For the sake of his own impeachment dreams, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-California, ought to shut up and stop saying the quiet part out loud.
The House Judiciary chairman began the second day of the Senate’s impeachment trial by admitting the unconscionable.
“If not remedied by his conviction in the Senate and removal from office, President Trump’s abuse of his office and obstruction of Congress will permanently alter the balance of power among the branches of government,” the lead impeachment manager said. “For precisely this reason, the president’s misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box, for we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won.”
The case against Trump’s conduct is simple, whether or not you believe that the remedy ought to be impeachment or removal for office. Presidents should not abuse their power to cajole foreign governments into investigating their domestic political foes. That Trump likely attempted to do so, with the intention of influencing the 2020 election is, to whatever degree, an unacceptable abuse of power. That case should be simple and bipartisan.
But opponents to impeachment have made two valid points. First and somewhat obviously, the House botched the process by writing up two laughable articles of impeachment. For their abuse of power article, they failed to obtain the necessary evidence before rushing it off to the Senate. For their sham “Obstruction of Congress” article — that isn’t even a thing — it’s the product of their own haste, not of any wrongdoing by Trump. And a plausible case remains that Trump’s behavior was genuinely motivated by the crackpot Crowdstrike conspiracy theory about 2016 when he spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The second argument says that Trump probably did withhold the congressionally approved aid to Ukraine with the intention of gaining an upper hand in the upcoming election, but that the checks and balances in place prevented him in fulfilling his goal, so the public should be left to determine his fate at the ballot box.
It’s a fair argument and a reminder that a nation predicated on the peaceful transfer of power ought to be wary of activating the final power of Congress to overturn the results of the last election. Naturally, Schiff just had to go on and admit that his efforts to convict Trump are to, just as he charged Trump with, influence (in this case, singlehandedly rig) the results of the 2020 election.
Like the Russia investigation, the impeachment investigation began with righteous cause for concern. Both were quickly hijacked by bad-faith actors. Schiff is no longer even hiding the ball — for him, impeachment is all about overriding the will of the people.
