1. Impeachment is not truly analogous to a criminal proceeding. The issue is not “guilt” vs. “innocence,” precisely. There is no fixed legal standard that either the House or the Senate must find at any step of the process in order to remove the President. And if Trump is removed from office, he doesn’t go to jail. The same constitutional protections do not apply.
2. Even in criminal trials, the state (sometimes called “the people”) *and* the Defendant are both entitled to a fair trial. Generally, the Defendant gets more leeway, but the Defendant’s attorney cannot just make any argument that they want. It still has to be plausible, or the judge is going to sanction the defendant’s attorney.
3. Finally, this analogy fails because if Trump is in the position of criminal defendant, then he’s been able to exercise a HUGE amount control over the evidence, documents, witnesses the “prosecution” has been able to collect. These are the “executive privilege” claims which Trump and the GOP Senate are using as justification to block testimony of top aides and even Trump himself. But these claims of executive privilege are broader than we’ve ever seen before in our country’s history, and are asserted on very flimsy grounds. If Hunter Biden were a national security threat, hypothetically, then these claims of privilege would be stronger, but he’s just not — nor have Trump and his team made any attempt to prove that.
