Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is violating his constitutional duty by treating an impeachment trial as a merely political process while burying all chance for a full and reasonable consideration of the evidence. By contemptuously dismissing even the goal of being “an impartial juror,” and by openly coordinating with the president’s defense team, McConnell brings grave dishonor upon the Senate.
McConnell ought to allow House impeachment managers to call material witnesses, especially if those witnesses have heretofore been blocked by the president from testifying to the facts of the case. McConnell should tell all senators not to prejudge their verdicts. Mostly, McConnell should ensure truly due process for both sides in service both of the Constitution and the citizenry.
All senators must be under “oath or affirmation” when they “try” impeachment charges. That means they must strive for impartial justice just as both jurors and judges do in ordinary trials. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 65, senators during impeachment trials are acting “in their judicial character as a court.”
He wrote that senators must exercise “the delicacy and magnitude of a trust” very much despite the tendency to make the trial a mere political game dominated by “the most numerous faction.” The Senate must act, he wrote, in a matter both “dignified” and “independent,” showing “impartiality between an individual accused, and the representatives of the people, his accusers.” And so on, at some length.
In short, while impeachment need not concern a specific crime and thus is obviously somewhat political in nature, the trial of impeachment ought to be conducted as apolitically as possible.
Impeachment is a serious business. So is the maintenance of public trust in our constitutional system. The various branches and divisions of the federal government ought to respect each other. The Senate owes the House the respect of treating its impeachment with solemnity. Much more than that, though, the Senate owes the American people a full airing of the facts, evidence, and arguments.
For nearly two months now, polling support for impeachment and removal of President Trump has hovered consistently around the 50% mark. By treating the impeachment trial as a mere power play, McConnell tells half the country that its voice will not be heard, its fears about the president’s conduct not fully aired. This is an abomination.
McConnell said Tuesday that calling witnesses who didn’t testify to the House would be “new fact-finding,” as if that is a bad thing. What legal universe does he inhabit? In ordinary trials, prosecutors almost never put all their evidence into the grand jury phase, which is merely a time to determine if the evidence is sufficient for a trial. Key testimony frequently waits for the full trial.
Republicans repeatedly say the case against Trump is weak because nobody has testified to hearing Trump directly tie the Ukraine military aid package to his demand for an investigation into the Bidens. Of course, that’s because the president barred all first-hand witnesses from testifying. Yet it’s almost certain that executive protections are at their absolute weakest during presidential impeachment trials, so it is incumbent on the Senate to try to secure the information witnesses can provide, especially from former national security advisor John Bolton.
The Senate’s own existing rules on impeachment say the Senate has the “power to compel the attendance of witnesses,” and to “punish” disobedience to its orders. The Senate has a duty to use those powers on behalf of the citizenry, half of whom believe Trump horribly abused a public trust. Now, it is McConnell abusing a trust — in almost impeachable fashion.
