2 different views of the impeachment process
Two view of the impeachment process, from two national publications:
The Washington Post on how the Senate is handling President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial:
Senate Republicans on Tuesday laid the groundwork for a truncated trial of President Trump that would be a perversion of justice. Proposals by Democrats to obtain critical evidence were voted down. Unless several senators changed their positions, votes to acquit Mr. Trump on the House’s charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress could come as soon as next week without any testimony by witnesses or review of key documents. That would be unprecedented compared with previous presidential impeachments. It would gravely damage the only mechanism the Constitution provides for checking a rogue president.
Yet the rigging of the trial process may not be the most damaging legacy of the exhibition Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) is orchestrating in full collaboration with the White House. That might flow from the brazen case being laid out by Mr. Trump’s lawyers. The defense brief they filed Monday argued that the president “did absolutely nothing wrong” when he pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to launch investigations of Joe Biden and a Russian promoted conspiracy theory about the 2016 election. It further contends that Mr. Trump was entirely within his rights when he refused all cooperation with the House impeachment inquiry, including rejecting subpoenas for testimony and documents. It says he cannot be impeached because he violated no law.
By asking senators to ratify those positions, Mr.Trump and his lawyers are, in effect, seeking consent for an extraordinary expansion of his powers. An acquittal vote would confirm to Mr. Trump that he is free to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 election and to withhold congressionally appropriated aid to induce such interference. It would suggest that he can press foreign leaders to launch a criminal investigation of any American citizen he designates, even in the absence of a preexisting U.S. probe, or any evidence.
The defense would also set the precedent that presidents may flatly refuse all cooperation with any congressional inquiry, even though the House’s impeachment power is spelled out in the Constitution. And it would establish that no president may be impeached unless he or she could be convicted of violating a federal statute — no matter the abuse of power. Those are principles that Republicans will regret if they conclude that a Democratic executive has violated his or her oath of office. Yet Mr. Trump demands they adopt his maximalist position regardless of the consequences.
We know that many Republican senators do not accept this unacceptable defense. Some, such as Rob Portman (Ohio), Patrick J.
Toomey (Pa.), Mitt Romney (Utah), Ben Sasse (Neb.) and Susan Collins (Maine), have publicly criticized Mr. Trump for calling on Ukraine or China to investigate Mr. Biden. Mr.Portman and Mr. Toomey have taken the position that Mr. Trump’s behavior was wrong but not worthy of impeachment – a response that would, at least in theory, preserve some guardrails on the president’s behavior.
Mr. Trump’s defense is designed to destroy those guardrails. If Republican senators go along with it, they will not only be excusing behavior that many of them believe to be improper. They will be enabling further assaults by Mr. Trump on the foundations of American democracy.
The Wall Street Journal on how the House is handling President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial:
The Senate impeachment trial began Tuesday with political theater over rules. Senate Republicans prefer an expeditious trial while Democrats who rushed to impeach in the House are suddenly demanding witnesses and crying “coverup.” So let’s break down what’s really going on in the fight over witnesses.
By our deadline, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell looked set to keep his caucus together for his organizing resolution. His framework provides Democratic House impeachment managers 24 hours over three working days to make their case, followed by the same for a White House defense.
Bill Clinton’s trial also provided each side 24 hours, though neither ended up using even half.
But Democrats are demanding that the Senate also call former National Security Adviser John Bolton; acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney; Mulvaney adviser Robert Blair; and White House budget official Michael Duffey.
This is more than a little disingenuous. House Democrats could have gone to court to challenge President Trump’s assertion of executive privilege over testimony, and the House did sue initially to compel former Bolton deputy Charles Kupperman. But House Democrats abandoned their demands when litigation didn’t fit their rushed political timeline. They declared instead that the existing evidence more than justified impeachment. Yet now their “overwhelming” evidence has become a GOP “cover-up.”
We wouldn’t mind hearing from Mr. Bolton. But even if he does appear as a witness, he’d have to abide by Mr. Trump’s claims of executive privilege. A president doesn’t give up that privilege in an impeachment trial. The difference with Mr. Clinton’s trial is that Mr. Clinton litigated his privilege claims against independent counsel Kenneth Starr before impeachment. Yet Democrats still opposed most witnesses, including Monica Lewinsky.
Maybe Democrats hope witnesses will turn up something more damaging on Mr. Trump, but our guess is that the real game is political and geared to taking back the Senate. Democrats figure Republicans will vote down witnesses, and they can run from here to November claiming the trial was “rigged” and hid the truth.
We think Republicans are justified in voting to convict or acquit based on the current evidence without witnesses. But if they want to rebut the cover-up claims, then call the Democrats’ bluff. Give them witnesses, but insist on calling those the President’s team would also like to call such as Hunter and Joe Biden.
Democrats say this is irrelevant to Mr. Trump’s behavior, but it is directly relevant to their charge that Mr. Trump acted with a “corrupt motive” when he asked for an investigation of Hunter Biden’s Ukraine activities. The White House says Mr. Trump was legitimately worried about corruption, including whether Ukraine turned a blind eye to natural gas company Burisma, which had Hunter Biden on its board.
If the Senate calls more witnesses, let’s hear both sides of this dispute. Hunter Biden can explain what he told his father about his business in Ukraine, and Joe Biden can explain the ethical wisdom of firing a Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating Burisma. There’s also former Obama energy czar Amos Hochstein, who raised concerns with Joe Biden and his aides about Hunter’s Ukrainian ties. And let’s hear from Chris Heinz, former secretary of state John Kerry’s stepson, who broke business ties with Hunter because his Burisma work was “unacceptable.”
This would be a spectacle, and our guess is that Democrats really don’t want to hear more witnesses. They merely want to pretend they do, get Republicans to vote against witnesses, and use that as an issue in November. Perhaps Republicans should call them on it.