Rubio finds president guilty, then makes up reason to acquit

Marco Rubio has been licensed to practice law in Florida since 1997. Fortunately, the state’s senior senator never has practiced criminal law.

Imagine if Rubio, representing a client accused of securities fraud, made the closing argument before a jury that he is making on behalf of President Trump. “Ladies and gentlemen, just because the evidence supports the charge doesn’t mean that you should find my client guilty.”

Yet Rubio will use that standard when he votes today with all of his Republican colleagues to acquit Trump. Last week, Rubio said, “Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean that it is in the best interest of the country to remove a president from office.”

One might give Rubio points for at least acknowledging Trump’s misconduct. Faced with having to justify choosing party over principle, though, Rubio does what Republicans do when it comes to Trump: They make up stuff.

For Rubio, it’s making up a reason to effectively nullify the impeachment clause of the Constitution. Voting to convict on the evidence, Rubio said, would be wrong because “at least half of the country would view removal as illegitimate.”

Just a few days before Richard Nixon resigned in August 1974, a Gallup Poll showed that 57 percent of Americans supported his removal from office. That’s about six points higher than the support for removing Trump.

So what would be Rubio’s popularity standard? When would he apply it? Even if we stick with Rubio’s poll-based argument, “at least half of the country” would view acquittal as “illegitimate.” Rubio chooses to appease the other half.

He doesn’t stop there when it comes to making stuff up. Wouldn’t Trump supporters, Rubio asked, consider removal “nothing short of a coup d’état?” They might, but they would be wrong.

Coups are extralegal; they happen outside the law. The Constitution provides for impeachment and grants the House and Senate discretion about how to conduct it.

Bill Clinton didn’t face an attempted coup. Neither does Trump.

Rubio also favors actual coups when they target a leader he opposes — Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. Last January, Rubio said of Maduro, “He’s picked a battle he can’t win. It’s just a matter of time. The only thing we don’t know is how long it will take — and whether it will be peaceful or bloody.”

If anything, Trump is the one indulging his most fanatical supporters. Last September, the president said removing him could “cause a Civil War-like fracture in this nation from which our country will never heal.” Attendees at Trump rallies since then have threatened a “second Civil War” if the Senate votes to convict.

Intimidation may explain why Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., offered his own evasion. “The question then,” Alexander said, “is not whether the president did it, but whether the United States Senate or the American people should decide what to do about what he did.”

No such dodge existed for the Senate during the trial of Bill Clinton. His second term was expiring in two years. As with Rubio and his polls, though, what’s the standard? Would removal have been acceptable for Alexander in 2018 or 2019, farther ahead of the election?

Rubio’s rhetoric can’t hide his hypocrisy and double standards. “The high bar I have set,” Rubio claimed, “is not new for me. In 2014, I rejected calls to pursue impeachment of President Obama, noting that he ‘has two years left in his term.’ “

A few Republicans wanted to impeach Obama over the swap of Marine Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban fighters detained at Guantanamo Bay. The General Accounting Office concluded that the swap violated the law because Congress didn’t get the required 30 days notice.

But members of Congress raised impeachment nearly a dozen times during Obama’s presidency, several times when they controlled the House. Unlike Trump and Ukraine, all were dry holes. Pelosi resisted calls for impeachment even after the Mueller report.

Eight years ago, speaking about a Democrat, Rubio said, “No one can be above the law.” Yet Rubio soon will confirm that, when it comes to Trump, there are no rules. And without rules, there is no law.