Impeach Trump, then cancel rigged Senate trial
Trump should be impeached, but there should be no trial, not with a Senate “jury” that has broken its oath of impartiality before even taking it.
It begins at the top. Sen. Mitch McConnell has announced that if you are a Republican member of the U.S. Senate sworn oaths do not matter. Imagine that.
Prior to an impeachment trial, according to Article I, Section 3, Clause 6 of the Constitution, says the senators serving as a jury “shall be on Oath or Affirmation.”
According to the Senate Rules in Impeachment Trials that oath is:
”I solemnly swear (or affirm) that in all things appertaining to the trial of ____, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws, so help me God.”
McConnell (and, according to him, every other Republican senator) has broken that oath even before taking it.
McConnell told Fox News that he will coordinate with White House lawyers defending President Donald Trump, adding, “There is no chance the president is going to be removed from office.”
It’s like a jury foreman announcing that a defendant is innocent before the trial begins.
McConnell said, "We have no choice but to take it up. But we'll be working through this process hopefully in a fairly short period of time, in total coordination with the White House counsel's office and the people who are representing the president, in the way all of the Senate."
Imagine that.
A jury foreman coordinating with the defense attorneys.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, once the protégé of the late Sen. John McCain, mimicked McConnell, saying, “I am trying to give a pretty clear signal I have made up my mind. I’m not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here.”
He was in the House in 1999, during the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. At the time, Graham implored senators to impartially study the evidence. McCain, for his part, laid out what it means to take an oath back then.
The senator said in part: “We are asked to judge whether the President, who swore an oath to faithfully execute his office, deliberately subverted – for whatever purpose – the rule of law ....
“Although I may admit to failures in my private life, I have at all times, and to the best of my ability, kept faith with every oath I have ever sworn to this country. I have known some men who kept that faith at the cost of their lives.
“Presidents are not ordinary citizens. They are extraordinary, in that they are vested with so much more authority and power than the rest of us. We have a right; indeed, we have an obligation, to hold them strictly accountable to the rule of law.”
The president is a Republican this
time around. So, apparently, oaths ... do ... not ... matter
Sworn oaths.
First, senators swear to protect the Constitution. Next, they’ll swear to “do impartial justice” in an impeachment trial.
Except, they won’t. McConnell already announced the verdict.
And I’m not seeing many Republicans condemning them for doing so.
The Senate president and his wife attend an evangelical Christian church. He has spoken about the importance of his faith.
I wonder if McConnell has noticed that the very last phrase in the impeachment trial oath, just after the promise to be impartial, is “so help me God.”
If McConnell hasn’t noticed, God has.