This piece will be appearing in newspapers in my very red congressional district, VA-06.
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What a Vote to Acquit Should Require
The Senate trial of Donald Trump is under way. The universal expectation is that all, or nearly all, of the Republicans in the Senate will vote to acquit the President, rather than to remove him from office.
For such a vote to be justified, the Republicans would have to be able to argue either one of two things. Either
President Trump did not do what the Articles of Impeachment accuse him of doing. Or He did those things, but they are not serious enough to warrant his removal from office.Can a reasonable case be made for either of those propositions?
The President is accused of:
Illegally attempting to coerce a foreign nation to help him in the upcoming presidential election. Illegally withholding military assistance that had been appropriated by Congress to bolster an ally on the frontline of the battle to contain Russian expansionism. Unconstitutionally obstructing an investigation being conducted by Congress exercising its explicit authority under the Constitution.The evidence that President Trump committed those first two acts has been widely described as “overwhelming.” And indeed, the Republicans in Congress have not even tried to refute them, since a “smoking gun” account of Trump’s phone call – compounded by the weighty testimony of a diverse group of highly credible witnesses – makes the President’s law-breaking on those two counts beyond doubt.
The third accusation – called “obstruction of Congress” – is also beyond doubt, because the President quite openly has committed it in an unprecedented way: telling all those witnesses, whom Congress has subpoenaed, not to testify, and withholding all documentary evidence that Congress has lawfully demanded. (Trump has not even bothered to carve out what might be protected under “executive privilege,” but – unprecedentedly -- has simply defied Congress across the board.)
How serious are those actions?
1) Elections are the heart of our constitutional system, and if a President cheating to win an election doesn’t violate a President’s oath to “protect and defend the Constitution,” what would?
2) If the President’s undermining the national security of the United States to advance his own personal political interest isn’t a betrayal of the nation, what would be?
3) And if the President’s unprecedented defiance of Congress exercising its powers – explicitly granted by the Constitution -- to hold the President accountable isn’t a direct attack on the fundamental constitutional principle of “the rule of law,” what would be?
A number of legal experts have declared, “If what Trump did isn’t impeachable, then nothing is impeachable.”
To acquit such a President would be to declare him “above the law.” It is not “even” but especially the President who must not be above the law, because when the powers of the presidency can be wielded lawlessly, the Constitution crumbles and America slides downward toward dictatorship.
So neither proposition that could justify a vote to acquit is the least bit defensible. Which means that every member of Congress – having sworn an oath to “protect and defend the Constitution” -- is honor-bound to vote to remove such a lawless President.
What does it tell us about today’s Republican Party that everyone expects its Senators to vote overwhelmingly to protect the President who assaults our constitutional order?
At the least, it tells us that they are putting their political survival and partisan power ahead of their oath and the good of the nation. For they know that the Republican base supports Trump and wants him protected.
For those Republican voters to be justified, they too must face those two challenges.
But they know – or they should know – that Trump did all those things. And they know – or they should know – that Trump’s misdeeds strike at the very heart of our constitutional order and the rule of law.So their position, too, is indefensible. Except that those voters – who, unlike the Senators, didn’t take an oath to defend the Constitution – do have one other argument: that they don’t believe in the American system of government, and don’t mind if it gets torn down.
Polls have shown that a pretty sizable chunk of Americans no longer believe in democracy. Is that a factor here? And if so, is it a sign of another of Putin’s successes?
Putin attacked America specifically to help Trump become President. But he’s attacked the U.S. in two other ways, which he’s been doing to democracies all over the world.
Putin has worked consistently to sow division in those Western democracies (that stand against him), and to undermine their people’s belief in the democratic values of nations like ours and our traditional allies in the “free world.”
Is it possible that Trump’s expected acquittal demonstrates Putin’s success in eroding the American commitment to that Republic to which American patriots have always pledged their allegiance?