During the second impeachment farce against Donald Trump, his lawyers brought up quite many good points not only about the dishonest tactics of the Democratic Party, but the impeachment system itself. For example in this video.
The lawyer points out how there's no due process in the impeachment hearings. More particularly he uses this to point out how little time they have had to come up with a response to the evidence presented by the Democrats against Trump.
In court trial movies it's a common trope that either the prosecutor or the defendant's lawyer will present some kind of surprise evidence against the other party that nobody knew of beforehand, often in a very dramatic manner.
In reality this is just complete fiction. Court trials in the United States do not work like this, and this would never be accepted by the judge. All evidence that will be presented in a hearing must be registered in advance, both to the judge and the opposing legal team, and reasonable time must be given to the other legal team to examine the evidence and prepare a response. There's no way a lawyer can simply bring up some piece of surprise evidence in court that was previously unknown, as some kind of ambush tactic, catching the opposing lawyers by surprise.
Even if, under some really exceptional circumstances, one side brings forth new evidence that has just been discovered, the other side can immediately request postponing the trial so that they can examine the evidence themselves and come up with a response. Most usually this will be granted as a matter of course.
Moreover, a lawyer misrepresenting, distorting or outright fabricating evidence is one of the most serious crimes that a lawyer can commit, and depending on the severity of the fabrication may face anything from a reprimand and warning from the judge, to being judged in contempt of court and fined, to being disbarred, to being tried for a crime himself. A prosecutor is very unlikely to be allowed to continue with the trial if he has clearly fabricated evidence against the defendant.
Nothing of this seems to apply to impeachment proceedings in the United States, though. Apparently the prosecution can do whatever they want, with complete impunity. They can ambush the defense with surprise evidence that the defense has not seen before and cannot even request to have time to study and come up with a response. Moreover, they can manipulate, distort and fabricate evidence, and nothing happens to them. They can do pretty much anything they want, with complete impunity.
Not only are these impeachment trials a complete farce and kangaroo court, but the system itself is broken because there is no due process nor any principles of a fair trial, nor any legal consequences to the representatives who distort or fabricate evidence.
In fact, the Democratic Party fabricating evidence in order to try to remove the President of the United States from office (even if it's happening retroactively) is arguably sedition, one of the worst crimes that a member of government can do.
Yet, nothing happens to them. Not a single member of congress will be tried for sedition. Because, apparently, they are above the law and can do whatever they want. (Which, ironically, is what they are accusing Trump of thinking.)
Perhaps some time in the future this might have a positive outcome in that, maybe, they'll fix the broken impeachment system currently in place, making it more like an actual fair court trial with all (or at least most) of the same rules, rights, protections and guarantees, and with actual consequences to members of congress who lie and fabricate evidence.
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