Impeachment isn’t the main event

Sadly, instant evidence of whether this strategy works is hidden from our view. By Senate command, TV cameras are not allowed to pan the seated senators up close. We can only imagine the smirks, the smiles, the rolling of eyes, the looks of agreement, the glares of disgust, the pursed lips, or signs of rapt attention or drowsiness that cross 100 Senate faces.

The Senate, though, is a secondary concern to Democrats and Republicans since Trump is all but certain to survive impeachment. The parties are fixated on the Nov. 8 election. Democrats want to use the Senate trial to wound Trump and reduce his chances of reelection. Republicans aim to protect him from political harm.

Republicans complain that Democrats have introduced nothing new since the first day of trial. Indeed, they haven’t. Repetition is their main tactic. Most voters aren’t glued to the Senate trial. And even if they dip in now and then, they are bound to hear how Trump threatened Ukraine with losing American military aid if it declined to announce an investigation of Joe and Hunter Biden. That was Article 1, abuse of power.

Occasional viewers would learn the president refused to comply with House subpoenas for documents and testimony by his aides. That was Article 2, obstruction of Congress.

Senators know all of this. They don’t need to be reminded. But voters do. Democrats assumed voters should be told that impeachment and removal were a perfect fit with the facts of Trump’s offenses. After all, legal “experts” think so. To assuage any doubts, a day largely of “expert testimony” by anti-Trump law professors concentrated on this point.

Nor is an actual crime required to impeach a president. Democrats cleverly presented clips of lawyers now on Trump’s side — Sen. Lindsey Graham and legal scholar Alan Dershowitz, for example — having said so in earlier impeachments. Still, the connection with a crime strengthens any case for impeachment.

These were fine points. Other legal points cited by Democrats were blunt. Ten reasons were cited for how “you know President Trump put himself first.” One involving Ukraine was his supposed interest in “big stuff,” namely the Bidens, rather than in thwarting Russian aggression against Ukraine.

One Democratic maneuver, the demand to loosen the tight schedule planned by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, worked. We know this because McConnell acquiesced. Another Democratic ploy, the call for a “fair trial,” especially with the questioning of Trump advisers, may yet work.

At the least, it brought together the small band of five or six centrist GOP senators, led by Sen. Susan Collins. She has influence with McConnell. He listens to her and wants her to win reelection, which isn’t guaranteed in Maine.

If all goes well, politically speaking, McConnell and Collins will work out a compromise and one or two Trump officials will be put forward to answer questions. This makes sense. Many voters will see it, correctly, as softening by Republicans.

And that’s what Trump and Republicans desperately need more of — that is, without ideological surrender. Recall who fled the GOP camp in the 2018 midterm election. It was mainly the squishy suburban moderates. After reluctantly voting for Trump in 2016, they abandoned ship two years later. Trump’s reelection and continued control of the Senate depend on winning back the moderates.

Conservatives shouldn’t worry. They’ll still be dominant — Sen. Ted Cruz, for instance. During a recess in the Senate trial, he answered press questions and mentioned that two Democratic speakers had said Trump endangered Ukrainian soldiers when holding back military aid.

But what about President Barack Obama? Cruz asked. Obama refused to give the Ukrainian army any lethal aid at all, only blankets and MREs. Trump has sent arms, missiles, and other weapons. Maybe, Cruz said, it was Obama who should have been impeached. His questioners were left speechless.

Fred Barnes is a Washington Examiner senior columnist.