Both rules should be uppermost in senators’ minds as they consider the presentations of the House Democrats and President Trump’s legal team. Having reviewed the House managers’ trial brief and that submitted by the president’s legal team, I believe anything other than a rapid acquittal will be deeply damaging to the presidency. It will not injure this president at all to have witnesses and weeks and weeks of proceedings. It will damage the presidency.
If the purely partisan and reckless maneuvering of House Democrats receives more than it deserves — rapid disposition with a strong dose of senatorial scorn — future presidents, at least those who face House majorities from the opposite party, can look forward to the impeachification of all political disputes down the road.
The president’s lawyers know this is the strongest argument even for senators who most dislike Trump, whether Republican or Democrat. If senators care about the Constitution, they have to think not in terms of the next hundred hours or days but of the next hundred years. And they have to consider that it is not only the other party that might be gored but their own. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned then-Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) that the latter would rue the day he destroyed the judicial filibuster for nominees to the federal bench. Whether Reid ever admits it, Trump’s two appointees to the Supreme Court, his 50 appointees to the federal circuit courts and 133 to the district courts are stark reminders of the costs of short-term thinking.
Senators must dwell on the “what if’s” that lie down the road. I think everyone in the chamber hopes the republic endures another two centuries at least. Political combat has been continually escalating, long before Trump became president. But the attempt to “flood the zone” with new charges and witnesses follows by less than two years the outrageous, late-in-the-process attacks on Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh in the closing days of his confirmation. Now, in our politics, even “that which almost gets rewarded” is being repeated.
I know the pressures from the left wing weigh very heavily on Democratic senators, but some of them need to find the courage to speak about the dangerous precedents that threaten to be created in the next few days. Certainly every Republican senator should do so. Armed with Footnote 565 of the president’s trial brief, senators can quickly dismiss the idea of the necessity of new witnesses. In that footnote are citations to early press accounts of Ukrainian conduct that was indeed interference in our 2016 election (though nothing on the scale of the Russian attempt to sow discord in our politics). These accounts include stories from Politico, the Financial Times, and the New York Times, and they reveal a predicate for the president’s concern over some Ukrainians’ conduct in 2016. There is therefore no doubt that a responsible president would request, if not demand, an inquiry by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The second article of impeachment is even more dangerous than the first. It would deprive the executive of its Article II status as a separate but equal branch and would oblige future presidents to yield their rights and privileges no matter how specious the claims against him or her, or how intrusive the inquiries into privileged communications or into matters of national security. Whatever one thinks of the first article of impeachment — and it takes partisan blinders to think much of it at all — it is constitutional ignorance to credit the second article with any merit whatsoever. Both will do damage to the presidency every second they are infused with any sort of credibility.
No, this blight on our history deserves nothing that would lend any legitimacy to it. It is wrong, it is unAmerican, it is unconstitutional, it is born of bigoted bias. But, it is here.
Per our Constitution, simply because it now IS, the process has to be completed. Absolutely, it has already consumed more time and resources than it deserves, but the process must be followed and completed. That acquittal was the foregone conclusion has nothing to do with the Republican majority; it has to do with the lack of substance to the articles. What it actually deserved was to be flushed down one of the Capital toilets.
But if witnesses get forced upon it, the Democrats should be beaten over the head severely with witnesses in such a way that they won’t try this stunt again any time soon.
Make no mistake, short of removing Trump (and they know there is absolutely no justification for that) nothing is going to satisfy Democrats. No amount of transparency, cooperation, compromise or accommodation satisfies their blood lust or convinces them of their vast error. So, why try?
They already have the next impeachment inquiry lined up we need to quickly dismiss this FUBAR so they can do the next one better.
Each democrat house member should they survive 2020 in office should be sent a gift a nice countdown clock. https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/election?iso=20250120T000101&p0=263&msg=Days Left Until Trump Leaves Office
Lamar Alexander:
In other words, Trump did exactly what they say he did, but I won’t vote to remove him from office for doing it.
In other news, the coronavirus outbreak has been declared an international public health emergency by the World Health Organization. Never fear! Trump has appointed Alex Azar—an attorney, former pharmaceutical industry lobbyist, and drug company executive—as our nation’s chief responder.
@Greg: #3 Clinton was guilty but not removed.
#4the coronavirus outbreak aka The Kung Flu in the entire US there are 6 cases, Some suspect it got loose from a lab near the center of initial outbreak. He has’nt called for the embargo of any mexican beers, the rumor that Corona Extra has changed its name to Ebola Extra has been debunked. 😉
@Greg: Carrying out such a biased, prejudiced, one sided, unfair, unconstitutional process in the House to GUARANTEE the approval of baseless articles of impeachment was a BIG mistake. Of course, that’s what it took to GET the articles, which also was a big mistake.
This partisan smear has already gotten far more attention than it deserves. Pelosi, Schiff, Nadler and all the House managers should be punished for their dishonest pursuit of the Democrat coup.
@Greg: Yeah, and when there was the Ebola outbreak, Obama did NOTHING.
@Greg:
Logical Fallacies: Straw Man, and non causa pro causa
@Nathan Blue: But isn’t it amazing how liberals have no idea what people who run entire companies do, can do and have done? Meanwhile, they think Obama was a genius to select a former anarchist communist to be a “jobs czar” or a NAMBLA supporting homo to be a “safe schools czar”.
It is actually true that if Trump cured cancer, Democrats would side with cancer.
Here’s the left trying to sweet talk Susan Collins into voting for more unnecessary witnesses.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/kavanaugh-repeat-susan-collins-inundated-with-nasty-threatening-messages-over-impeachment-dumb-b
And you have Nadler and Schiff scuffling over who gets the mic for the last time, proving the entire circus was nothing but these idiots looking for more blather-time.
@Deplorable Me: Nader went for the mic like a penguin after a bucket of fish.