“[The Founders] gave you a remedy and they meant for you to use it. They gave you an oath and they meant for you to observe it. We have proven Donald Trump guilty, now do impartial justice and convict him.
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Many GOP Senators announcing their reasons for acquittal are relying on alleged process failures or on doubts that Trump did what the House alleges. Sad but not nearly as dangerous as relying on the crazy theory that the offenses charged are just not impeachable. That’s wrong.
“This impeachment was a fait accompli at all times,” said Bill Whalen, a fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University. “You talk to congressional Republicans and there’s a feeling that the president is being persecuted, that impeachment was a conviction in search of a crime.”
William A. Galston, chair of the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program, said acquittal “was not only perfectly predictable, but in my judgment, completely inevitable.”
“The United States political scene is as deeply polarized along partisan lines as it has been for at least a century,” Galston added. Noting Trump’s high ratings among Republican voters, he said, “It would take a very brave Republican indeed to break ranks with the president under these circumstances.”
[…]
This is not the first instance in which Trump has skirted penalties for wielding the powers of his office for personal or political gain. Former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III found that the president repeatedly worked to block or thwart the Russia investigation, acts that could potentially have prompted obstruction of justice charges were he not a sitting president.
But Trump sidestepped any punishment then, just as he appears to now with Ukraine.
Trump declared that Art. 2 of the Constitution let’s him do anything he wants to do. With an acquittal vote tomorrow, the Senate will put the president above the law. And when a president is above the law, so too is that president above and not accountable to the American people.
An acquittal means Trump can attach personal conditions to all future Congressional appropriations. If Congress allocates $ to Ukraine again next year, Trump can say, “I’ll release this $ only if you’ll give me a favorable rate on land in Kyiv so I can build a Trump hotel there. https://t.co/SkBm6p1h13
“You’re not mopping fast enough. (Laughter) That’s a socialist mop. (Laughter and applause) Grab a mop — let’s get to work.” – Barack Obama (2009); “Soyez réalistes, demandez l’impossible!”
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