the strait jacket doesn't fit, you must acquit. (Whoops—wrong trial.)

Posted October 17, 2022; Written February 8, 2021

Commentary

Sure, we all knew it would be a challenge for the former president's defense team to argue the facts, since they're not in his favor. So we anticipated that the defense would center around process and constitutional sleight-of-hand.

Written the day before the trial began, this funny top ten list imagines several wacky defense arguments that could be used when the former president's second impeachment trial begins on February 9, 2021. The arguments range from silly kid stuff (items 10, 5, 4, and 2) to jurisdictional nonsense (item 9) to racist tropes (item 3) to misspellings by Trump's legal team (item 8) to references to another famous trial (item 1).

There's even a reference to a 1970s movie that seemingly has nothing to do with the trial (item 8) but is perhaps relevant to Republican senators who are in denial about who caused the whole melee. Way to be obtuse, Mayor Vaughn!