The Hill reported this week that should the House Democrats be foolish enough (they were) to pass the two articles of impeachment (which summarized are We hate Trump and We’re super mad Trump won in 2016) Senate Republicans will drag their feet on calling witnesses for a potential Senate trial.
While I realize the default position of most Republican Senators is not one of political or moral courage, I would encourage them to dig deep and see if for once they might be able to muster some. Their excuses for not wanting to call witnesses range from it “wouldn’t be popular” to it “might drag this on.” Well boo-hoo. Cry me a river. Little Linds of South Carolina even said his perfect Senate trial would not include any witnesses at all.
That’s not going to work for me. While I understand John McCain’s buddy is probably a wee-tad nervous about more coming to light regarding McCain’s role in this absurdity, and perhaps even his for that matter, let’s try to think about the American people for once, shall we?
Some of us might argue that one of the things that have destabilized our Republic over the past three years is the lack of adults in Congress willing to put an end to the madness. Anyone with a few brain cells and common sense—which I grant, in Congress may be commodities in short supply—knew back in the spring of 2017 that all this talk of “Russian collusion” was a crock, a fairytale, a conspiracy theory that had no merit.
But here we are, three years later, listening to Inspector General Michael Horowitz lay out how Sergeant Schultz Comey and his posse of crooked Keystone Kops used their immense power to run roughshod over the Fourth Amendment, ignoring the Woods Procedures that require the FBI to, you know, actually verify information before using it to secure a FISA warrant.
Instead, as some of us knew back in the summer of 2017, the FBI used the Steele dossier as the bulk of the information in its FISA application. We are also now finding out that the FBI altered evidence to secure what it wanted; in other words falsified evidence to pursue a corrupt, politically motivated investigation.
This occurred during the Obama Administration, under the leadership of one Barack Obama. The Justice Department was eyeball deep in this, as was the CIA and the director of national intelligence. Some of us have suspected for a long time that this goes all the way to Obama’s West Wing. But Republican Senators have said, in essence, “Meh, this would be like so icky to have witnesses.”
Fools.
The previous administration used the immense power of the surveillance state and the legal regime to spy on a political opponent, and then continued that abuse of power against a sitting president of the United States and you’re concerned about it not being popular or that it might drag on?
You know what wouldn’t be popular? If Republican senators—and nearly two dozen of them are up for re-election in 2020—decide they don’t want to have transparency but instead would like to be part of a cover-up of one of the biggest scandals in American history.
Do that and they’ll be signaling that they are perfectly fine with covering up the attempted coup of President Trump and not allowing him his due process. So here’s a thought: if Democrats are dumb enough to impeach the president, how about you give him his day in court? He has been treated abominably since becoming the duly elected president of the United States, winning by the process laid out in our Constitution. As a result, his political opponents rolled out a soft coup against him.
So sorry, dear senators, you don’t get to punt on this one. We want justice.
We want President Trump to have every last damn witness he wants. I would offer, for starters, this list: Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Eric Ciaramella, Adam Schiff, Glenn Simpson, James Comey, James Clapper, John Brennan, Andy McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Hillary Clinton, and while we’re at it, all the collaborators in the media like Jim Scuitto, Natasha Bertrand, Ken Dilanian . . . hell, everyone at CNN and a lot of people at MSNBC.
I could think of dozens more names, but I think you all get the point here: there must be a real trial, with people under oath, on national television, so that the American people can understand what has happened for the last three years. For the sake of the Republic, we cannot just simply sweep this under the rug and move on.
No matter how painful, how protracted, how much this ruffles the delicate sensitivities of Republican senators, if there is going to be a trial, let’s have a real trial to clear Trump’s name and shine a light on the absolute corruption and abuse of power that has taken place. To do anything less will be to the Senate’s shame.