By the time you read this, the impeachment trial of President Trump will be well on the way to completion. Absent a miracle — perhaps the leaking of John Bolton’s manuscript as we went to press? — the Republican-controlled Senate will have beaten back any effort to call witnesses who would directly implicate the president. Getting re-elected, and not incurring the wrath of Trump, are more important to the 53 Republicans than how history will treat this so-called impeachment trial.
Day after day, we’ve heard rumors that four or five Republican senators, despite their concern about their re-election back at home, were prepared to jump ship and vote for new witnesses and more evidence, to fill in the blanks of the Democratic impeachment case. Maybe that will happen, and maybe the Mets will win the World Series this year, but the likelihood of a partial revolt by the partisans is doubtful.
I have listened to all of the claims by the president’s defense team — that “it was just a phone call,” that there’s no case for impeachment, and that there was no bribery, so there’s no crime — and I’ve watched a designated group of Republican members of Congress say or do anything they can to win the approval of the president. In Trump World, some people will do anything to get a favorable tweet.
But the big takeaway for me, as an American, a lawyer and a former public official, is, what message does this sham of a trial send to our country, and presidents of the future? How far must a president go to get a majority of the U.S. Senate to vote to remove him or her from office? What are high crimes and misdemeanors? What is “abuse of power”? What would it take for two-thirds of the Senate to vote a bad actor out of office?
Whether you agree with it or not, the presentation by Rep. Adam Schiff, one of the House impeachment managers, was articulate, and answered almost all of the questions about why there was an impeachment. He presented televised witness testimony, connected the dots, showed how the president was blocking any efforts to bring in witnesses and pinpointed the exact blocked documents that would seal the case against the president.