Surely norms are made to be broken
So with the short-fingered vulgarian responding to Congressional subpoenas by telling the House to go pound sand—and presumably prepared to flip off the judiciary should any court be impertinent enough to order him to comply—I think the pragmatic arguments against impeachment, based on political calculation (you’ll never get sixty-seven votes in the Senate to convict; failure to do so will be trumpeted by the GOP as “total exoneration), have lost a certain amount of sand, because if Congress does not at least attempt to stand up for its status as a co-equal branch of the federal government (and it was conceived, of course, as the first among equals by the Founders, who would have regarded with horror the Caesarism that has settled upon the executive this past century), then it might as well waive it for all time, or at least for all Republican administrations: it seems safe to assume that the next time, if ever, that a Democrat ascends to the purple, the GOP will suddenly rediscover its oversight authority, for we have always been at war with Eastasia.
Another argument I have seen for impeachment is that even if acquittal in the upper chamber is a foregone conclusion, the trial itself would reveal in stark terms (to those, at any rate, with eyes to see and ears to hear—“Too bad, kids,” murmurs the shade of Adlai Stevenson, “ but you need a majority”) the depths of depravity and corruption into which this crime family has plunged us. This would probably be perceived by the Republican Senate leadership, all one of it, as a suboptimal outcome. What’s a patriotic Senate Majority Leader to do? After all, if the House passes articles of impeachment, the Senate is duty-bound to sit in judgment—
Not so fast, sonny. Who says we have to have a trial in the Senate? Oddly enough, not the Constitution.
Huh? WTF??
cordially,
Another argument I have seen for impeachment is that even if acquittal in the upper chamber is a foregone conclusion, the trial itself would reveal in stark terms (to those, at any rate, with eyes to see and ears to hear—“Too bad, kids,” murmurs the shade of Adlai Stevenson, “ but you need a majority”) the depths of depravity and corruption into which this crime family has plunged us. This would probably be perceived by the Republican Senate leadership, all one of it, as a suboptimal outcome. What’s a patriotic Senate Majority Leader to do? After all, if the House passes articles of impeachment, the Senate is duty-bound to sit in judgment—
Not so fast, sonny. Who says we have to have a trial in the Senate? Oddly enough, not the Constitution.
Huh? WTF??
…But it is also possible that, in this time of disregard and erosion of established institutional practices and norms, the current leadership of the Senate could choose to abrogate them once more. The same Mitch McConnell who blocked the Senate’s exercise of its authority to advise and consent to the Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland, could attempt to prevent the trial of a House impeachment of Donald Trump. And he would not have to look far to find the constitutional arguments and the flexibility to revise Senate rules and procedures to accomplish this purpose.I think it likely that this is what McConnell will do. What happens after that, I do not know, except that a certain number of people may take to the street, which could in turn provide the pretext for massively disproportionate countermeasures to “restore order”…it’s rather depressing to contemplate. Thoughts?
The Constitution does not by its express terms direct the Senate to try an impeachment. In fact, it confers on the Senate “the sole power to try,” which is a conferral of exclusive constitutional authority and not a procedural command. The Constitution couches the power to impeach in the same terms: it is the House’s “sole power.” The House may choose to impeach or not, and one can imagine an argument that the Senate is just as free, in the exercise of its own “sole power,” to decline to try any impeachment that the House elects to vote.
The current rules governing Senate practice and procedure do not pose an insurmountable problem for this maneuver…
cordially,