Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead
President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump arrive at Joint Base Andrews Air Force Base Friday, January 31, 2020, in Maryland, and depart on Air Force One en route Florida.
Since every American knew ahead of time Senate Republicans would acquit their party’s president of corrupt and unconstitutional behavior regardless of what the evidence might show, you would think the impeachment trial of Donald Trump couldn’t possibly turn out any worse. You would be wrong.
Evidence schmevidence! Did anyone seriously expect that the dishonest Republican majority in the U.S. Senate would bother to listen to actual evidence in Trump’s impeachment trial instead of sticking their fingers in their ears and humming?
The result was the only Senate trial in U.S. history to refuse to call a single witness to testify on impeachment charges that have been brought by the House of Representatives against 16 federal officials. All the other impeachment trials over 231 years—including three presidents, a long line of federal judges, including one Supreme Court justice, a cabinet official and a U.S. Senator—included witnesses.
Only two Republican senators, Utah’s Mitt Romney and Maine’s Susan Collins, joined Democrats on a failing 51 to 49 vote to hear testimony from firsthand witnesses to alleged presidential misconduct. Romney and Collins then joined all other Republicans voting against seeking any government documents that might provide evidence of Trump’s misconduct.
Trump was impeached by the House for ordering administration witnesses not to comply with subpoenas from House investigators to testify about his behavior and refusing to turn over any government documents that could incriminate him. That makes the president the only defendant on trial anywhere in America who has ever been allowed to block the jury from receiving mountains of evidence that could prove his guilt. The Senate’s complicit Republican jurors voluntarily voted not to hear any such evidence.
Absolute Loyalty
Believe it or not, it gets worse. That’s because Republican senators who believe their own careers depend upon demonstrating their absolute loyalty to Trump can never admit their totally unscrupulous president has ever done anything wrong, no matter how brazenly he shreds the U.S. Constitution.
|
|
House impeachment managers presented a detailed indictment based on the testimony of courageous administration witnesses describing Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional freezing of military assistance for Ukraine to defend itself in a war with Russia to coerce Ukraine’s president into announcing fraudulent criminal investigations Trump could use to smear the reputation of former Vice President Joe Biden, his possible 2020 presidential opponent.
When Republican senators couldn’t bring themselves to utter Trump’s absurd claim that his crude attempt to extort foreign interference in his election was “a perfect phone call,” one of Trump’s comically desperate attorneys came up with an even more dangerous cover story.
Get this, from Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz, driving a stake through his own rapidly disintegrating legal reputation: “If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”
To support that truly ridiculous argument, Dershowitz acted out an example that sounded really familiar: “I want to be elected. I think I’m a great president. I think I’m the greatest president there ever was. And if I’m not elected, the national interest will suffer greatly. That cannot be an impeachable offense.”
President for Life?
Really? Whether any president can ever be impeached or removed from public office doesn’t depend on how many unlawful or unconstitutional acts he might commit, but merely on the size of his own ego? That would immediately make Trump President for Life, extending him the right to abolish the Constitution and end elections forever since he possesses the most monumental ego of any human being alive, large enough to be seen from outer space.
After Dershowitz’s absurd claim was refuted by almost every rational legal expert on the planet, Dershowitz tried to claim he didn’t say it. Yes, he did say it on live television. Dershowitz had the historic support of a select group of corrupt presidents claiming to possess such authoritarian power. Trump told a gathering of Republican teenagers a year ago that Article II of the Constitution gave him “the right to do whatever I want.” And in 1977, three years after Richard Nixon resigned the presidency to avoid a Senate impeachment conviction, he told British television personality David Frost: “When the president does it, that means it is not illegal.”
That stunningly dishonest legal argument was all Republican senators needed to acquit Trump this week of wrongdoing for his continuing corruption, which they always intended to do anyway. Republicans wanted to acquit Trump in the worst way, and that’s exactly what they’re doing.
For most Americans, it’s no surprise, but it’s a national embarrassment. Most thought Republicans should at least pretend to conduct a legitimate trial. Before the vote not to call witnesses, 75% of registered voters in a poll wanted to hear from them.
So, now, it is up to the American voters. Republicans deserve to get that verdict good and hard in the presidential election and in every single Senate race.
