USA TODAY International Edition
Don’t hold a second Trump Senate trial
America has already canceled his act
Americans are awakening from a long national nightmare imposed by Donald Trump. The best way to preserve and build on that progress is to abandon plans for an impeachment trial, set to begin the week of Feb. 8.
It was President Gerald Ford who spoke of the “national nightmare” as he took office in August 1974 following the resignation of a disgraced Richard Nixon. One month later, Ford pardoned Nixon for crimes he committed against the nation while president. The act was controversial — and might have cost Ford the election in 1976 — but many historians have concluded it was the right thing to do.
After Trump incited an attack on the U. S. Capitol on Jan. 6, impeachment by the House of Representatives was necessary, no matter how little time remained before President- elect Joe Biden took office.
Now, however, with the rejuvenation we experienced on Inauguration Day, things are different. A trial won’t hurt Trump, and it won’t help the nation. Here’s why:
Assuming none of the 50 Senate Democrats and independents jump ship, it will take 17 Republican votes to convict Trump. As it looks now, only a fraction of that number are potential votes for conviction.
What another acquittal buys
The principal reason for any impeachment is to remove an offender from office, but Trump is already out. The other reason — often cited in Trump’s case — is to bar the offender from holding future office. However, that step comes in a separate Senate vote, which would only occur if Trump were convicted.
Even if Trump were to somehow lose in the Senate, he’d presumably ask the Supreme Court — where his appointees are part of a conservative majority — to rule on the constitutionality of impeaching and convicting a former president. A frequent Trump defender, professor Alan Dershowitz, says the Senate faces “a lack of jurisdiction” in Trump’s case.
The “witch hunt” that Trump and his media allies have railed about for years will be reinforced by a Senate acquittal. It will help Trump raise more money — on top of the hundreds of millions he collected after Election Day by falsely claiming “fraud.” Trump will not only be free to run again in 2024, he will boast that he was “twice found innocent” in Senate trials.
Without an impeachment conviction, the crime Trump committed by inciting the Capitol violence can still be prosecuted, now that he no longer has the protections afforded sitting presidents. Charges could also be brought for Trump’s phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which the then- president pressured him to “find” enough votes to change the outcome.
Meanwhile, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance is pursuing what court documents describe as “possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.” New York Attorney General Letitia James is investigating four Trump real estate projects. On top of that, Trump still faces lawsuits stemming from sexual misconduct allegations.
Felons are not necessarily prohibited from holding office unless they are found guilty of inciting “any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof ” — a ban that will apply to Trump if he’s prosecuted and convicted for his role in the insurrection. The law, Section 2383 of Title 18 of the U. S. Code, stipulates that the offender shall be rendered “incapable of holding any office under the United States.”
A small man
Social media companies have acted to curb Trump’s dangerous rhetoric. The PGA of America stripped the former president’s New Jersey golf course of its contract to host next year’s PGA Championship. Even some extremist groups have abandoned Trump, including the far- right Proud Boys, who messaged: “Trump will go down as a total failure.”
By the time Trump’s plane landed in Florida on Biden’s Inauguration Day, the nation had already moved on. Even without a Senate trial, he was uncloaked: a small man, withering before our eyes, losing the things he cares about most — power, ego and money.
If President Biden is to have any chance of uniting the nation, he needs conciliatory imagery. A Senate trial, regardless of the outcome, will be viewed by many as a purely political exercise. Moreover, should Chief Justice John Roberts decline to preside over the trial, the task could go to Vice President Kamala Harris, and the resulting scene would smack of the very partisan politics Biden hopes to avoid.
No pardon for Trump
In his pardon, President Ford stated, “It is not the ultimate fate of Richard Nixon that most concerns me, though surely it deeply troubles every decent and every compassionate person. My concern is the immediate future of this great country.” Forcing Nixon to face trial, Ford said, would mean that “ugly passions would again be aroused. And our people would again be polarized.”
Unlike Nixon, Trump should not be pardoned. He should be required to spend years defending himself in civil and criminal proceedings.
Trump’s legacy need not be that he was tried twice by the Senate; rather, that he was canceled by a nation with more important things to worry about.