Trump’s trial a toss-up
Senate impeachment hearing: for the sake of democracy, let’s hope it’s a food fight
WHAT will happen in the US Senate when the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump starts this week or next?
Presidential impeachment law is pretty specialised. It’s only happened twice before in history and then for reasons that strike many as questionable. The quite forgettable Andrew Johnson stood trial in 1868 for violating the almost-certainly unconstitutional Tenure in Office Act.
The quite memorable Bill Clinton stood trial in 1999 for lying about an affair with a White House intern.
If impeachment is the ultimate remedy for tyrannical executives threatening democracy, then these two historical precedents are probably not the best examples. In both instances, the Senate acquitted. What about this time with President Trump?
If he did what he’s accused of – trying to extort a foreign government to smear domestic political rivals and then stonewalling Congressional attempts to investigate the extortion – maybe he really does pose a threat.
Last month the lower chamber of Congress, the House of Representatives, approved two impeachment articles against President Trump.
One article accuses Trump of abusing power by holding up the disbursement of military aid to Ukraine until Kiev announced corruption investigations against former vice-president and current Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who once served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
The other article accuses Trump of obstructing Congress’s attempt to uncover this alleged abuse of power.
Transmission to the upper chamber this week requires an immediate trial. Several House members will serve as “managers” prosecuting the case.
President Trump will name lawyers to defend him. The Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court will preside, and 100 senators will sit silently as jurors.
Silently and in theory impartially, senators swear a separate oath as impeachment jurors to do “impartial justice according to the constitution and laws”. Impartiality may be in short supply. Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell dismisses it as a “political charade”.
He promises “complete co-ordination” with President Trump’s lawyers, so that the trial will be a brief, scripted affair with a pre-ordained outcome.
McConnell’s script calls for opening statements from House managers and Trump’s lawyers followed by written questions from Senate jurors read out by Chief Justice John Roberts.
His script then calls for an immediate motion to acquit President Trump.
This motion to acquit can pass with a simple majority of 51 senators.
There are 53 Republican senators, so it can pass easily. Thus, an impeachment “witch hunt” concludes.
McConnell thinks his script preserves the Senate’s dignity in the face of a “slap-dash” House impeachment inquiry. Maybe so, but it keeps senators and the public from seeing new witness testimony and related evidence that might very well contradict the storyline that President Trump did nothing wrong.
Forty-five Democratic senators as well as two Independent senators caucusing with those 45 are powerless to change McConnell’s script. But what if three or four dissident Republican Senators toss his script?
Maybe they’d like to hear from new witnesses with first-hand knowledge of President Trump’s actions and intent in the Ukraine affair. Former National Security adviser John Bolton fits that description. To date he’s said nothing, but last week Bolton indicated that he would testify if subpoenaed.
Bolton has first-hand knowledge of President Trump’s actions and intent surrounding his request last July that Ukrainian President Zelensky “do us a favour” by investigating the Bidens.
Republican Senator Mitt Romney said this week that he’d like to hear from Bolton. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski also seems inclined to hear from witnesses like Bolton. Two more dissident Republican senators motivated by principle – or home-state polls – could transform Senate Democrats from a powerless minority of 47 to a potent majority of 51.
How would McConnell and other loyalist Senate Republicans respond?
I think they would dispense with dignity and start a food fight like the ones we occasionally started when I was a kid back in primary school. When the cafeteria monitors weren’t looking, a kid might throw across the table a handful of whatever the cooks were slinging on to our lunch trays that day.
One throw, then another, and another. Soon, every kid is in the fight.
The chief justice will preside and 100 senators will sit as jurors