Logical conclusion

Since John Bolton wrote the Jan. 27 op-ed “Trump Impeachment 2.0 Is as Flawed as the First,” the Senate has determined that the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump is constitutional. He does raise a valid point that Chief Justice John Roberts should preside, but it is not that simple.

I was disappointed to learn that Chief Justice Roberts refused to participate, and I understand why he would not want to repeat his experience of the first Trump trial, but he is compounding the mistakes of the past and he is wrong. And Mr. Bolton is wrong to say, “The only logical conclusion we can draw from this dilemma ... is that there is no constitutional warrant here for a Senate trial.”

It’s better to say that “the only logical conclusion we can draw from this dilemma” is that the Senate should use its rule-making to empower the chief justice to preside over the trial in the way that a judge would preside over an ordinary trial: almost certainly what the framers of the Constitution intended. They surely didn’t intend that the highest-ranking member of the judiciary leave his legal skills and knowledge of how to conduct a fair and impartial trial at home, only to sit for days just reading questions aloud — i.e., doing nothing in particular and doing it very well, to paraphrase what Chief Justice William Rehnquist said after the Bill Clinton trial. BRUCE L. WILDER

New Orleans, La. The writer is an Oakland native.