Cheshire Cat
United States President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial before the Senate finally starts next week and it’s guaranteed to be a circus, the curtains of which were drawn by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with a crass act that would make Filipino politicians — clowns as many of them are — cringe.
Pelosi basked in the moment Wednesday as she gingerly signed, using multiple pens, the articles of impeachment against Trump before handing the blackand-gold writing instruments to supporters as keepsakes. On Thursday, US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who will preside over the trial, led the oathtaking of senators who will act as judges.
The symbolism of Pelosi drawing the pens on silver platters was certainly not lost on the majority of enraged Americans who took to social media to lambast the House Democrats. Impeachment, after all, is a mere numbers game and the Republicans dominate the Senate, thus Pelosi cannot claim total victory.
Sure, it had been customary for US politicians to use multiple pens to sign landmark documents. Trump himself did so in forging a trade deal with China, as did his predecessor Barack Obama in inking his now practically repealed health care law.
Before Pelosi, Trump and Obama, US President Lyndon B. Johnson also requisitioned dozens of pens, now serving as mementos and probably with a sample or two for sale at the Silver Dollar Pawnshop, to sign America’s Civil Rights Act of 1964.
But in Pelosi taking one pen after another and scribbling her signature portion by portion on the charge sheet, from breaking into a grin or, okay, smiling like the Cheshire Cat to someone on her right, she made a mockery of her own claim that impeachment should be treated as a solemn constitutional process.
Pelosi’s action stood as a hypocritical contrast to her call for silence and her admonition of jubilant party mates against whooping it up when the House voted and made Trump only the third US president to be impeached.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R-Ky.) was reeking with disdain when he said, “This final display neatly distilled the House’s entire process into one perfect visual. It was a transparently partisan performance from beginning to end.”
Nonetheless, no matter how distasteful Pelosi’s preening before the cameras was, the Republicans can console themselves with the fact that the trial of Trump, who — to his credit — has presided over America’s economic rebound, can finally start.
After all, the Democrats had for weeks stalled in transmitting the articles of impeachment to the Senate with the hope of fishing for pretrial testimonies that would prop charges that Trump tried to coerce Ukraine to investigate his political rivals like former vice president Joe Biden by using US military aid and a White House visit as leverage.
Switch on the spotlight, cue the drumroll. Let the show begin.
I’m not one into flogging a dead horse, but there’s something downright odd and suspicious with the instantaneous statement issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) after lawyer Jude Sabio held a press conference to announce his withdrawal of the 2017 complaint he filed against President Rodrigo Duterte.
The people at the ICC must have too much time on their hands for them to comment in mere hours on the Sabio admission that the political hatchet job he waged against the President and his children was under the baton of former senator Antonio Trillanes IV and was all about money.
That or the ICC has too much partisan interest in the Philippines that its prosecutors had placed a Google Alert on anything ICC-related happening in this corner of the world, so they can immediately blabber their mouths. That or political operators had egged on the ICC to issue a statement to blunt the impression that they are fools for having been taken for a ride by the yellows.
According to the ICC media release, the withdrawal by Sabio of the 2017 information he filed on behalf of clients like self-confessed hitman Edgar Matobato has no effect whatsoever on their determination whether or not there’s “reasonable basis” to open an investigation on the charges.
Granting that ICC statement to be on solid legal ground for the sake of argument, but what lawyers — and the ICC prosecutors must pride themselves to be good ones — would comment on documents they have yet to see? These ICC prosecutors must be so hungry for media mileage to be commenting on news reports instead of inside the confines of legal proceedings.
And therein lies the problem with the ICC. It had been at the onset seen as waging a trial by publicity against the Duterte administration knowing fully well that it would never acquire jurisdiction over the complaints on account of two things.
First, there’s a fully functioning justice system in the country. Second, the Philippines had withdrawn recognition of the ICC on account of its interference on internal matters and, more importantly, the country’s non-ratification of the treaty that created it.
The partisanship being shown by the ICC prosecutors runs against the universal tenet that before prosecutors prosecute, they must first be impartial, fair and neutral when determining whether there’s probable cause to file a case in court.
No one can fault the Duterte administration for its position that it can never hope to get a fair shake with the ICC.
“But
in Pelosi taking one pen af ter another and scribbling her signature portion by portion on the charge sheet… she made a mockery of her own claim that impeachment should be treated as a solemn constitutional process.
“People at the ICC must have too much time on their hands for them to comment in mere hours on the Sabio admission.