An Unserious Impeachment

As I write these words, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has dispatched a phalanx of impeachment managers to hand deliver articles of impeachment against President Trump to the United States Senate. Amazingly, Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler were two of those managers.

This is a very somber occurrence, at least that’s what Nancy Pelosi keeps telling us. Then again, the members of her caucus began to cheer when she announced the vote tally for the first article, and were only reminded of how somber and serious the situation was when she shushed them.

I know I should feel strongly about the impeachment of a president, but I don't. Indeed, this impeachment effort strikes me as ridiculous, as do its opponents.

The unseriousness which has characterized the behavior of both Democrats and Republicans has left me feeling alienated from the process.

Congressional Republicans and the White House insist that there was nothing wrong with the President’s phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky and that there was no quid pro quo. Although that may be true, the phone call was far from perfect. Further, I am yet to hear a convincing explanation of why Rudy Giuliani was running around Eastern Europe acting as an unofficial presidential emissary who does not involve corrupt and deeply immoral motivations.

I am a Trump-skeptical Republican. I did not vote for him in 2016, and I am unlikely to vote for him in 2020. I was, therefore, convincible at the start of this impeachment. However, the unseriousness which has characterized the behavior of both Democrats and Republicans has left me feeling alienated from the process.

All things being equal, it is my view that President Trump’s actions here are impeachable. As far as I can tell, he held up congressionally authorized military aide which was earmarked for Ukraine, an ally whose security is dependent on its ability to push back against Russian bellicosity. He did this not to achieve a foreign policy objective, but to force that ally to announce an investigation into a domestic political opponent; not to actually open an investigation, mind you, but just to announce one. 

However, if I were a member of the House, I would not have voted for either of these articles of impeachment.

This transgression by President Trump is not the worse case of presidential misconduct in recent history. Former President Obama ignored federal immigration law and the Constitution when he instituted his DACA program per his own words, and, even worse, ordered drone strikes on three American citizens in Yemen without due process. Former President Bush signed McCain-Feingold, a campaign finance law which he admitted may be unconstitutional during his signing statement. Former President Clinton undoubtedly perjured himself and obstructed justice during the Lewinski affair. 

We are going to impeach and remove a president from office for the first time in the history of our republic over this? If the purpose of impeachment is to defend the Constitution from Presidential abuse, which the second article of impeachment itself claims, then surely all of these infractions are more worthy of punishment than Ukraine-gate.

In my view, the House should hesitate to impeach a president if there is no chance of removal by the Senate. In this case, unless new evidence against the Trump administration emerges, there is exactly no chance that two-thirds of the Senate will vote to convict President Trump of impeachment based on either of these articles. House Democrats know this. Had they tried to censure President Trump for his actions, they would have had mine and likely several Republican representative’s support. Instead, driven by their thirst for power and hatred of the President, they have pressed forward with an ill fated impeachment attempt and, in so doing, further divided this country and wasted all of our time.

House Republicans know what the President did was wrong, and should have condemned him for doing it. Instead, they have rallied to his defense, further demonstrating that an unsettling number of them are morally bankrupt and unfit for office.

Members of both parties have demonstrated that they are irresponsible and unworthy stewarts of the authority delegated to them by us, the people whom they serve. This impeachment effort deserves neither our support nor our attention, and ditto for the Representatives who have put us here.