While yesterday's Judiciary Committee Impeachment Hearing was important, I didn’t find it especially interesting. Not because it didn't have "pizzazz," but because of how it was handled. It was basically Democrats questioning their three expert witnesses, each confirming largely the same thing, and Republican’s questioning their single expert witness repeating himself. (And given that they only had one witness, when their lead counsel had 45-minutes to question him, it was like hearing him give a law school lecture.) I watched a 2-3 hours, but that was enough. What I’d have loved to have heard instead was for Democrats to spend some time questioning the Republican expert Jonathan Turley, and had Republicans ask questions of the three Democratic witnesses. But that was rarely done. During the time I was watching, I didn’t hear any of that at all. And the only one instance I'm aware of -- when Rep. Eric Swalwell question Mr. Turley -- it was actually impactful. There should have been been..
The biggest surprise to me was how far Turley -- who has a solid reputation as a legal scholar -- went in defense of saying that this none of this was (at least yet) impeachable, often saying that there was no quid pro quo established, despite Trump's own acting Chief of Staff vehemently insisting that, yes, of course, there was quid pro quo. And further, (to my biggest surprise) hearing him praise Attorney General William Barr. Every time Republicans tried to make a point about how during Clinton’s impeachment Jerry Nadler had made some “excellent argument” about fairness and what is required for impeachment, I kept waiting for a Democrat to say, “If you truly believe it was such an ‘excellent argument,’ why didn’t any Republicans follow it at the time???” Instead, they impeached the president over a sexual affair, but they’re okay with extortion that harms our national security.” (Of course the other argument is – sure, it was a great argument 20 years ago when there was at least a poor semblance of an expectation of fairness, but that expectation today is long gone. For all the Republican claims of Democrats being already-decided, Republicans have not only voted lock-step unanimously for near-most of Trump proposals for three years since Day One, but have been even more unmovably decided on supporting Trump over impeachment in the face of criminality, national security and his own public statements.) And further, while Republicans kept pointing out that Democrats have wanted to impeach Trump before he was even inaugurated, there is a clear response that was never used: Yes, many Democrats wanted Trump impeached because he was committing impeachable acts, indeed we have learned he was knowingly accepting help from Russia, not reporting it to the FBI, and obstructing justice. And just like us, you Republicans know it, too. The difference is that you don't seem to care and enable all that. And further – as much as so many Democrats have wanted Trump impeached for three years and wanted to impeach him since taking control of the House last January…they knew it was such a divisive process and therefor Didn’t Impeach Him -- Until NOW when he committed such a blatant impeachable act that couldn’t be ignored. The best analyst of the day was Ari Melber on MSNBC, who was great. One notable comment: while Republicans kept complaining that there no fact-based witnesses, Melber pointed out that during Clinton’s impeachment hearing, Republicans on this same Judiciary Committee called 18 witnesses, none of whom were fact-based witnesses. He also wonderfully explained why no “underlying crime” is necessary for impeachment or impeachable bribery – the short version is that laws are written for the general populace, but a president can commit crimes that the public can’t. The public can’t extort a foreign leader to do something, so there’s no “crime” for it written into the legal codes. And then I rested.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
Categories
All
|
© Copyright Robert J. Elisberg 2024
|