Trump’s Impeachment, While Clearly Legitimate, Will End Up Pleasing Only the Media and Him 

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Now that we — meaning rational people who are familiar with the factual record — know for sure that there was a nefarious “quid pro quo” between President Donald Trump and the Ukrainian government, and that the entire Republican Party is bizarrely invested in pretending that reality doesn’t matter, the impeachment hearings have become extremely mundane. They are like watching a replay of a sporting event where you already know that the wrong team won, or being on a date with someone who has made it very clear you are in the friend zone.

You know this isn’t going to end well, and that there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it.

As an early and passionate supporter of Trump’s impeachment, this process is proving to be particularly unsatisfying. The primary reason that I believed Trump needed to be impeached — even though it was always clear that Republicans in the Senate would never remove him — was for the purpose of protecting several important principles by not setting horrendously bad precedents for what is acceptable presidential behavior (it was this argument that persuaded my friend, Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth, to become a strong impeachment advocate).

However, the way that this has all gone down, largely due to timing and politics, will do very little to achieve even that rather modest goal. By severely limiting Trump’s impeachment to the two articles of “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress,” the Democrats have placed expediency and simplicity over holding Trump at least theoretically accountable for his numerous transgressions, which would have gotten any previous modern-day president impeached, if not also removed from office.

Last month, I outlined how I thought Democrats could create four or five “umbrella” articles which would allow them to impeach Trump on subjects and incidences well beyond the fairly humdrum facts of the Ukraine scandal, while not making things too complicated, or taking up too much time. Instead, Democrats have severely limited the scope of impeachment in a way that appears to be needless, and that saps the charges of much of their potential juice.

Pretending that the Russia investigation and Mueller report never happened, all because Attorney General Bill Barr successfully short-circuited that narrative and Robert Mueller did a horrible job testifying about it, is almost absurd. Just by themselves, Trump’s firings of both his FBI Director and Attorney General, clearly because he wanted people in those positions who would obstruct the Russia probe, are in retrospect obvious acts of obstruction of justice that apparently will now stand as acceptable presidential acts.

Mueller’s outline of numerous other examples of obstruction of justice, combined with the multiple potential criminal acts related to Trump’s relationship with his former lawyer Michael Cohen, are more substantial than what has been effectively proven in the Ukraine case. History will not look kindly on them being left on the cutting room floor, especially considering why this apparently happened.

It seems pretty clear that what really occurred here is that Democrats decided the Ukraine-based impeachment, being easy and ready-made, fit their tight timeline for getting this done by the end of the year. Strapped for time, and realizing that there was no hope of getting Trump removed in the Senate, they essentially opted to take the easy way out by baking a frozen pizza, rather than trying to cook a full-course meal for a large group of different people with diverse tastes.

This has now become a “check the box” impeachment intended to leave a well-deserved black mark on Trump’s presidential record, while also showing the Democratic base that they did their job by standing up to President Trump. Their hope is that with all of this over by early next year, by next November Trump’s impeachment will essentially be old news and a political wash.

When it is over, Trump and his “Cult 45” will of course declare victory and erroneously claim “exoneration.” His Indiana Jones-like reputation for escaping dangerous situations perceived as wrought with certain peril, will only be even further enhanced.

The Republicans in Congress, however, having once again abandoned all of their remaining principles and credibility to jump on a hand grenade not of their own making, all to protect a con man who is unfit for his office, will be left soulless and exhausted. Most of them must surely know that this deal they have made with a figurative devil will soon come back to haunt them if Trump fails to win re-election and they will have no rational basis on which to hold the next Democratic president accountable, or even in check.

About the only real “winners” in this process, other than maybe Trump, will be the political news media which for the last few months has been served plenty of easy content of a compelling nature, complete with lots of faux drama, on which to feast. This has kept them from being forced to pretend that the Democratic primary race has been something other than the snooze-fest that it has so far been, or from reporting on any of that other boring stuff that we used to consider news before the Trump reality show took over in late 2015.

Gee, I wonder if it is a coincidence that the news media and Trump usually end up getting what they want in any particular controversy? Or, if there is a good chance this outcome might keep happening in 2020 in a way which makes sure this dysfunctional and yet symbiotic relationship between them can continue for years to come.

John Ziegler is a senior columnist for Mediaite. He hosts a weekly podcast focusing on news media issues and is documentary filmmaker. You can follow him on Twitter at @ZigManFreud  or email him at johnz@mediaite.com

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.