The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Impeachment’s sidecar: Resolution of nonexoneration
The problem with the impeachment of Donald Trump, a drama that’s about to open in the U.S. Senate, is that all the actors, all the media critics and even all who will be in the audience are already acting like they are sure how it ends.
Everybody is talking as if they have sneaked a peak at the script’s last page. They are sure the finale will feature America’s 45th president (although forever disgraced as history’s third president impeached by the House) celebrating a decisive not guilty verdict in his Senate impeachment trial.
What Official Washington hasn’t really grasped is that the moment the trial ends, Trump will start proclaiming loudly, forevermore, that the Republicancontrolled Senate exonerated him of all accusations. So it is now unAmerican for Democrats to talk about it ever again.
But the Senate cannot allow it to end that way. Because that ending would pervert justice, be flatout untrue — and mainly, it will besmirch Republicans by implying that they condone his contemptible conduct.
Yet there is one suggestion that can make the final outcome more truthful and just — for both Republicans and Democrats. We’ll get to it in a minute.
First, consider the reality that will confront both sides the moment the Senate votes not to convict Trump of the conduct for which he was impeached. Senate Republicans will still believe they know what President Donald Trump really did — and know it was wrong and probably illegal. Namely: Trump used the prospect of U.S. military aid to pressure Ukraine’s new president to do him a personal political favor by investigating Joe Biden and the Democrats.
And Senate Republicans will know the reason they voted “not guilty” was because they didn’t think Trump’s wrongdoing rose to a level that justified removing him as president. Especially in an election year when the American people are about to render democracy’s ultimate judgment on whether Trump deserves to continue as president.
But Republicans who care about morality will not want history to presume they approved of his clearly wrong and probably illegal conduct. Many Republicans privately despair of what their leaders are doing to shame if not shatter their party’s reputation. Such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s statement that he is in “total coordination” with Trump’s White House and isn’t impartial at all, even though he’ll be required to swear an oath that he is. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, RAla., said she was “disturbed” by McConnell’s comments.
McConnell has brusquely dismissed Democrats’ demands to hear trial testimony from witnesses who may know firsthand what Trump ordered. Among them: Office of Management and Budget’s top national security official, Michael Duffey, who emailed the Pentagon to “hold off ” on paying military aid to Ukraine, just 90 minutes after Trump’s July 25 phone call when Trump responded to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s interest in obtaining U.S. weapons by asking him to do “us” a favor,“mentioning looking into Biden and Democrats.
Today, virtually all Republican senators know they would still vote to impeach and remove any Democratic president who did the same things Trump did. Definitely. Undoubtedly. Period. Exclamation point!
The Senate’s ultimate problem is that a “not guilty” vote is their only option if they don’t want Trump removed as president in
Senate Republicans and Democrats can draft a bipartisan resolution of nonexoneration, condemnation and censure to explain its votes for history.
the 2020 election year. But that’s not how it has to be. Senators can keep the obvious eventual outcome — but still make sure their vote is not interpreted as justifying Trump’s clearly wrong conduct.
Consider this: Let the Senate’s Republicans and Democrats forge a bipartisan compromise resolution that won’t change the outcome of the impeachment “not guilty” votes, but will accurately put it in context and express the Senate’s disapproval of the way the Ukraine aid matter was conducted.
Senate Republicans and Democrats can draft a bipartisan resolution of nonexoneration, condemnation and censure to explain its votes for history and be enacted the same day. It can state specifically that the Senate’s votes on impeachment do not constitute an exoneration of the president’s military aid actions concerning Ukraine and that the Senate concludes the presidential conduct referred to in the two articles of impeachment are to be condemned and censured.
Frankly, the idea isn’t mine alone. I borrowed the gist of linking the conduct with a statement of nonexoneration from a fellow who last March offered us this assurance:
“While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” That linkage was good enough for Attorney General William Barr, in his summary of the Mueller report. It can work for us now.
Martin Schram, an oped columnist for Tribune News Service, is a veteran Washington journalist, author and TV documentary executive. Readers may email at martin.schram@gmail.com.