Trump’s 2nd Sham Impeachment Trial Has Now Rendered the Senate’s Conviction Power Mostly Impotent
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With former President Donald Trump being all-too-predictably acquitted in his second impeachment trial, there have now been three such events in the modern history of America. On each of these occasions the magnitude of the allegations and strength of the evidence has increased, while the credibility of the trials themselves have greatly, and pathetically, diminished.
As is becoming a sadly common result every time our leaders are even reasonably tested, almost all of them have once again failed miserably. Other than the seven brave Republicans (the exact number I happened to predict back on January 18) who joined the 50 mostly self-serving Democrats who voted to convict Trump, the Senate dishonored itself with this sham trial, and set enormously dangerous precedents for our country’s future.
I have argued on multiple occasions that the case against Trump was legal, legitimate, strong, and firmly grounded on pre-Trump conservative principles. The House Impeachment Managers did a very good job of presenting such an argument in the trial, but in the end they, and their Democratic masters in the Senate, prematurely and embarrassingly pulled the plug on the evidence, apparently so they would not miss any scheduled vacation.
The Democrats’ total capitulation at the end of this, the shortest presidential impeachment trial in history, exposed the foundation of their case as a fraud. After all, if this really was about rectifying a grave threat to the future of this already failing republic, why in the world would they get the authority to call witnesses via a majority vote and then wimp out and call no witnesses, and not even use all of their time allotted for closing arguments?!
Effectively, Democrats screamed that there were children trapped in a burning building and then, as soon as they felt any heat from the flames, decided to meekly go back to the safety of their own homes. Apparently, there either weren’t any children actually in danger, or, even worse, Democrats care so little they won’t take even a shred of personal risk in trying to save them.
But those who humiliated themselves the most were clearly the 43 Republicans who voted to acquit Trump, despite evidence of his guilt so strong that 7 other GOPers put themselves in political peril by voting to convict. They not only did what was morally and legally wrong, they also gave up the very last chance to rid their party of the Trump cancer, which is sure to debilitate them for at least the next two election cycles, all out of loyalty to a narcissistic conman who has neither the power nor the inclination to reciprocate in any real way.
Of those 43, special scorn should be reserved for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who set a new standard for trying to have it both ways, a standard that may have made even his highly duplicitous colleague Lindsay Graham blush.
McConnell sent signals he was open to voting to convict, helped set the schedule so that the trial would be after Trump left office, voted not guilty, and then gave an impassioned speech declaring Trump guilty, but ultimately concluding — erroneously — that the trial wasn’t legal because, get this, Trump is no longer president!
In the end, one of the biggest losers in this fiasco is the U.S. Senate itself and its power to ever convict an impeached president in the future. Based on the precedent set by not even holding a semi-legitimate trial in this circumstance, here are at least some of the circumstances under which such a conviction is now politically impossible:
- If the offense took place in the last month (probably two months) of their term in office.
- If they resign from office (which, it should be noted, would surely occur, as it did with Richard Nixon, under any circumstances where conviction was even a theoretical possibility).
- If the Senate leader of the accused president’s party simply puts out a statement saying that they are against conviction, no matter how much evidence of guilt there is.
- If the leaders of the Senate party in opposition to the accused actually WANT that person to be able to run for office again in the future (because they are politically toxic), or they just simply don’t want a trial to infringe on a planned vacation.
- If Joe Biden does absolutely anything — short of handing the power of our military over to a foreign adversary.
Our Founding Fathers intended the Senate to be the world’s greatest deliberative body, and place where truth and justice could prevail over petty politics and natural human cowardice. After today, there is no longer any doubt whatsoever that this vision of the Senate does not currently exist, and probably never really did.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
