Mitt Romney will vote to remove a president of his own party from office mere minutes before President Trump becomes the third president acquitted in an impeachment trial. Democrats, who spent the entirety of the 2012 presidential election smearing the then-Republican nominee as a greedy sexist, have unsurprisingly found a strange new respect for Romney, but the Utah senator is no partisan, and his rationale behind splitting his vote between the two articles of impeachment provide a model for other independent senators wishing to vote on principle, not partisanship.
Romney described his decision to vote to convict Trump on the charge of abuse of power as the “most difficult” of his life. He cited Federalist 65 in his defense of removing a president from office on the basis of a nonstatutory abuse of power and said he sorely wished that exculpatory evidence arose to ameliorate his judgment that Trump was guilty.
“I had the hope that he would be able to say something exculpatory and create reasonable doubt, so I wouldn’t have to vote to convict,” Romney told the Atlantic.
But Romney declined to convict Trump on the second article of impeachment, obstruction of Congress, a charge with no historical or legal basis. Romney didn’t reject this charge to try and have his cake and eat it, too. He did it because it was bogus, and other Democrats would be wise to follow.
If the House waited one minute more and let the courts enforce witness subpoenas, it’s possible Trump would have refused to comply, thus warranting an actual and legally qualifying obstruction of justice charge, but Democrats wanted to ram the proceedings through the House and create a sham obstruction charge. Romney knows this charge was groundless, and, like an independent, he refused to vote for it even if he believed that Trump abused congressionally approved aid to better his reelection odds.
Maverick Democrats such as Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema may believe the evidence indicates that Trump’s quid pro quo was initiated specifically for personal political gain in an upcoming election, and, if they believe it meets the evidentiary standard, they would be justified in a conviction vote. But taking a stand against the bogus obstruction of Congress charge and preventing it from becoming an easily weaponized precedent would be a wise move for any Democrat looking to the future.
