What the Latest Impeachment Trial Says about the Current State of US Politics
Saturday, February 27, 2021
On the weekend before Last, the US Senate concluded the second impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump, who had been impeached for inciting the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6. It ended as most predicted, with a majority (57) of Senators voting that Trump was guilty, but not enough to reach the 2/3 (67) threshold needed for a conviction. Seven Republicans broke ranks to join all 50 Democrats who voted Guilty. They, along with the 10 Republicans in the House of Representatives who voted alongside House Democrats to impeach Trump after the riot, symbolize the last vestiges of good faith in the Republican Party. Their choice of conscience over Trumpism has not been unpunished by their own party’s leadership. These are the outliers, and if only their fellow Republicans had followed their example the GOP might have been saved. The “Party of Lincoln” is now represented by an image of insurrectionists carrying the Confederate flag inside the same building that an 1864 painting hangs of President Lincoln and his cabinet reading over the Emancipation Proclamation. There can be no further doubt: their party belongs to a desperate wannabe tyrant who tried to rewrite reality both times he lost the popular vote.
For me, that was the most unsettling realization of the trial. Not that he incited the insurrection, nor that he was derelict in his duty to protect Congress and the Constitution of the United States, nor any other aspect of his betrayal to his oath of office. It’s that, after all of this, after he lost the election and then he lost in court again and again, and then his coup failed and the electoral votes were counted and Joe Biden was inaugurated, after every attempt he made to subvert the will of the people was defeated, he is still in power. Not through democratic means, but through intimidation.
Case in point: after both sides had concluded their opening arguments on Friday, February 12, Congresswoman Jaime Herrera-Beutler (who was one of the 10 House Republicans who broke party lines and voted to impeach Trump on January 13) released a statement that detailed a conversation that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had with the former president during the riot, which McCarthy then relayed to her. McCarthy pled with Trump over the phone to take action to protect the Capitol and release a statement condemning the violence. The president first repeated the lie that it was antifa storming the Capitol, and McCarthy assured him that they were Trump supporters. The president’s response?
Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.
The timing of the release came just before the time alloted when the House Managers would inform the Senate whether or not they wished to call witnesses, and if so, the Senate would vote whether to allow them. On Saturday morning (February 13), lead House Impeachment Manager Jamie Raskin told the Senate they wanted to depose Herrera-Beutler via Zoom, as well any other potential witnesses with knowledge of the McCarthy-Trump phone call, and subpoena any potential documents she had that could corroborate her statement. At first, the Senate voted 55–45 to allow witnesses.
News of the plan to have Herrera-Beutler testify via Zoom circulated on social media that morning, along with her invitation to other “patriots” who’d been with Trump during the call: “if you have something to add here, now would be the time.”
It turns out, someone did have something to add, just not one of the “patriots” she had called for. That someone was her fellow Congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who’s made a name for herself in recent weeks — I’m not going to recount all of that but will just say that on February 4 she stood on the floor of the House of Representatives to assure her colleagues that the school shooting in Parkland was not a hoax and that “9/11 absolutely happened” right before the House voted to strip her of her committee assignments. On Saturday, after that initial Senate vote, Greene retweeted Herrera-Beutler’s statement and sent her a public message:
The gift that keeps on giving to the Democrats.
First voting to impeach innocent President Trump, then yapping to the press and throwing @GOPLeader under the bus, and now a tool as a witness for the Democrats running the circus trial.
The Trump loyal 75 million are watching.
The mafia-style implicit threat is par for the course for Trump & co. Greene’s tweet was widely reported, but with other headlines (mostly related to the Impeachment trial) overwhelming the news cycle, this became more of a side note. This was a brazen attempt to intimidate a Member of Congress in order to silence her as witness in front of the Senate — and it was done by another sitting Member of Congress! What does it say about the current state of the Union that this development felt more like a single grain of sand on the beach than a shocking breaking development in the political realm? If only it was shocking! But no, this is actually what we’ve come to expect here in 2021. Political discourse right now takes the form of tyrannical commands that conlude with the words “or else”.
I actually began writing this post after the first day of the trial, when both sides presented arguments regarding the constitutionality of holding an impeachment trial for a former official. At the end of the day, the Senate decided by a 56–44 vote that the House Managers had proven their case that the trial was constitutional, and it could move forward on the incitement of insurrection charge. The news cycle moves so fast these days, it’s difficult to write a thorough post on recent events and have it published in a timely manner. Still, I think it’s worth commenting on that initial vote because that was when it became clear that the majority of Republicans in the Senate had no intention of being “impartial jurors”, and only wanted to find an excuse — any excuse — to acquit.
I’ve only had jury duty once so far in my life, and I ended up as an alternate juror in a criminal trial that lasted two days. As an alternate, I didn’t take part in the deliberations or the verdict, but I did watch both sides present their case beginning to end. I even took notes, which I kept. I used them as memorabilia in my journal. It was a misdemeanor hit-and-run, not boring, but also not super distressing or traumatic. I remember it as an enlightening experience, mostly because the result was so obvious.
Since it was a criminal trial, there was a very high (“beyond a reasonable doubt”) burden of proof on the prosector. If the prosecution failed to meet that burden, then the jury would have no choice but give a Not Guilty verdict. In this case, when both sides rested, my opinion was that the prosecution had clearly failed to prove their case, but not only that, the defense had convinced me — beyond a reasonable doubt — that the defendant absolutely did not commit the crime he was accused of. Of course, I didn’t get to share my opinion with the rest of the jury, but there was no question about it. The verdict came back Not Guilty as I knew it would. I remember thinking that as much as educational as it was for me, it seemed to be a waste of government resources. Without getting into too many details, I will say that there was (what appeared to me to be) conclusive evidence for the man’s innocence, and a clear indication as to who the guilty party actually was. A key moment was when the prosecutor’s own witness, a bystander who had assisted the victim and testified he saw the other driver fleeing the scene, confidently declared that the man he saw was certainly not the defendant who was sitting there in the courtroom. One of the other jurors gasped audibly when that happened.
After the first day of arguments at the impeachment trial, my mind kept going back to this memory. Both the House and the defense had presented their cases, and to any impartial observer it was abundantly clear which side had won the day. The House Managers made a case that would convince even the most skeptical observer using historical context, precedent, and common sense. The defense, on the other hand, presented a case that was meandering and muddled, that didn’t seem to follow any logical order and often contradicted itself. I’m not going to recount the arguments they made, as I am confident that anyone who watches them would come to same conclusion.
In fact, though the Senate held a vote a week earlier on the constitutionality argument, with that vote being 55–45 in favor, and though only one Republican Senator switched his vote from negative to affirmative after the opening day, that Senator — Dr. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana — said as much: “If anyone disagrees with my vote and would like an explanation, I ask them to listen to the arguments presented by the House Managers and former President Trump’s lawyers. The House managers had much stronger constitutional arguments. The president’s team did not.”
In the opening paragraph of this post I mentioned the “last vestiges of good faith in the Republican Party.” I’ve been thinking about the idea of “good faith” quite a lot lately. Before the trial, each Senator swore an oath to do “impartial justice”. How many of them had their fingers crossed, I wonder? Several Republican Senators condemned the impeachment trial beforehand, and made it clear that no amount of evidence was going to make them convict. Having the case for and against constitutionality presented on day one and then holding a vote on the question served as a test of the open-mindednes of Republican Senators, as well as an attempt to make that excuse untenable for those who used it when they would later vote to acquit. Are you willing to change your opinion upon being presented sufficient evidence for it? And can you separate the question of constitutionality and the question of guilt so there is no confusion on your opinion of the latter? Those were the questions Republicans were forced to answer.
With the constitutional question decided on day one, the remainder of the trial was about the substance of the charge against the former president. The evidence of Trump’s guilt was, I believe, conclusive and overwhelming. Again, I’m not going to reiterate the cases presented here because it’s all publically available and I would challenge an impartial observer to see for themselves if they doubt it. The majority of Republican Senators couldn’t deny Trump’s role in the events of January 6, so they dodged the question entirely. When they said “Not Guilty” they didn’t mean “Not Guilty”, they say. What they meant was “1–2–3 not it.” The problem with that is, they didn’t have a choice to not make a choice. It was either “Guilty” or “Not Guilty”, no third option. If they sincerely felt they didn’t have any constitutional authority to answer that question, why didn’t they excuse themselves as jurors? They gave a judgment even though, under their reasoning, they had no power to make a judgment, and then they used that belief to justify the judgment they made. It’s a ridiculous, self-contradictory stance that I have a difficult time believing was anything more than a shield against incurring the wrath of Trump and his MAGA faithful.
Republican Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina proved it was indeed possible to come to a separate conclusion on each question. He voted that the trial was not constitutional, but then he conceded to the majority. After all, when a bill becomes law, the legislators who voted against its passing can’t then pretend the law is not the law. So Burr considered Trump’s culpability separately, and determined he was guilty. In this, Burr, like Cassidy, fulfilled his oath as an impartial juror.
It is telling that, for those that chose to acquit, there has been very little attempt to defend Trump’s actions. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, just minutes after voting to acquit Trump, gave a blistering speech on the Senate floor. Trump was absolutely to blame for January 6, he said, and he is still accountable to the criminal justice system for his actions while he was president. In short: someone should do something about this guy, just not me. They know he is guilty, which is why so many of them keep trying to “move on” rather than face the truth. Their votes said more about their courage or cowardice than it did about Trump’s guilt or innocence.
I take some solace that those who chose courage revealed the deep rot Trump has caused in the Republican Party. They are saying the quiet part out loud. The chair of the Republican Party in Washington County, Pennsylvania, Dave Ball, in talking to a local news outlet, had this to say about Republican Senator Pat Toomey’s decision to vote for conviction:
We did not send him there to vote his conscience. We did not send him there to do the right thing, whatever he said he was doing. We sent him there to represent us, and we feel very strongly that he did not represent us.
To be clear, Senator Toomey’s job is not to represent Pennsylvania Republicans. It’s not even to represent the people in Pennsylvania who voted for Pat Toomey. His job is to represent the people of Pennsylvania, full stop, no qualifiers. Reminder: Trump lost Pennsylvania to Biden in 2020. The other Pennsylvania Senator is Democrat Bob Casey. Presently, Pennsylvania has nine Republican and nine Democratic members of the House of Representatives. Ball is saying Toomey is supposed to represent half (less than half, really) of his constituents.
In Trump’s America, that’s how it works.
In November 2020, 81 million voters said that “We the People” means all the people. If Republicans truly believe in that, they must purge Trump and the MAGA die-hards from their ranks. I am not holding my breath.
Tagged: politics
Originally published at https://meganrenae21.github.io.