In the House of Representatives Republicans made no attempt to defend Trump by denying the allegations or offering any evidence that would point to Trump's innocence, instead they disingenuously characterized the procedures as unfair, obstructed the proceedings with spurious objections, and held a ridiculous demonstration. As Axios pointed out, the Congress Members who stormed a closed-door hearing to protest an alleged lack of transparency in the impeachment inquiry were sitting on committees with the power to question witnesses and review documents. Those so called secret depositions they were protesting were no secret to them. Many Republicans even questioned the deponents, and they were given as much time to ask their questions as Democratic senators were given. The vote to send the Articles of impeachment to the senate went mostly along party lines with only three Democrats voting no and one independent voting yes.
Now we come to the Senate where the articles setting forth the allegations against the president are to be tried. Notice that Article I, section 3 the Constitution says, “The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all impeachments.” The use of the word “try” was no accident. Our founding fathers knew that trying a matter meant hearing and weighing the evidence and that there were established procedures for doing that! Notice also that the Senators are required to take the oath of affirmation: “I solemnly swear (or affirm) that in all things appertaining to the trial of ____, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws, so help me God.” Yet Moscow Mitch's first draft, “... of the Senate rules of engagement blocked new evidence unearthed in the House impeachment investigation from formally being presented in the trial without a separate vote... [And t]hat left room for Trump's lawyers to move immediately to dismiss the impeachment charges if they so chose...”
As Senator Schumer said: "Under this resolution, Senator McConnell is saying he doesn’t want to hear any of the existing evidence, and he doesn’t want to hear any new evidence. It’s a cover-up, and the American people will see it for exactly what it is." Senator Schumer's description is still accurate even though the house managers were allowed to use evidence from the house impeachment investigation. The latest poles showed that 75 percent of the respondents want to hear witnesses at the trial of Donald Trump. The people are not as stupid as Moscow Mitch thinks. They know that this is Not A Trial. They know it is Moscow Mitch's show, his sham, his farce, his corrupt cover up! Lamar Alexander, who many pundits have mistakenly described as an institutionalist, let the cat out of the bag:
"There is no need for more evidence to conclude that the president withheld United States aid, at least in part, to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens; the House managers have proved this with what they call a 'mountain of overwhelming evidence,'" Alexander said in a statement. "Our founding documents provide for duly elected presidents who serve with 'the consent of the governed,' not at the pleasure of the United States Congress. Let the people decide."
It does not take much reading between the lines to understand that Alexander made up his mind to dismiss the articles of impeachment against Trump regardless of what the evidence showed. Indeed he does not even want the American people to hear witnesses with first hand knowledge of Trump's offenses or to hear what is in the relevant documents Trump has refused to turn over to Congress in defiance of lawful subpoenas. Apparently Alexander like the rest of the Republican senators is afraid that the people of this great country will be appalled by what they will hear and see if all the evidence is presented! In this regard Senator Alexander is ignoring the very people he would make the judges and jurors. He, Senator Alexander, is in effect participating in a cover up by withholding the evidence voters need to make an informed decision about Trump's behavior and the extent of the corruption within the Trump administration. If extorting the aid of a foreign country in Trump's election bid is not an impeachable offense, what is? If Trump's unconscionable obstruction of justice and congress is not an impeachable offense, what is? And another cover up is not going to change the answer to those questions!
This brings me back to the statement I made in the first paragraph when I wrote that “... a morally and intellectually bankrupt cabal of unpatriotic cowards has taken over the Republican Party, and that cabal is actively fighting to replace the rule of law with the rule of Trump!” I know that sounds extreme but lets examine the facts. Donald J. Trump is a corrupt and incompetent president who is ruled by his greed and self aggrandizement, and he will do anything to feed his coffers and his ego. The impeachable behavior charged in the articles impeachment are not singular events. As the Mueller Report clearly shows, Trump welcomed the help of Russia in the 2016 election and obstructed justice in an effort cover up his complicity. In other words, Trump has shown a pattern of corrupt behavior that indicates he will continue his unethical and lawless behavior if he is not prevented from doing so. Foreign interference in our elections is one of the things our founding fathers feared most. They knew that such interference brings with it an undue influence of foreign nations on our elected officials and the laws and policies of our government. No one with a triple digit IQ and any knowledge of government and/or history could possibly think that Trump should not be removed from office for what he has done! The argument that we should let the voters decide was soundly rejected at the constitutional convention. Since there were no term limits at that time any impeachment resulting in the removal of a president from office would take the decision out of the voter's hands. The founding fathers knew the urgency of preventing a corrupt and/or despotic president from causing more damage to the Republic and its laws is paramount. The damage caused by an illegitimate election is far too likely to be irreversible. And once liberty has been taken away it usually takes a violent revolution to restore it. If the voters must decide whether a President who is abusing the power of his office is to be removed from office, and in the case at hand they must, they should also judge the morally bankrupt cowards who refuse to discharge the duties of their offices in accordance with the oath they took to "support and defend the Constitution.”
The bottom line here is that if you refuse to enforce the laws and the ethics governing our elected officials, including the President, those unenforced laws and ethics are moot and become utterly meaningless. Democracy and the rule of law go hand in hand; you cannot have one without the other. In this regard the cover up is as dangerous as the offenses Trump is trying to hide. One only has to look at the fact that Trump replaced Jeff Sessions as Attorney General because Sessions was not doing enough to protect Trump from the Muller investigation to see this. The person Trump chose to replace Jeff Sessions as Attorney General is William Barr, who is acting like disgraced and convicted former Attorney General John Mitchell. Instead of protecting the people of this country William Barr has prostituted himself in the service of Trump. He, Barr, misrepresented the Mueller report, refused to enforce congressional subpoenas in spite of the fact that this is one of the Justice Department's duties, and refused to conduct legitimate investigations that might uncover the misconduct of the executive branch, thus forcing the House to conduct the impeachment investigation. Barr has placed the President above the law, and he, Barr, has become an active participant on the wider conspiracy to cover up Trump's crimes and misconduct. Furthermore there is evidence that he and other members of the Trump administration knew and may have participated in the crimes and misconduct they are trying to hide. So here we have the department of justice violating the very laws it is charged with enforcing.
Since Republican Senators have refused to protect the constitution, it is now up to we the people. And thanks to Republican senators helping Trump hide documents and deny access to witnesses we do not have much of the information we should have. What we do know is that no member of the Republican party in Washington has clean hands in this matter. This makes our choice very clear. We can choose the party of Trump or we can defend a democracy that still believes in the rule of law. We cannot endure the rule of Trump and keep a democracy that believes in the rule of law at the same time! We must throw Trump and the dirty diapers covering his butt out of office. The price Republican legislators have to pay for participating in the cover up and refusing to hold Trump accountable must be a high one; it should be the end of their political careers!
I know the votes have not been taken yet, but the fix is in; there is no way the Republicans are going to throw Trump out of office. I also know there is someone out there who is responding to my previous paragraph by saying, “But what about the economy?” My answer is that it took George W. Bush the better part of two terms to crash the economy, and it took Barack Obama the better part of two terms to get us out of Bush's recession. Reelecting a corrupt, incompetent, destructive despot just because he has not crashed the economy yet is downright foolish.
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