Adam Schiff and the House Managers are mounting a brilliant, thorough, and valiant effort to communicate the crimes against the Constitution alleged in the Articles of Impeachment.
Nonetheless, it appears to be becoming less and less likely that there will be a repeat of the turnaround that occurred during the lead up to a potential Nixon impeachment resulting in Barry Goldwater and several other Republican senators going to the White House to tell Nixon that he had to go because they only had five or so votes against impeachment and removal to back him up in the Senate.
Reading between the lines, from Senator Lisa Murkowski expressing indignation at Representative Jerrold Nadler’s daring to suggest that lawmakers were acquiescing to a cover up, yet expressing no such indignation about the abuses of power alleged in the Articles nor about his myriad other violations of the Constitution having to do with ethics and corruption, to Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina referring to the impeachment as a “sham” yesterday after having previously been seen as a potential vote for witnesses, to Senator Martha McSally, another Senator up for re-election and quite vulnerable, calling an excellent reporter, Manu Raju, a “liberal hack”, there appear to be signs all around that the Republican Party of today will be impervious to the brilliant and thoroughly organized multimedia case put on by the House Managers.
For this reason, it is time to take a step back, look at the larger picture, and engage in some serious political triage; the Democrats are in danger of stepping directly into a trap.
What do I mean?
The House Managers are understandably fighting hard to find four Republican votes in order to subpoena witnesses and documents. There is one problem. After initially fighting for clarity on which witnesses and documents they would be able to bring in, and after correctly pointing out that a real trial features witnesses that are subpoenaed in AFTER being informed by a discovery process that includes documents, and after Schiff rightly pointed out that it is absurd to ask the prosecutors to put on their case first BEFORE putting on all of their evidence, the House Managers lost this crucial initial vote on procedure.
As a consequence, ever since, the Democrats have been left fighting in a McConnell-designed frame and on Republican turf.
Specifically, they’re talking about negotiating simply to be able to subpoena a few key witnesses, all of whom are from the Administration itself, and all of whom are to one degree or another very risky indeed – and all of this with no realistic chance of obtaining removal even were the witnesses to be allowed.
So what is the solution?
Politically, the only solution that is realistic (realistic in the sense of being politically possible to turn all of this into the political loss to Trump that would be aporopriate), is for the House Managers to now put forth two motions: one that would give them the right to call any and all witnesses and subpoena any and all documents that they choose; and secondly one that radically alters the original resolution that Majority leader Mitch McConnell rammed through limiting the time of this proceeding, replacing that resolution with one that puts no time limit on the trial.
If both – not one, but both – of those motions are not adopted by the Senate, the House Managers should walk out and refuse to participate in a sham trial.
Why? Because we need to not lose sight of the fact that by adopting the original resolution, the Republican majority showed its hand: there is no way that they intend to allow a fair trial, a true trial, or, as Schiff himself said, an ACTUAL trial in any way similar to the previous impeachment proceedings over the past 240 years of American history, to take place.
Anything short of this, is an acquiescence to a sham.
And acquiescing to this sham is exactly what the Democrats are about to do should they continue on their current trajectory. This will result in only one possible outcome: the Democratic House Managers, while absolutely brilliant in the execution of their case within the current sham parameters, will nonetheless play right into the hands of Donald Trump by lending legitimacy, making a ‘trial’ with a witness or two seem just fair enough to the average American prior to an acquittal. This will disastrously lend some credence, however false, to his inevitable crowing over the next ten months that he has been exonerated.
This would be political malpractice, since it would amount to the Democrats allowing themselves to be used to provide Trump the only means possible to pull a out a fake ‘victory’ to display to his cult.
The Democratic House Managers owe it to us, the American people, and the United States Constitution, not to do this. This week, by denying the House Managers adequate discovery, 53 Senate Republicans made their choice: they have prevented a fair trial thereby actively participating in a cover up. The parameters and procedure are now explicitly not fair.
If a radical change to a real, full trial with real evidence does not happen, don’t beg four Senate Republicans to give us our own noose.
Walk out.
I’ve never understood why the negotiation over witnesses. A regular jury does not have this power. I say both sides get to call the witnesses of their choosing, who would be subject to direct and cross examinations.
Exactly. That’s the weird, ersatz legal frame I am referring to that we have slipped into. Bad.
(Nice to see you in person yesterday!)
“If right doesn’t matter, we’re all lost.” Adam Schiff, Floor Leader
This is a Chinese/Soviet-style show-trial. It doesn’t matter whether witnesses are called or not. The only thing in doubt at the moment is whether or not Mr. Trump will be acquitted before the SOTU.
American constitutional democracy has been on life-support since 2016, rallied briefly in 2018, and died in the Senate.
In my view, the Democratic House Managers are speaking to future historians.
I disagree with your proposal, because doing so will only provide more ammunition for the Trumpists. I think the Democrats should make their case. I think they should loudly and clearly speak the truth about this travesty, knowing full well that they will not prevail.
In my view, future historians — if there IS a future with historians — will pay far more attention to what House Democrats did not do between 2018 and 2020. I think historians will view this impeachment as a hail-Mary pass thrown in the final seconds of a game that was lost in the first minutes of the first quarter.
We are surrounded by a MOUNTAIN of evidence that Donald Trump has been a Russian asset from the beginning. Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Parnas, and Mr. Frumin are NOT working pro bono for Mr. Trump, they are paid clients and agents of Vladimir Putin. The money trails from Mr. Putin spread to virtually the entire GOP — and no Democrats talk about it. It’s been reported on MSNBC and CNN. The evidence is in the public record. Various lower-level DoJ bureaus have been trying to pursue it (until squashed by co-conspirator William Barr). Yet Democrats have said NOTHING.
The Mueller report was a literal roadmap to proving what amounts to treason. We saw Fiona Hill, Alexander Vindman, Marie Yovanovitch, and others all detailed how the Ukraine conspiracy benefits Vladimir Putin — yet the Democrats refused to talk about it. There is virtually no mention of the Mueller report in the impeachment articles.
By refusing to pursue the roadmap of the Mueller report, House Democrats snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. That decision was a second-quarter interception at the 3 yard line of the GOP and returned for a GOP touchdown.
When clear, flagrant, and widely-reported evidence of serious crimes and what amounts to treason is steadfastly ignored by a government and political system, that government and political system is broken. Badly. As in shards of china scattered on the floor.
I remind us that Neville Chamberlain was a — some would say THE — political giant of his day. Some defenders correctly assert that by 1938, there were no options left for the UK anyway. Nevertheless, history has not been kind to Mr. Chamberlain. His entire life will always be judged by the events of 1938 in Munich.
I suggest that the same is true for Nancy Pelosi. History will always judge her by the events of 2020. That judgement will not be kind.
I don’t see any good or even acceptable options left.
It has been suggested, I think with merit, that Schiff pretty much knows the Senate will not remove Trump so he was speaking to the 2020 electorate. I think history will be kinder to Pelosi. I remain disappointed that the Mueller Report did not provoke the stampede toward impeachment that Ukraine ultimately did, but one thing I’ve learned over the past year is not to second-guess Pelosi’s instincts. Things always seem to work out the way she intends even if it is not obvious at the first that they will.
In my view, that was not the case when she chose to give the Bush administration a pass on its well-documented war crimes. That decision helped normalize the abuses that we now face.
Had Congress under her leadership between 2006 and 2008 sent Richard Cheney and perhaps even Mr. Bush himself to jail, GOP administrations would be less likely to show contempt for Congress.
That may be the case, but to be clear I was referring to this past year.
If Trump uses the SOTU to brag about exoneration, THAT is when I hope Dems walk out of the House chamber en masse.