Tag Archives: Senate trial

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About to throw in the towel on impeachment

As an interested American observer of this impeachment trial, I am afraid my impeachment fatigue has reached critical mass.

I am officially ready for it to end. It’s not that I want it to end. It’s just that the finish line is appearing out there and we all know the outcome that the end of this grueling event will produce.

Donald John Trump is going to survive this trial. The U.S. House of Representatives sought to make the case that Trump abused the power of his office and obstructed Congress. The House trial managers’ message has fallen on deaf ears. The Senate Republican majority is hearing none of it.

I do have some hope that former national security adviser John Bolton will be able to testify, telling senators what he heard — that Trump sought a foreign government to interfere in our upcoming presidential election. It won’t matter. Bolton’s testimony won’t sway enough Republican senators to convict Trump; he might not sway any of ’em! They’re wedded to the president, ignoring what I believe is an obvious violation of his oath of office.

I am worn out. I am whipped, man! I am ready now to get on with the next phase in what I hope is a concerted effort to get rid of the man I deem to be unfit for the office of president.

The election is coming on.

Let’s get busy. Shall we?

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Dershowitz does it! He turns the trial discussion onto himself!

I had this nagging rumble in the pit of my gut that Alan Dershowitz might end up hogging the limelight at the U.S. Senate trial of Donald John Trump.

I did not anticipate him doing so in the manner that he did.

Dershowitz took the floor this week in defense of Trump, who is standing trial after the House impeached him on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

The esteemed Harvard law professor, Dershowitz, long has been known as a grandstander, a fellow known to call attention to himself. Well, he did so during the Senate trial by positing what many observers believe is a preposterous notion.

It is that the president can do anything he needs to do to help his re-election if he deems it in the national interest. Anything at all! That includes seeking foreign government help in digging up dirt on a U.S. citizen who happens to be a potential opponent in the next presidential election.

Professor Dershowitz is now the talk of the town. Hey, he’s the talk of the nation!

I cannot pretend to know more about the U.S. Constitution than the distinguished legal professor. However, it seems to me that his idea borders on the idiotic.

The framers could not possibly have written anything into the Constitution that allows for a president to do what Trump has done. He called the Ukrainian president; he took some expressions of gratitude from his colleague for all the support the United States has given Ukraine; he asks for more military aid; Trump says, “sure,” but then says he would like to ask Ukraine for a “favor, though.”

Trump said he would hold up the aid until Ukraine announced an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden.

Professor Dershowitz said in defense of Donald Trump that it’s OK for the president to do that?

I do not think that is right. Not … at all!

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Obstruction robs Congress of its constitutional duty

The Senate trial of Donald John Trump has produced many disappointments for me, but one of them stands front and center as the Senate fast-tracks this trial toward a probable acquittal for the current president of the United States.

It is the way senators appear ready to surrender their constitutional duty of oversight of the executive branch.

The House of Representatives impeached Trump on two counts, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. It’s the obstruction article that has baffled me.

Congress sought to subpoena key White House aides to testify during its impeachment inquiry. The Constitution gives the legislative — and “co-equal” — branch of government the authority to do so. Trump’s response? He said “no.” He barred aides from answering the summons. He told Congress, in effect, you cannot — and I will forbid it — perform your duty of oversight.

What is stunning to me is how the Senate majority appears set to roll over on that one. By voting to acquit Trump on the obstruction allegation, senators will concede that it’s all right for the government’s chief executive to stiff the legislative branch, to tell legislators to take a hike.

I won’t engage in the “both sides” argument, presuming what the response would be if a Democratic president would do the same thing. History tells us that Trump is the first president in history to issue blanket orders to obstruct Congress in this shameful manner. President Clinton didn’t do so when the House was inquiring whether to impeach him; nor did President Nixon.

Donald Trump’s dismissal of congressional oversight is frightening on its face. Even more terrifying is the GOP’s willingness to accept it, to say it’s OK for the president to kick Congress in the teeth.

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Say this about Bolton: He tells the truth

(Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

The chances of U.S. Senate Democrats being able to call witnesses in the trial of Donald John Trump seem to be vanishing.

It’s a shame. One of the witnesses, ex-national security adviser John Bolton, has first-hand knowledge of what Trump said to the Ukrainian president on that fateful July 25, 2019 phone call.

He has expressed concern about the nature of the request Trump made to his Ukrainian colleague: the favor of political help, a request to Trump dig up dirt on Joe Biden, a potential 2020 campaign foe. I consider that an abuse of power. So did most of the House of Representatives when it voted to impeach Trump.

Well, if the Senate Republican leadership has its way and the Senate proceeds without hearing from Bolton and others who were in the room that day, then the impeachment “trial” will need a historical asterisk as we refer to it in the future.

I do not consider John Bolton to be a liar. He is a man of principle. He is too hawkish for my taste, but I tend to believe him over anything that comes forth from his former boss, the current president.

Accordingly, I wish we could hear from him.

But … it likely won’t occur. Too bad. The nation will likely suffer the consequence of the absence of this man’s Senate testimony.

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Prepare for ‘unity’ campaign for POTUS

Once we get past this impeachment trial of Donald John Trump, the current president of the United States, we should steel ourselves for a presidential campaign that well might focus on “unity.”

And that brings me right to the point: The incumbent president is not equipped in any sense to provide anything close to “unity” as he seeks re-election to the office he won after a scorched-Earth campaign in 2016.

Sure, he vowed to unify the nation. He pledged to work across the aisle. He said he would be the president of “all Americans.”

Has he delivered the goods? Well, you know how I feel about that.

Indeed, the president has been campaigning for re-election almost from the moment his smaller-than-boasted inaugural crowd dispersed from in front of the U.S. Capitol.

He has been speaking almost exclusively to the base of supporters who have stuck with him throughout his presidential term. He does, after all, demand unfettered loyalty among those who work with and for him, isn’t that right? That demand has been pretty well proven.

The unity mantra, therefore, is going to fall as well on whoever emerges from the Democratic Party field to challenge the president …. presuming, as virtually all observers have done, that he survives the impeachment trial that is underway in the U.S. Senate.

The way I see the fall campaign matching up — Trump vs. Any Democrat — the burden of unifying the country is going to fall on whoever challenges the president, given that Trump is incapable of unifying anyone.

I am one American patriot who yearns for a return of the “one nation under God” we all cherish.

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Senate trial Q&A: exercise in efficiency

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

I want to say a word of praise for the way the Senate leadership has organized the Senate trial of Donald John Trump, the nation’s current president.

I am not thrilled that the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, has continued to resist the calling of witnesses to testify before the Senate.

However, today’s question-and-answer period has been scintillating, interesting and educational. What’s more, it has been done without allowing senators to bloviate, pontificate and make endless speeches.

Chief Justice John Roberts gets the questions in writing from senators. The questions are written on small cards, which cannot possibly contain too much text.

Moreover, the House managers who are prosecuting the case and the president’s lawyers who are defending him are given just five minutes to respond. Those who run over that time are shut down on the spot by the chief justice.

I also want to toss a bouquet to the House managers and to the president’s legal team for the direct answers they are giving in response to the questions.

I realize that the House managers are getting questions mostly from Democratic senators and that POTUS’s team is being quizzed mostly by Republican senators. However, at times they field tough queries from the “other side.”

I find this element of the Senate trial to be the most satisfying to date. My own mind hasn’t changed. I doubt others will change, either. All Americans who have an interest in watching the U.S. Constitution at work, though, should be pleased at what they are witnessing.

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Feeling oddly dirty backing Bolton these days

I am going to admit something of which I am not proud.

It is that I am feeling a bit dirty in backing the word of former national security adviser John Bolton, who suddenly has become the potentially star witness in the Senate impeachment trial of Donald John Trump, the nation’s current president.

Bolton was in the room when Trump made that infamous July 25 phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zellenskiy, the one when he asked Zellenskiy for a personal political favor. He has plenty to tell the Senate in its trial to determine whether Trump should remain president.

Why the dirty feeling? I have long opposed Bolton’s uber-hawkish world view. He once served as United Nations ambassador and said one could knock the top 10 floors off the U.N. building and not miss a lick.

However, he is a man of principle. He said he heard something in that Trump-Zellenskiy phone call that disturbed him. He reportedly told Trump at the time of his concern. Bolton now has written a book in which he details his alarm that Trump sought a political favor in exchange for sending military aid to Ukraine, which is in the midst of an all-out war with Russia-back rebels.

You’ve heard the phrase that “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” I don’t consider Donald Trump to be my “enemy.” Yes, I believe he is unfit for the office he occupies. I believe the phone call he made to Zellenskiy is just one of many examples he has provided to demonstrate his unfitness.

Bolton, who’s been scorned by many of us over the years, now has become a friend, an ally, someone of historic value.

Weird, huh?

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Bring on John Bolton!

Here we are. The House of Representatives impeachment managers have made their case. Donald John Trump’s legal team has made its case.

Now come the questions and answers, the back and forth in Trump’s Senate impeachment trial.

I just want to make this request as clearly as I can: Senators need to summon former national security adviser John Bolton to tell them what he heard on July 25 when the president made that infamous phone call to the president of Ukraine.

And no, there need not be a sideshow witness called to counter Bolton’s appearance. Bolton is a material fact witness. He has first-hand knowledge of what transpired during that phone call. Republicans are making noises about summoning Hunter Biden, the son of the former vice president, who went to work for a Ukraine energy company. Yeah, he got a lot of money. Prosecutors have said, however, that there was no “corruption” involved.

Hunter Biden profited from being the son of a prominent U.S. politician. So … what? Does the GOP defense of Trump actually want to play that card, given the nepotism that runs rampant throughout the West Wing of the White House?

Bolton needs to be heard. So does White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. If they are able to defend what Trump did, then let ’em do it! If they have something else to say, let ’em say that, too!

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Just not feelin’ ‘The Bern’

Allow me a moment or two to vent on what I see possibly transpiring within the fight for the Democratic Party presidential primary campaign.

It is that I am baffled at the support that Sen. Bernie Sanders continues to draw among those who want to defeat Donald John Trump, the nation’s current president.

Sanders is an independent from Vermont who is running in a party to which he does not belong. He is an avowed “democratic socialist,” a fellow who wants to redistribute the nation’s wealth. He wants to take money away from the “top 1 percent” who he says control everything in this great country.

He wants to make college education free for every American and favors something called “Medicare for All,” which in my mind is unaffordable.

He cannot campaign without lacing his rhetoric with the notes he pulls from that song sheet.

Sen. Sanders has lost me. I cannot back this guy. Yet he enjoys amazing support in Iowa, New Hampshire and possibly in Nevada … three of the early-primary states.

He is focusing more attention now on Texas, which has a March 3 primary on what is being billed as Super Tuesday.

Being more of a center-left kind of voter, I am inclined to look more seriously at candidates who seek to straddle the stripe that divides liberals and conservatives. I continue to long for a more compromising environment in the federal government.

It is clear to me that Donald John Trump isn’t the individual who can unite this country. He is campaigning to his base, firing ’em up at rallies and firing off epithets at his foes.

Bernie Sanders isn’t going to unite this country, either. He’s now making ad buys in Texas, seeking to elevate his profile here. Will the young folks who have glommed onto this fellow’s message now put him among the Democratic Party leaders in Texas?

I am among those voters who want to defeat Trump, who still appears all but certain to survive the impeachment trial under way in the U.S. Senate. I just cannot buy into the notion that Bernie Sanders is the guy who can do it.

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What do you mean, Mr. POTUS, about Schiff paying ‘a price’?

Donald John Trump’s Twitter digits are working overtime. Indeed, they have been doing so for, oh, the past three-plus years!

Now he says U.S. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who is serving as lead manager in the Senate impeachment trial of Trump, will “pay a price” for damaging the country.

Many folks are concerned about the chilling implication. “Pay a price?” What does that mean, Mr. President?

I guess he means voters in Schiff’s California congressional district will boot him out of office later this year. But he didn’t say what he meant specifically.

Others have suggested a potential “death threat.” Trump’s allies are defending him, saying no one should ascribe such dire consequence in something the president fires off on Twitter.

I am just one American who wishes — but long ago quit expecting — Donald Trump to cease the Twitter tantrums/tirades/tempests.

He is on trial in the Senate on allegations that he abused his power and obstructed Congress’s effort to get to the bottom of his abuse of power. It’s all about the Ukraine thing, asking that government for a political favor and withholding military aid until it delivered on the favor, which was an investigation into Joe Biden, a potential 2020 foe of Trump.

Schiff’s committee took the lead in investigating the allegation. Now he is leading the House managers in prosecuting that case in the Senate.

It’s all being done constitutionally, legally, according to custom.

However, Donald Trump is issuing a veiled threat? Via Twitter?

Knock … it … off!