There’s a clear hubris to the Trump defense team’s strategy.

“White House lawyers are gearing up for a scorched-earth defense of President Trump in the impeachment trial, mounting a politically charged case aimed more at swaying American voters than GOP senators — and damaging Trump’s possible 2020 opponent, Joe Biden,” the Washington Post reports.

“Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, and Jay Sekulow, Trump’s personal attorney, plan to use their time in the trial to target the former vice president and his son, Hunter… Trump’s allies believe that if they can argue that the president had a plausible reason for requesting the Biden investigation in Ukraine, they can both defend him against the impeachment charges and gain the bonus of undercutting a political adversary.”

It’s hard for the modern mind to understand the original meaning of hubris, but it’s really inseparable from the idea that you can transgress against the gods by inflating your own sense of power and control. It’s the idea that you can act with impunity and without consequences. It was often used to describe cruel behavior towards people who are powerless to fight back, but also wanton sinfulness and immorality. I think that pretty well describes the situation we have here, where the defense team thinks they are assured of an acquittal and so can focus all their time on punching the Bidens rather than defending their client.

The assumption is that this is a luxury Trump can afford and that nothing he does could change the outcome. He and his defense team may very well be right about this, but the Greeks had witnessed enough counterexamples to see the need for a term to describe a situation where things didn’t work out as planned.

Perhaps the Indians interpreted the same thing a bit differently with their concept of karma. But whether or not you believe there is some divine or ethical order to the universe, it often happens that foul deeds have negative and unanticipated consequences for the perpetrator.

In this case, Trump is on trial for misusing his office to gain a political advantage, specifically against Joe Biden. In that light, it’s particularly egregious to attack the Bidens as a central part of the defense. Some might call it “spitting in the face of the gods.” The Greeks might see it as defiance against the gods, like a challenge that invites retribution.

In a purely secular sense, this looks like overconfidence. I really do think that some Republican senators will sense this and it will give them offense. They’re being asked to eat a tremendous amount of shit, and this is a few extra and unnecessary heapings on their plate.

Rather than offer a true defense, the Trump team will use their time to compound the original sin.