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What did POTUS know and when did he know it?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The ghost of a great Republican U.S. senator has been revived in the closing hours of Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial.

Howard Baker of Tennessee once asked witnesses appearing before the Senate Watergate Committee: What did President Nixon know and when did he know it? What did the president know about the break-in at the Democratic Party offices, the coverup and all that followed that infamous scandal of 1973-74? We found out. Nixon resigned. The rest is history.

Now comes the latest iteration of that query. What did Donald Trump know about the danger facing Vice President Mike Pence during the Jan. 6 riot at Capitol Hill and when did he know it? Trump’s lawyers say he didn’t know anything. Two GOP lawmakers — House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Sen. Tommy Tuberville — say something quite different. They told Trump that Pence was in trouble and that the mob was looking for the VP as he sought to do his constitutional duty of certifying the 2020 presidential election results.

Trump didn’t respond. He didn’t express concern about Pence’s well-being. He did nothing to quell the violence.

Will any of this change minds? Hardly. Still, I am intrigued by the channeling of a long-departed political icon — Sen. Baker — into this current bit of drama.

DC riot, national news

Impeachment still matters

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Unless hell freezes over — and that seems remotely possible as North Texas shivers from an Arctic blast — we are going to witness a U.S. Senate trial acquittal of Donald John Trump.

It’s good, though, to think of what an impeachment really means and whether it really still matters.

I am willing to argue that it matters a lot. It matters even when the politics of the moment dictates a preordained outcome that doesn’t result in what ought to be a sure conviction and some form of punishment for the president who stood trial.

Indeed, I will maintain for the rest of my life that Donald Trump committed a high crime against the government by inciting that riot on Jan. 6 that damn near wiped out our democratic process. The politics of this moment, though, precluded a conviction.

Why? Because a 50-50 Senate split required 17 Republicans to join their Democratic colleagues in convicting Trump. You can bet your last greenback that Democrats would stand together; the GOP caucus is more split, with some of them voting with the Dems. But not enough.

Impeachment, though, remains a viable option for the legislative branch to act against a rogue president, who runs the executive branch of government. Make no mistake at all: Donald Trump ran rogue, roughshod over the government.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who led the first House impeachment trial team in early 2020, predicted that he would run wild if he were acquitted. He was and he did.

Political tides do ebb and flow. Their influences are subject to change. The tides of the moment just wouldn’t allow GOP senators to do the right thing. Trump’s hold on the Republican Party remains formidable, I suppose. So we have to live with an outcome that many of us detest.

None of this detracts from the value of impeaching a president who commits a high crime … and oh brother, the 45th president of the U.S. surely deserves to be convicted.

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Minds are made up?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It’s time for me to step out of my advocate shoes and take a brief — and dispassionate — look at what is playing out on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

I am hearing from a lot of my social media friends and acquaintances about how Republican senators have “made up their minds” to acquit Donald Trump of inciting an insurrection.

A cautionary word is in order. So have the Democratic senators … made up their minds.

A big part of me shares the disgust that Republican senators appear to be digging in on their insistence that Trump doesn’t deserve to be convicted of inciting the riot that damn near destroyed our democratic process.

I wish they would keep an open mind and wait until they hear all the evidence before throwing in with the ex-president.

Fairness, though, compels me to play the devil’s advocate. Democrats have done precisely the same thing they accuse their GOP colleagues of doing. They, too, have dug in. Only their instinct is to convict Trump, which is an instinct I happen to share.

Let us note as well that this isn’t a legal trial. It is a political trial. The Senate — aka the jury — isn’t bound by strict rules of law to be “fair and impartial.” They are politicians who are playing to their respective bases of support, be they progressive or conservative.

If only more of them shared my own view of how to decide this trial.

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Lesson needs to be learned

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Well, my fellow Americans … we have been treated to a serious lesson on the fragility, yet sturdiness, of our democracy.

The first half of the Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial has concluded in the U.S. Senate. The House of Representatives prosecutors — members of the House, the managers — made, in my view, a compelling case for conviction. That Trump incited an insurrection against the government he took an oath to protect and defend.

He didn’t do either during his single term as president. He incited a riotous mob of terrorists on Jan. 6, exhorting them to march on Capitol Hill and intervene in Congress doing its job on that day, which was to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.

We saw in graphic terms how close the terrorists came to bringing physical harm to Congress, and to the system of government we cherish.

They didn’t succeed. Our democracy stands to this day. It stands strong and it will survive this horrendous episode.

Donald Trump’s legal team takes the Senate floor on Friday. They say they can make their case in a single day. I am going to go out on a limb here: Trump’s team will talk past the House managers. They will divert the argument, send it down another path.

They cannot argue against the constitutionality of the trial. The Senate has voted already that the trial met constitutional standards. Nor can they possibly defend what transpired on Jan. 6. I double-dog dare them to suggest that Donald Trump’s remarks on The Ellipse didn’t incite the mob to attack the Capitol Building, egg the mobsters to smash windows, to ransack offices, to injure and kill people.

They won’t go there. Instead, I am going to presume Trump’s lawyers might hang their defense on the First Amendment, suggesting that Trump merely was exercising his constitutional free-speech guarantees by declaring his opinion that the election was stolen from him. You know, though, that it wasn’t.

Sigh …

I am left then to salute the founders of this great nation for establishing a governing framework that can withstand the assault that developed on Jan. 6. It was a full-on frontal attack incited by a lame-duck president.

He is likely to get away with what he did; the Senate won’t convict him of the deed I happen to believe he committed. However, his hideous conduct is now on the record for history to judge. Americans have seen it unfold in real time. I don’t know about you, but I never will forget what we learned on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

We must not commit such a horrendous error — electing someone of this individual’s ilk — ever again.

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Waiting for Trump team defense

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The prosecution is about to wrap up its argument against Donald John Trump.

I now am steeling myself for the other side of this riveting U.S. Senate impeachment trial.

Acknowledging my own bias,  I believe the House managers put on a stellar case against Trump. He incited the riot on the Sixth of January that sought to derail a constitutional process, which was to certify the results of the 2020 election.

They presented stunning physical evidence. They made their case.

Now it’s about to be Trump’s turn to defend himself through the legal counsel he has hired. Again, admitting my own bias, I must say that Trump team’s legal opening was, shall we say, disjointed and virtually incoherent.

I intend to listen to their case intently. I do not want to prejudge what Trump’s lawyers will present.

I acknowledge, however, that it will be difficult to avoid dismissing their presentation the moment I hear them.

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Managers make the case

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There’s a good bit more time to go, but I feel the need to offer a brief comment on what is unfolding on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

I am listening to the U.S. House managers make their case that Donald J. Trump incited an insurrection on the Sixth of January.

To my mind and my ears — and surely to my own admitted bias — they are making the case. They are demonstrating with videos, Twitter messages and with Trump’s own rhetoric that the then-president of the United States intended for the riotous terrorist mob to derail our democratic system of government when he exhorted them to storm Capitol Hill.

I will await Trump’s legal team’s rebuttal to this compelling presentation.

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Dems and GOP agree: end trial soon

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Democrats and Republicans can agree on at least one thing these days.

Politicians in both parties want a quick end to the Senate trial of Donald John Trump. They want to put the matter of his incitement of insurrection to rest quickly so they can move on to take care of business that matters to you and me.

I agree with ’em.

The result likely won’t please me. Trump has been accused of inciting the mob of terrorists to storm Capitol Hill on Jan. 6. To my way of thinking, it’s a clear case of insurrection against the government. Trump egged the lunatics on. The House impeached him one week later and a week after that he left office.

The Senate, which is split 50-50, isn’t likely to convict Trump. The Senate needs 17 GOP members to see the light; some of them will, but not nearly enough to secure a constitutionally mandated conviction … which would precede another vote to bar him from seeking public office for the rest of his miserable life.

I am going to cling to the “unity” on both sides of the great divide. Let’s get this matter over with and done. We have a pandemic to fight and an economy to restore!

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The logic? Where is it?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Someone will have to explain this bit of logic to me.

Donald J. Trump’s legal team is preparing to argue at their client’s impeachment trial that the trial is unconstitutional. Why is that? Because you cannot “impeach a president” who is no longer in office.

That’s what I hear them preparing to say.

Except for this little factoid. The House of Representatives voted to impeach Donald Trump on Jan. 13. He was still the president of the United States when the House impeached him.

Thus, and this is just little ol’ me, the impeachment is quite constitutional. Donald Trump had a week to go before he high-tailed it to Florida.

The Senate trial cannot remove him from office, which I guess factors into what Trump’s lawyers are thinking. However, and this is important, the Constitution does not specify that a president must still be in office during a trial.

Article I, Section 3 of the founding governing document notes that “judgment shall not extend further than to removal from office.” The founders did not say that removal was the only punishment; my reading of the constitutional text tells me that the punishment could not exceed removal. So … what’s the deal with that argument against conducting an impeachment trial of a former president?

If the Senate convicts Trump — and that is a huge mountain to scale, I know — then it could have a separate vote to bar Trump from ever seeking public office. The conviction bar is high, requiring a two-thirds vote; the ancillary vote requires only a simple majority of the Senate.

I know that I am not a lawyer or a constitutional scholar. I know what the Constitution says, though, and it tells me that a Senate trial meets the constitutional standard.

Impeachment is not the issue. The House delivered the goods while Trump was in office. The burden falls solely on the Senate to demand that Trump be held accountable for inciting the riot that damn near wrecked our democratic form of government.

national news, political news

Rep. Cheney ‘won’t bend’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I sure hope I don’t choke on these words, so I’ll take great care when I write them.

It is that I am proud of U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., for standing on principle and not “bending” to the whims of partisan hacks.

Cheney has come under intense fire from Donald Trump’s core of lunatics who are angry at her because she voted on Jan. 13 to impeach their hero. The Wyoming Republican Party has censured her for her vote.

Rep. Cheney isn’t backing down. Not one bit!

She told “Fox News Sunday” this morning: “The oath that I took to the Constitution compelled me to vote for impeachment, and it doesn’t bend to partisanship. It doesn’t bend to political pressure,” she added. “It’s the most important oath that we take, and so I will stand by that, and I will continue to fight for all of the issues that matter so much to us all across Wyoming.”

Cheney on Trump impeachment vote: ‘The oath that I took … doesn’t bend to partisanship’ | TheHill

How about that, ladies and gentlemen? She reveres the oath she took when she joined the House of Representatives. That oath compels her to protect the Constitution and the laws of the land. She did not swear any fealty to Donald Trump. She didn’t give him a pass for inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection that well could have brought great physical harm to all 535 members of Congress … and the then-vice president, Mike Pence.

They were gathered on Capitol Hill to do their constitutional duty, which was to certify the results of an election that proclaimed President Joe Biden the winner over Donald Trump.

Cheney and the other GOP House members who voted to impeach Trump all have incurred the wrath of the Trumpkin Corps.

I mentioned “choking” on these words. It is because Liz Cheney is not my kind of politician. She is too right-wing for my taste. I would not vote for her if I lived in Wyoming.

However, I am addressing only her principled stand against the insurrection that Donald Trump incited with his angry rhetoric to the mob that stood before him.

It is amazing in the extreme that Rep. Cheney would have to defend her vote to defend the Constitution, but she did … and for that I am proud of her.

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Yes, Trump must be punished

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

You’ve heard it said, I am sure, that if Donald Trump didn’t commit an impeachable act on Jan. 6, then “what does constitute such an act?”

It is my considered belief that Trump’s incitement of an insurrection against a co-equal branch of government on that day, just two weeks before he was to exit the presidency, is the worst singular act that any president ever has committed.

The U.S. Senate this week is going to conduct its fourth presidential impeachment; Trump has been tried in two of them.

The first one occurred in 1868 when President Andrew Johnson stood trial for violating the Tenure of Office Act after he fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton without notifying the Senate; he escaped conviction by a single vote.

The next one occurred in 1999 when President Bill Clinton stood trial on a charge of perjury; he lied to a grand jury about an affair he was having with a White House intern. The perjury case was the basis of three impeachment articles. The Senate acquitted him on all three.

And then we had the first Trump impeachment trial in 2020. Trump was impeached for abuse of power and for obstruction of Congress based on a phone conversation he had with Ukraine’s president in which he asked the foreign head of state for political dirt on a rival … who happened by presidential candidate Joseph Biden. The Senate acquitted him on both counts.

Here we are today. What Trump did on Jan. 6 was provoke a mob of terrorists to march on the Capitol to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College results of a free and fair election. The riot on Capitol Hill killed five people. The terrorists were angry over the lie that Trump kept repeating that alleged “massive vote fraud” where none existed.

The rioters stormed into the very Senate chamber where 100 “jurors” are going to stand in judgment of the man who exhorted the rioters to do the damage they inflicted on our very democratic system of government.

Think for a moment about what might have occurred had the terrorists actually gotten their mitts onto Vice President Mike Pence — who they wanted to hang. Or had they found Speaker Nancy Pelosi — who they said they would execute.

This isn’t a close call, senators.

Yes, Trump is out of office, but the trial meets constitutional muster. He can be tried after being impeached one week before leaving office. Trump can be held accountable. He must be held to account for the hideous conduct he exhibited after the 2020 election.