The larger impact of Trump’s impeachment
This week’s news will be dominated by the U.S. Senate’s hearings on the impeachment of President Donald Trump There will be at least two substantive issues at play, serving as the basis for the House of Representatives’ charges.
The first charge — abuse of power — is, in my opinion, understated. It is alleged that Mr. Trump offered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy nearly $400 million in military aid in return for a Ukranian investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
It seems to me that the House should have actually charged Mr. Trump with treason. The idea of using millions in American taxpayer money to pay a foreign country to investigate an American political opponent is, in my view, shocking and, yes, treasonous. It is particularly iniquitous in light of the unresolved charges of foreign intervention in the 2016 presidential election.
The second House charge — obstruction of justice, brought about by Mr. Trump’s refusal to allow administration officials to testify — seems more intramural and less serious, in spite of the constitutional problems it presents. Americans have become more accustomed to hissing and fussing between the executive and legislative branches of government under their current leadership than in the past. The idea that the two branches are no longer especially interested in working together to resolve Americans’ problems, preferring to duck issues by scrapping with each other, is something that we have become increasingly accustomed to. For instance, does anyone really think that the Republican-dominated Senate will eject Mr. Trump from office, no matter what it turns out he has done?
The third interesting fault line that is likely to turn up in the Senate Trump impeachment hearings is a jurisdictional one, based on the Constitution, between Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Justice Roberts is supposed to preside in the Senate over the hearings. Mr. McConnell has a tendency to see his role in the Senate as akin to that of a Southern chain-gang warden. As an example, he doesn’t bring to a Senate vote House-voted legislation that he doesn’t agree with.
Mr. Roberts swore the senators to take a judicial approach to the evidence they will review. Mr. McConnell probably plans to drown any Republican senator who votes for impeaching a Republican president in the Potomac River.
The Senate can overrule Justice Roberts’ decision with a majority vote. If Mr. McConnell tries that, Mr. Roberts, a strict constitutionalist seeking to separate justices from their party affiliations, will likely throw a fit.
The other interesting question is the degree to which Mr. Trump’s paint is scratched by the Senate impeachment hearings. Even if he is not ejected from office, wouldn’t it be nice if the president’s tax returns were revealed in the hearings?
But even as the entertaining proceedings commence, Americans should keep their eye on how the hearings impact larger questions of policy, particularly foreign policy.
For instance, China, Russia and Turkey recently held joint naval exercises in the Mediterranean Sea.
Around the same time, Russia and Turkey helped negotiate a peace agreement among warring elements in Libya. The United States now has little or no role to play in the fractious situation in Libya, in spite of its once powerful role there in petroleum and military matters and its role in the overthrow of former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
At face value, the goings on within Libya wouldn’t seem to matter much to the U.S. But they do matter a great deal to America’s European allies. Libya has been used by African migrants as a springboard by which to enter Europe, posing a unique political and humanitarian problem. With the U.S. sidelined by its pesky domestic affairs, countries like Russia and Turkey could leverage the situation to their advantage.
The U.S. is going to have difficulty formulating and executing a coherent foreign policy as it faces impeachment hearings and a contentious presidential election in 2020. It must not forgo its role as a global leader, but foreign policy decisions must be made responsibly, not randomly. Rough waters likely lay ahead.