The second impeachment of Donald Trump is over, and as expected, there weren’t enough Republican Senators willing to convict him. Many gave the reason that impeaching a president already out of office is unconstitutional even though it was voted before it is.
In simpler terms, an impeachment is removing a president or other politicians from the job. In their minds, this has already been accomplished by the certification of the electoral college votes and the swearing in of Joe Biden, so there was no point in holding an impeachment.
To them, the impeachment should have taken place while Donald Trump was still president. In order for this to happen, everything that’s involved in the impeachment would have needed to start on January 7 and be finished by January 19. The filing of the articles of impeachment, preparing the case, preparing the defense, deciding what witnesses will be called or subpoenaed, hearing from both sides and voting, all in 13 days, including weekends.
This was already determined to be too short a time to make it effective. But even that had happened, the Republicans that support Trump could have simply said, “He’s going to be out of office on January 20th anyway, so why bother voting to convict him?” The end result is the same as yesterday. Almost.
Senators in an impeachment are supposed to be impartial jurors that keep their mind open while viewing the evidence and make a decision based on the evidence. They may have made up their mind before it begins, whether for or against, but they need to be willing to change their decision based on what they see. There's probably Democrats that had the "he's guilty no matter what" attitude. There definitely were Republicans that said "he's not guilty no matter what".
I just about wrote “he’s innocent no matter what”, but even Republicans that didn’t vote to convict him know Trump’s not innocent. But some of their decision is based on they need the voters that support Trump now to support them at the next primary or election, and some of it is their loyalty to him or maybe even fear of what he could do to them. Trump has been advised not to go on a “revenge tour” where he actively campaigns against Republicans that voted to start the impeachment and/or voted to convict him in it, in order to get someone he likes voted in for that position. So far, only one Senator has publicly said a few weeks ago he was going to vote his conscience even though he knew it was going to cost him politically.
But there were Republicans that made up their minds before this started and wouldn’t change no matter what. Three of them met with Trump’s defense team after the day’s events were done. In any other trial situation, the jury is not allowed to meet privately with either the prosecution or the defense before, during or after the trial. But it’s okay if these guys do it, right?
During the impeachment, there was some fumbling about whether or not witnesses would be called. Trump's team announced they had 300 witnesses ready to testify. When I heard that, I immediately thought of Trump and his previous lawyers saying they had so much evidence of voter fraud they didn't know what to do with it all, but of course, never showed any evidence. And then there's Joseph McCarthy's "I have here a list of names" statement in the 1950s that was a bluff to intimidate and nothing more.
Just days before it began, Trump showed once again he is unwilling to pay for services that have been or will be rendered. His original legal team quit for two reasons: he was pushing them to continue his claims of election fraud and he balked at the cost. Trump negotiated with the lead lawyer to reduce his fee to about half, but when that lawyer said the cost would be $3 million for the entire team, Trump didn’t like it. Trump was then able to find two other lawyers to represent him. I wonder if he’ll pay them now that the job’s done like he hasn’t so many times before. But hey, at least they get to add “I got a U.S. President acquitted” to their resume.
A big downside of the acquittal and the stance of "he's out of office so we can't impeach him" is the precedent has now been set that leaving the office of the President is more like a get out of jail free card.
If we rewind back to January 6, any of the following could have happened:
- Hostages were taken.
- More extensive damage of Federal property.
- People were killed that weren’t accidental deaths or byproducts of the event. For example, a rioter deliberately kills a police officer or politician.
- Vice President Mike Pence and/or Nancy Pelosi could have been captured and killed using the gallows that had been built. It wasn’t a simple hangman’s noose. It was a gallows that took time to build.
- The nuclear football that always accompanies the Vice President could have been seized.
If any one of those had happened on January 6, 2021 with yesterday’s precedent already in place, all Donald Trump would have to do is say “I quit” and the Senate shouldn’t touch him. That’s it. Write a letter with “I hereby resign the Office of the President of the United States effectively immediately” with nothing else and sign it. Or if he still had his Twitter account, use that to make the official announcement and submit the paper copy later.
Trump's been acquitted, but while he isn't facing an immediate political consequence for what he did, it should have more of an impact than the first impeachment where Senators were saying "He's learned a really big lesson and won't do anything like this ever again." Now the world has seen more of what he did and how his consistent pattern of behavior over the last 60+ years led to what happened on January 6th.
Trump’s sources of income are continuing to dry up. There’s two businesses that The Trump Organization has a 30% stake in where he may be forced to sell that stake at a discount. He’ll get a one-time cash inflow for it, but the ongoing yearly inflow will stop. Stormy Daniels, the adult actress that was paid money to cover up the affair Trump had with her, has decided to file a law suit against him. Officials in Georgia have announced he’s facing two new investigations about the two “find me the votes and say you recalculated” phone calls he made. The list goes on.
The next situation we have to watch out for occurs 18 days from now on Thursday, March 4. One of Trump's hotels announced recently they will be raising their prices then, the same date QAnon followers believe Trump will become president again.
Whether March 4 was chosen deliberately or by coincidence, it’s confirmed in the minds of the QAnon followers that Trump’s still on track to be president again. It’s something like Trump will be voted back into office, or he’ll seize power, or Joe Biden will make Trump president again because Biden’s now in on it. Or it’s whatever today’s reason they’ve latched onto to convince themselves the “Storm” is still coming.
In his statement after the acquittal, Trump continued to play the victim, calling it “the greatest witch hunt in the history of our Country.” He also repeated that he’s not going away because the “historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun”. QAnon followers will use that to continue convincing themselves Trump’s coming back into power.
What new reason they will come up with when March 4th rolls around and somehow, inexplicably, Trump isn’t magically the President of the United States again? We’ll find out on March 5th and in the days and weeks afterward.
