The Senate Trial

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Webster defines a trial as “a formal examination of evidence before a judge, and typically before a jury, in order to decide guilt in a case of criminal or civil proceedings.”  The upcoming impeachment proceeding against President Trump is a trial. 

There are those who say an impeachment trial is only a political exercise.  Sorry Republicans!--- it is also a trial.  A trial requires a formal examination of evidence.  In order to examine evidence, the implication is that judgement about that evidence must be unbiased.  If that is the case, how does anyone reconcile the recent statements by Senators McConnell and Graham to be completely partial regardless of the evidence, and to claim that the verdict has already been pre-determined?  That position is antithetical to the definition of a fair trial. 

What mystical malady has afflicted all the Republicans in the Senate to erase the notion of unbiased fairness?

We Americans have always been taught, and the Constitution demands, that trials be fair exercises with impartial judgment based on the presentation of evidence.  Don’t all Americans believe that?  For members of Congress to promote the exact opposite of that is terrifying.  That position changes our country to a Russian style autocracy replete with ‘show trials’ that serve the interests only of those in power. 

Good Bye Rule of Law!

There is something grievously wrong with our representative government when this orientation to the rule of law is espoused by a majority of our Senate.  Lisa Murkowski is the first Senator thus far to shake off the’ kool-aid’ induced fog of denial that has infected the Republican Party.  We should all hope that more of these people will awaken from their political stupor to reaffirm what is a basic tenet of our democracy.  If they don’t, it becomes our responsibility to remove these people from power.  If we don’t, then we are responsible for the destruction of our country.

That task is made more difficult, however, because these very people are responsible for disenfranchising voters across the nation:  the 2016 and 2018 elections in Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan being a few examples.  The scourge of gerrymandering created by Republicans nationwide has made our government less and less representative.  The impeachment trial of the President is the latest manifestation of this disease of accumulation of power at the cost of fairness and truth.

So where are the citizens of the United States on this issue?  Are all of us okay with having a pre-ordained impeachment trial without the presentation of evidence?  Recent polls say 71% of us want a fair trial with presentation of evidence.  Where are the other 29%?  Do they really want to reject evidence that might reveal what really happened with Trump and the Ukrainian scandal?  Is it better to stick their heads in the sand and say, “I really don’t want to know or I just don’t care”?  Really??

I say to my fellow 29% of Americans, “Search you heart!  Do you want to know the truth, or do you really not care to know the truth??”

Search your heart of hearts!  Reclaim you integrity!  Be Americans!