By Bill JuneauThe impeachment attack on former President Trump is over, and the antics and emotions of the liberal prosecuting managers is now just ashes from a worthless and unnecessary conflagration. Each of us who followed the political circus, which was aimed at destroying the name and the legacy of the nation's 45th president, remember parts and segments of the whole fabricated political package.
For me, one of the takeaways was the legal and reality skills of Michael van der Veen, the defense lawyer who took on the House managers and decimated their howling demands that the President be adjudged guilty of "inciting an insurrection." Van der Veen walked away a winner having achieved vindication for the former President; and having successfully pushed mud into the faces of the the eight Congressmen masquerading as dedicated and professional prosecutors seeking justice.
Selected as one of the President's defense attorneys, Van der Veen emerged from anonymity. He was not a fast-on-the-draw criminal lawyer who did away with his opposition in Perry Mason style. No, Michael Thomas van der Veen called out the scripted Democrat "managers" for their unprofessional and make-believe evidence of an "insurrection" ordered by President Trump, and for their shameful distortions and doctoring of evidence. He also castigated them for having deprived the former President of his basic and constitutional rights to due process of law.
As the trial in the Senate moved forward, it brought difficulties for Van der Veen on the home front. Vandals smashed windows and spray-painted “Traitor" on the driveway of his Pennsylvanian home after he had spent hours on the Senate floor condemning the former president’s second impeachment trial as unconstitutional. But he did his job and never looked back.
After the verdict by the Senate exonerating the former President of orchestrating the January 6 mob violence in the Capitol, the 57-year-old laid-back Van der Veen was summoned by liberal, Trump-hating TV pundits for interviews and he let his opinion of the conduct of the "managers" and of the media be known. Some wanted to know about attacks on his home and conversations that he had with the President, but he declined to discuss those matters.
Lana Zak of CBS, righteous and overbearing, wanted to demonstrate that the House lawyers had made their case against the evil Trump. The tone and intent of her biased questions with which she sympathized with House managers for their "doctoring "of evidence, infuriated Van der Veen and he lashed back — and not in a friendly manner.
"You are bloodthirsty for ratings, and as such, you’re asking questions now that are already set up with a fact pattern," Trump's attorney said. "I can’t believe you would ask me a question indicating that it’s all right just to doctor a little bit of evidence. There’s more stuff that we uncovered that they doctored, to be frank with you, and perhaps that will come out one day.
"They (Democrat lawyers) switched the date of a Twitter post to try to connect it to this case. That’s not a small thing. ma’am. The other thing they did is they put a check mark on something to make it look like it was a validated account when it wasn’t. And when they were caught, they didn’t say anything about it. They didn’t even try to come up with an excuse about it. And that’s not the way our prosecutors or our government officials should be conducting themselves."
The media ought to be investigating the House managers concerning their conduct, he said. "The media has to start telling the right story to this country.
What this country wants, what this country needs, said Vander Veen, is for this country to come together; to take the left and the right and find a middle ground and start responsibly being our public officials, our elected officials. And the media needs to do an honest job which it doesn't do, he told Zak.
At the end of the interview, van der Veen tossed his microphone aside and walked off the camera, while Zak looked flushed.
Van der Veen is a partner in a Philadelphia law firm and he specializes in personal injury matters. He was one of three lawyers picked by the ex President to represent him in the impeachment trial in the senate. The other attorneys were Bruce Castor of Pennsylvania and David Schoen of Georgia.
After mediocre opening statements by Shoen and Castor were criticized by Trump and his supporters, the heavy lifting for the trial fell upon Van der Veen. He stepped to the front and for the duration of the litigation made the key arguments and assumed the starring and lead role.
The tone and conduct of the Zak interview seeking to torpedo and demean Trump and his supporters has been typical of the biased and unprofessional Democrats during the past five years, including four years of the Trump presidency. Trump has regularly said that the media provides "fake news," and that lying reporters and their employers are the true "enemies of the people."
Former President Trump has said that he believes that the 2020 election was part of a massive fraud and that had there been honesty and a counting of only verified and legitimate ballots, he would have won reelection. Some 75 million Americans voted for Trump's reelection. Millions of his supporters are questioning the integrity of the election and are encouraging Trump to run again for President in 2024 — and Trump has indicated that he will do so, and that his movement is very much alive.
Bill Juneau worked for 25 years as a reporter and night city editor at the Chicago Tribune. Subsequently he became a partner in a law firm and also served as a village prosecutor and as a consultant to the Cook County Circuit Court and to the Cook County Medical Examiner. He is currently writing columns and the 'Florida Bill' blog.
Free Press International
