President Trump deserves to face an impeachment hearing, but his Republican defenders are right that Democrats still aren’t promising a fair process.
Republicans should offer specific amendments to the Democrats’ draft resolution governing the investigation, rather than just carping about it.
As it stands right now, the resolution is woefully inadequate, nonsensical, and unjust. It leaves the wrong committee largely in charge of the process; it affords Republican congressmen too little opportunity to call witnesses; it keeps too many of the proceedings behind closed doors; and it still does not provide any specifics as to when and how the president’s own counsel will be allowed to rebut allegations against him.
If this is how the impeachment investigation will proceed, it will fail to persuade large portions of the public that the allegations are legitimate.
The resolution still gives the lead role to the Intelligence Committee, even though very little or state intelligence is involved and even though committee Chairman Adam Schiff has been discredited as a dishonest broker. While requiring only one “open” hearing by the committee, it implicitly allows continuing hearings behind closed doors, even though very little of the testimony involves classified materials. It “authorizes,” but notably fails to require the chairman to make public the transcripts of the committee’s depositions.
Whenever the investigation is belatedly referred from the Intelligence Committee to the Judiciary Committee, the resolution at least makes a nod toward “the participation of the president and his counsel.” Alas, the nod is barely perceptible. The exact nature of that participation and the rules governing it are left to be worked out later by the House Rules Committee.
There is no provision requiring the Rules Committee to provide any specified, much less significant, period of time between promulgation of the rules and the beginning of Judiciary Committee proceedings. Yet without adequate time to consider, understand, and plan a legal strategy based on the rules, the president’s team could be forced to prepare their defense “on the fly,” as it were. How can they prepare for witnesses if they don’t know if or how witnesses are to be presented? How can they prepare for cross-examinations if they don’t know if, or under what circumstances or time limits, cross-examinations are to be allowed?
No matter how manifestly Trump deserves to have his actions questioned or punished, he also deserves a fair, open, and thorough opportunity to make arguments to the contrary. The resolution at issue, as drafted, is entirely inadequate toward that end.
Both parties should put the vote on hold for a week, negotiate in good faith to produce a fairer process, and then move forward with respect and sobriety, together, to conduct the necessary formal hearing. If the resolution provides at least a reasonable, even if not absolutely optimal, set of rules, all Republicans who care about their ethical duty should vote to proceed and to follow the facts where they lead.
The draft resolution, in failing to do so, lets Republicans off the hook and lets them keep the focus on the Democrats’ unfairness rather than on the president’s highly questionable behavior.
