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Monday, December 23, 2019 6:02:09 PM
Nancy Pelosi delays Trump Senate impeachment trial to her credit — and her peril
"ForReal, The Senate Must Conduct an Impeachment Trial That Is Serious and Fair"
Nancy Pelosi is not required to sit back and watch Mitch McConnell violate
the Constitution’s core commitment to fair trials under the rule of law.
Jeffrey Abramson
Opinion contributor
Anyone expecting senators to behave like jurors in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial is bound to be disappointed. In ordinary criminal trials, we disqualify jurors if they know the defendant, the witnesses, or even the latest news. If we applied those standards to senators, we'd have to disqualify the entire Senate.
Fortunately, it is possible for senators to be both political and fair. Today’s senators would do well to study the example set by their predecessors in trying Clinton.
Clinton’s trial began on Jan. 7, 1999, before a politically divided Senate of 45 Democrats and 55 Republicans. Nevertheless, by a vote of 100 to 0, the Senate followed procedures outlined in its 1986 resolution entitled “Procedures and Guidelines for Impeachment Trials .. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CDOC-99sdoc33/html/CDOC-99sdoc33.htm .” Trent Lott, the majority leader at the time and a fierce Republican partisan, did not stand in the way of this unanimous agreement. In the end, 10 Republicans voted to acquit President Clinton on one article, five on the other.
Politics could displace law
Among other matters, the 1986 rules provided that “the Senate shall have power to compel the attendance of witnesses.” When disagreement broke out about whether to call witnesses, the senators deliberated in private, and then publicly voted to depose witnesses. The senators heard videotaped deposition testimony for three days from witnesses. The trial lasted more than a month.
The 1986 rules are still in force. Yet Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has declared his intent to ignore them and to run the trial according to whatever procedures the White House wants. Apparently, McConnell sees no conflict between swearing an oath to do justice according to law and then confessing that “Everything I do during this, I'm coordinating with the White House counsel .. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/12/19/impeachment-republicans-watch-senate-trial/2640263001/ . There will be no difference between the president's position and our position.”
Trial of Donald J. Trump: As the impeachment process moves to the Senate, here's how it will all work
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/12/20/donald-trump-impeachment-trial-rules-how-to-column/2697018001/
McConnell flatly says there will be no witnesses, unless the president wants them. Sen. Lindsey Graham has been equally blunt. “I don’t need any witnesses .. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-sen-lindsey-graham-on-face-the-nation-december-15-2019/ ,” he said, since "I'm not trying to hide the fact that I have disdain” for the whole process.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi presides over Articles of Impeachment in Washington, DC, on Dec. 18, 2019.
Unless something changes, politics will displace law in any Trump impeachment trial. To her credit but also to her peril, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has departed from the example the House set in 1998, when members immediately walked over the articles of impeachment to the Senate. Instead, the speaker has announced that transmission of these articles will be delayed .. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/12/19/trump-impeachment-senate-push-speedy-trial-prompts-house-caution/2702168001/ .. until the chambers can agree on fair trial procedures.
Some accuse the speaker of her own political maneuvering to deny, or at least to delay, the president’s right to answer his accusers. Others defend her as having no choice but to use whatever leverage she possesses to ensure that the Senate conducts a trial, and not a farce.
Precipice of a constitutional crisis
So far, Pelosi has said only that she will delay transmitting the impeachment articles, as opposed to saying she might never send them. However, the prospect of a brief delay may not be enough to bring the Senate leadership into bipartisan negotiations. Without such negotiation, we would face stalemate and a constitutional crisis.
If the speaker persists and refuses to deliver the impeachment articles to the Senate, some will say she is the one violating the Constitution .. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript . While the Constitution contains no explicit provisions concerning the time frame for transmitting articles of impeachment to the Senate, or even compelling delivery, you could argue that it implicitly assumes a Senate trial will follow impeachment in a timely manner.
In ordinary circumstances, this argument might be persuasive. However, these are not ordinary times. Left unstopped, McConnell by his own words stands ready to violate the Constitution’s core commitment to fair trials .. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights-transcript .. under the rule of law. The Constitution does not require the speaker to sit back and watch the Senate disobey the Constitution. And McConnell cannot invoke the importance of holding a Senate trial while refusing to hold anything resembling an open trial.
Trump impeachment twist: Pelosi reclaims the Constitution for liberals and today's America
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/12/16/trump-impeachment-nancy-pelosi-revives-constitution-column/2657025001/
We can walk back from this constitutional precipice. If senators in the Clinton impeachment trial could put aside their partisan divides and unanimously agree on fair trial procedures, then today’s senators should be able to do the same. All that has to happen is for the majority leader to let each senator vote on the rules, free from threats of reprisal. Although it takes a two-thirds vote to convict the president, it takes only a simple majority .. https://www.lawfareblog.com/can-senate-decline-try-impeachment-case .. to adopt rules of procedure. This means a moderate coalition could emerge, a prospect that McConnell will bend every rule to thwart.
An early draft of the Constitution proposed holding impeachment trials before the Supreme Court. But Alexander Hamilton thought it would be a mistake to take all politics out of the impeachment trial. Instead, he counted on the Senate’s ability to distinguish between the petty politics of self-interest and the permanent political interests of the people in living under the rule of law. The very gravity of impeachment .. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed65.asp , Hamilton thought, would turn politicians, sometimes drunk on power, stone sober.
Before it is too late, we should all raise a glass to constitutional sobriety.
Jeffrey Abramson is the author of "We, the Jury: The Jury System and the Ideal of
Democracy." He teaches constitutional law at the University of Texas at Austin.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/12/23/trump-impeachment-trial-pelosi-mcconnell-constitutional-crisis-column/2714983001/
See also:
However, that's the process. Moscow Mitch...
[...]
The proceedings unfold in the form of a trial, with each side having the right to call witnesses and perform cross-examinations. The House members, who are given the collective title of managers during the course of the trial, present the prosecution case, and the impeached official has the right to mount a defense with his or her own attorneys as well. Senators must also take an oath or affirmation that they will perform their duties honestly and with due diligence. After hearing the charges, the Senate usually deliberates in private.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=152949929
Anthony Scaramucci Names Four Witnesses Whose Senate Testimony Would Force Trump to Resign
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=152935037
"ForReal, The Senate Must Conduct an Impeachment Trial That Is Serious and Fair"
Nancy Pelosi is not required to sit back and watch Mitch McConnell violate
the Constitution’s core commitment to fair trials under the rule of law.
Jeffrey Abramson
Opinion contributor
Anyone expecting senators to behave like jurors in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial is bound to be disappointed. In ordinary criminal trials, we disqualify jurors if they know the defendant, the witnesses, or even the latest news. If we applied those standards to senators, we'd have to disqualify the entire Senate.
Fortunately, it is possible for senators to be both political and fair. Today’s senators would do well to study the example set by their predecessors in trying Clinton.
Clinton’s trial began on Jan. 7, 1999, before a politically divided Senate of 45 Democrats and 55 Republicans. Nevertheless, by a vote of 100 to 0, the Senate followed procedures outlined in its 1986 resolution entitled “Procedures and Guidelines for Impeachment Trials .. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CDOC-99sdoc33/html/CDOC-99sdoc33.htm .” Trent Lott, the majority leader at the time and a fierce Republican partisan, did not stand in the way of this unanimous agreement. In the end, 10 Republicans voted to acquit President Clinton on one article, five on the other.
Politics could displace law
Among other matters, the 1986 rules provided that “the Senate shall have power to compel the attendance of witnesses.” When disagreement broke out about whether to call witnesses, the senators deliberated in private, and then publicly voted to depose witnesses. The senators heard videotaped deposition testimony for three days from witnesses. The trial lasted more than a month.
The 1986 rules are still in force. Yet Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has declared his intent to ignore them and to run the trial according to whatever procedures the White House wants. Apparently, McConnell sees no conflict between swearing an oath to do justice according to law and then confessing that “Everything I do during this, I'm coordinating with the White House counsel .. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/12/19/impeachment-republicans-watch-senate-trial/2640263001/ . There will be no difference between the president's position and our position.”
Trial of Donald J. Trump: As the impeachment process moves to the Senate, here's how it will all work
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/12/20/donald-trump-impeachment-trial-rules-how-to-column/2697018001/
McConnell flatly says there will be no witnesses, unless the president wants them. Sen. Lindsey Graham has been equally blunt. “I don’t need any witnesses .. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-sen-lindsey-graham-on-face-the-nation-december-15-2019/ ,” he said, since "I'm not trying to hide the fact that I have disdain” for the whole process.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi presides over Articles of Impeachment in Washington, DC, on Dec. 18, 2019.
Unless something changes, politics will displace law in any Trump impeachment trial. To her credit but also to her peril, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has departed from the example the House set in 1998, when members immediately walked over the articles of impeachment to the Senate. Instead, the speaker has announced that transmission of these articles will be delayed .. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/12/19/trump-impeachment-senate-push-speedy-trial-prompts-house-caution/2702168001/ .. until the chambers can agree on fair trial procedures.
Some accuse the speaker of her own political maneuvering to deny, or at least to delay, the president’s right to answer his accusers. Others defend her as having no choice but to use whatever leverage she possesses to ensure that the Senate conducts a trial, and not a farce.
Precipice of a constitutional crisis
So far, Pelosi has said only that she will delay transmitting the impeachment articles, as opposed to saying she might never send them. However, the prospect of a brief delay may not be enough to bring the Senate leadership into bipartisan negotiations. Without such negotiation, we would face stalemate and a constitutional crisis.
If the speaker persists and refuses to deliver the impeachment articles to the Senate, some will say she is the one violating the Constitution .. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript . While the Constitution contains no explicit provisions concerning the time frame for transmitting articles of impeachment to the Senate, or even compelling delivery, you could argue that it implicitly assumes a Senate trial will follow impeachment in a timely manner.
In ordinary circumstances, this argument might be persuasive. However, these are not ordinary times. Left unstopped, McConnell by his own words stands ready to violate the Constitution’s core commitment to fair trials .. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights-transcript .. under the rule of law. The Constitution does not require the speaker to sit back and watch the Senate disobey the Constitution. And McConnell cannot invoke the importance of holding a Senate trial while refusing to hold anything resembling an open trial.
Trump impeachment twist: Pelosi reclaims the Constitution for liberals and today's America
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/12/16/trump-impeachment-nancy-pelosi-revives-constitution-column/2657025001/
We can walk back from this constitutional precipice. If senators in the Clinton impeachment trial could put aside their partisan divides and unanimously agree on fair trial procedures, then today’s senators should be able to do the same. All that has to happen is for the majority leader to let each senator vote on the rules, free from threats of reprisal. Although it takes a two-thirds vote to convict the president, it takes only a simple majority .. https://www.lawfareblog.com/can-senate-decline-try-impeachment-case .. to adopt rules of procedure. This means a moderate coalition could emerge, a prospect that McConnell will bend every rule to thwart.
An early draft of the Constitution proposed holding impeachment trials before the Supreme Court. But Alexander Hamilton thought it would be a mistake to take all politics out of the impeachment trial. Instead, he counted on the Senate’s ability to distinguish between the petty politics of self-interest and the permanent political interests of the people in living under the rule of law. The very gravity of impeachment .. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed65.asp , Hamilton thought, would turn politicians, sometimes drunk on power, stone sober.
Before it is too late, we should all raise a glass to constitutional sobriety.
Jeffrey Abramson is the author of "We, the Jury: The Jury System and the Ideal of
Democracy." He teaches constitutional law at the University of Texas at Austin.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/12/23/trump-impeachment-trial-pelosi-mcconnell-constitutional-crisis-column/2714983001/
See also:
However, that's the process. Moscow Mitch...
[...]
The proceedings unfold in the form of a trial, with each side having the right to call witnesses and perform cross-examinations. The House members, who are given the collective title of managers during the course of the trial, present the prosecution case, and the impeached official has the right to mount a defense with his or her own attorneys as well. Senators must also take an oath or affirmation that they will perform their duties honestly and with due diligence. After hearing the charges, the Senate usually deliberates in private.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=152949929
Anthony Scaramucci Names Four Witnesses Whose Senate Testimony Would Force Trump to Resign
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=152935037
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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