Proverbs 18:17 (ESV): The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.
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The madhouse in DC over impeachment is more reminiscent of Stalin’s show trials during his purges than American jurisprudence. The House spectacle is all about a predetermined verdict being sold behind a facade of serious-sounding rubbish. The American public is being misled. Putin is taking notes.
The Democrats have been on a jihad since November 8, 2016. The latest gambit hinges on a nefarious Trump “quid pro quo”. If the ploy was limited to that, it’s a nothingburger. “Quid pro quo” literally means “something for something”. If that was all there was to it, it’s a very thin reed to support a massive structure of impeachment. Does the Louisiana Purchase remind you of anything? International relations are almost solely conducted on a quid-pro-quo basis.
Really, though, what the show-trial prosecutors are trying to conjure is something more: a quid-pro-quo-or-else. And that, the call’s transcript doesn’t support. The “favor” doesn’t mention the Bidens till further down in the conversation. At the top of Trump’s mind is the skulduggery conducted against him in 2016. The Bidens were an afterthought. Many interpretations are possible whenever a verbal conversation is put to paper, but you can’t say that only Schiff’s reading is the viable one.
The “or else” part is the withholding of a weapons sale, or so they say – while confusing a “sale” with “aid”. Well, whatever, the Ukraine got the weapons a month later. The only president to withhold military aid to Ukraine was Obama. And further, Zelensky and his government wasn’t even aware that they were being allegedly coerced. It’s a strange quid-pro-quo when quid has no knowledge of the purported quo. This is nonsense on stilts.
Schiff and his sorcerers have to create the illusion of a grand evil out of thin gruel. How? It’s simple: control the process! In other words, hold a show trial but call it something else. The Dems liken this charade to a grand jury. They’re right in an infantile way: charges (articles of impeachment) come out of it. But there the resemblance ends. It’s a strange grand jury proceeding when people representing the defense (Republicans) are present alongside people representing the prosecutors (Democrats). Instead, the whole affair has the adversarial characteristics of a trial. As such, the situation cries for full due process, not the secret hearings with Schiff the only one allowed to call witnesses and his serial leaking of cherry-picked statements to make his fiction seem like non-fiction. All the while, the Republicans are muzzled by keeping the thing secret. This is scandalous.
Another underhanded excuse is often bellowed to make the outrage more digestible. The process is said to be exclusively “political” in nature. But is that true? No. Impeachment is a blend of politics and statute. If “politics” was the sole driving force, once we developed political parties in the late 18th century, opposing parties controlling the Presidency and Congress would be embroiled in impeachments right and left. The fact that we have had so few impeachments tells us something. It tell us that something more than the fulfillment of political vendettas should be at the core of the process. It must be anchored in a clear and unmistakable violation of the Constitution or a serious criminal statue. A high bar is required, not the low bar of grotesque interpretations of paper transcriptions of phone calls or previously Court-approved exercises of executive privilege.
Republicans, remember this time. It’s no holds barred regarding impeachment. The Democrats have unleashed the tactic of hiding election loss anger and ideological and policy disagreements under spurious claims of misbehavior. You too, Republicans, can follow the same show trial script when the time comes.
RogerG