Impeachment: No More Witnesses (2020)
[Writer’s Note: This was originally posted on my website on 2/1/2020. This was considered a “Current Event” article, so new details may have come out since publishing this article that could change the story. Republishing this article is a way to archive old work.]
The impeachment of President Trump is quickly nearing its end. The Senate voted 51–49 to reject motions to call for new witnesses. For some, this is a great relief, and for others, this marks the end of democracy. No matter what side you are on, it is hard to get around the partisanship surrounding this impeachment.
The House impeached President Trump with a partisan 230–197 vote for Article I: Abuse of Power, and a partisan vote of 229–198 for Article II: Obstruction of Congress. The only House members to not vote on party lines were Democrats Collin Peterson of Minnesota and Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey who has now switched over to the Republican party. No Republicans voted to impeach, but Justin Amash of Michigan, who was a Republican but switched to an independent in July of 2019, voted to impeach. A few House members abstained from voting and current Democratic Presidential nominee Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii voted present.
Next step is the trial in the Senate. The Senate has not yet taken a vote for impeachment conviction, which requires a 2/3’s majority to convict, but has been focused on bringing more witnesses forward. Senate Democrats, along with the impeachment managers, are in favor of more witnesses, and Senate Republicans are not. The House impeachment managers include Adam Schiff (D-California), Jerry Nadler (D-New York), Zoe Lofgren (D-California), Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), Val Demings (D-Florida), Jason Crow (D-Colorado), and Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas). All these voices were heard during the House impeachment process and were brought to the Senate trial to continue the case. I must admit, the selection of the impeachment managers was not random, but a well put together group based on demographic and geographic standards. The managers themselves were a mix of men and women of different races, something the Democrats value. The constituency each manager represented was also spread out across the US allowing them to speak to Americans all around the map. During the time the managers were given to deliver their opening arguments, a total of 24 hours over 3 days, each manager spoke during the primetime watching hours of their constituency. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) was very selective when choosing the impeachment managers for this trial.
The team put together with handling President Trump’s defense is a cast of lawyers and white house advisers with a reputation of defending constitutional law, but not all have a reputation of defending this president or Republicans in general. The defense team includes Pat Cipollone, Jay Sekulow, Alan Dershowitz, Kenneth Star, Pam Bondi, Mike Purpura, Robert Ray, and Patrick Philbin. Most notable names among these are attorneys Alan Dershowitz and Kenneth Star. Alan Dershowitz has been a Democrat supporter, including voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and an avid defender of the Constitution. Dershowitz is most well-known for defending O.J. Simpson and teaching at Harvard Law School. Kenneth Star is most well-known for serving as independent counsel in the Clinton impeachment. Star now finds himself on defending an impeachment rather than helping prosecute one as his did in 1998. Robert Ray was also heavily involved with the Clinton impeachment trial.
The strategy for the prosecution was laid out in the articles brought forth by the House. Go after “abuse of power” by claiming President Trump was using his office to dig up dirt on the most likely 2020 Democratic nominee, and “obstruction of congress” for not allowing executive officials to testify during the House inquiry and not handing over documents. The defense strategy is to break the connection between foreign aid and political dirt in 2020 in the form of a quid pro quo, defend a quid pro quo scenario as a constitutionally valid action, and to make a case for a valid corruption investigation request into Burisma, the company Hunter Biden was on the board, and the previous administration.
The impeachment managers were pushing for more witnesses, primarily former national security adviser to President Trump, John Bolton. A leak from John Bolton’s new book published by the New York Times made an explicit connection between Ukrainian aid and an investigation into the Biden’s. This story is the main driving force for the impeachment managers to bring more witnesses, but the defense team may counter by calling on Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, and/or the whistle blower to testify if more witnesses are allowed. This is a situation the Democrats do not want to find themselves in. We now know that situation will not come to fruition because of the recent Senate vote to not allow more witnesses.
Now that everything has been laid out, I will give you my opinion on what has happened so far.
The defense has a good case as to why there should be no more witnesses. The prosecution should have gathered all relevant information before the trial started and knowing the advantage the Democrats have by having the main-stream media on their side, there will be a slow leak of “bombshells” like this Bolton one that will keep the impeachment going until they want to end it on their terms. The impeachment managers did do a good job making their case to the American people that there are a ton of unknowns and, when connecting the right dots, this seems like a clear abuse of power and major corruption. This case by the Democrats was enough to convince Senators Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) to vote for more witnesses, but not enough to convince Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who were on the fence on voting for more witnesses, to pass the motion for more witnesses.
Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) made a good case for not allowing witnesses on the podcast Verdict with Ted Cruz, hosted by Michael Knowles of the Daily Wire. A good breakdown of the commentary by Cruz and Graham can be found here in an article written by Ashe Schow on the Dailey Wire website, or I would highly recommend you subscribe to the podcast. Senator Graham referred to the impeachment trail as a “shitshow” if it were to allow more witnesses. Senator Cruz made the case that Senators Alexander and Murkowski did not vote yes on bringing more witnesses forward because of the stunt pulled by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) during the questions period. The questions period was a time when senators could submit questions for Chief Justice Roberts to read aloud to the Senate. Senator Warren’s question read, “At a time when large majorities of Americans have lost faith in government, does the fact that the chief justice is presiding over an impeachment trial in which Republican senators have thus far refused to allow witnesses or evidence contribute to the loss of legitimacy of the chief justice, the Supreme Court and the Constitution?” That question, read aloud by Justice Roberts, was followed by the 5-second silent stare down by Justice Roberts in a clear moment of disgust (video). The impeachment managers tried to reject the clear jab at the Chief Justice after the question was read, but it seems like this stunt backfired, especially with Senate Republicans.
As nice as it will be to put this impeachment behind us and look forward to the shenanigans that will inevitably occur leading up to the 2020 election, I do think the Republicans made the wrong move voting down more witnesses. The main reason for my feelings on this is because I believe the Democrats wanted this motion to be voted down. Now they get to claim this administration covered up evidence of wrongdoing, claim the 2020 election will be compromised by a corrupt president, and do not have to worry about exposing the 2020 Democratic frontrunner in Joe Biden as a corrupt actor because he, nor his son, will be called to testify. As much as the Democrats want to hear from Bolton, they are probably deathly afraid of Hunter or Joe Biden under oath. And there is no clear disadvantage of John Bolton not testifying. Unless his new book is not released for sale before the 2020 election, which would not make sense because the sales would be much greater before the election, all the testimony Bolton would have given would be revealed in his book and President Trump would be tried in the court of public opinion at a time he cannot afford to lose support. Also, as mentioned before, the main-stream media will help any way they can to drop “bombshells” of new information of wrongdoing by President Trump and his administration. Allowing more witnesses would have weakened some of those narratives.
I sincerely hope we can get past the petty politics and get to some of the real issues going into the 2020 election, but it does not seem like either side is mature enough to handle that task. Maybe after the Democrats election their nominee, we will turn towards a more focused campaign. There is a chance Joe Biden does not win the Democratic nomination, especially with the latest polling from Iowa in favor of Bernie Sanders, and that may result in less focus on the quid pro quo aspect of this scandal since the “dirt on Biden” will not be relevant anymore. The only thing I know as an absolute truth after all of this is, I will be checking the Vegas betting odds on whether or not the Democrats start another impeachment inquiry within 6 months of a Trump 2020 re-election bid [Republishing Note: Well, would you look at that]
P.S. If you are still reading, and I hope you are, I will be republishing my writing from my website on Medium so there may be some older stories I cover, although I do not often cover current events. I shut down my website because I have changed my main resource of communication and content hosting to Locals.com. Although I will be publishing my long-form written content on Medium, you can find my more regular content, podcasts, and interactive community at engineeringpolitics.locals.com. Please feel free to join this growing community if you want to stay up to date and/or support this content. Thank you for your consideration!
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