Jonathan Bernstein, Bloomberg: “The trial brief submitted by Donald Trump’s lawyers on Tuesday leans heavily on the claim that a former president, having been impeached, is no longer subject to a Senate trial. That’s not a particularly strong argument, but it is a legitimate one with some scholarly support, and in practical terms it’s clearly the best they have – given that 45 Republican senators have already indicated that they’re inclined to buy it and clearly would rather talk about such constitutional provisions than about what Trump did in the final 10 weeks of his presidency. What I found more interesting in the brief was an argument that, if we attribute it to Trump (and not just to lawyers throwing anything they have at the wall and hoping it sticks), helps underline exactly why he was such a bad president. What’s fascinating here is a ‘free speech’ claim: that Trump’s various attempts to subvert the election were protected by his First Amendment rights, and therefore not subject to legitimate impeachment.”

“Trump treated the presidency as a prize he had won, but in fact it was a job he was hired to do. Yes, the Constitution gives great latitude to the occupants of the office as to exactly how they perform their duties. And yet at the end of the day, the president is only an employee – and he or she is only one of many people hired to collectively govern the nation. Trump never seemed to understand that. Perhaps that’s why he accomplished so little over his four years in office, with most of his achievements already melting away.”