I know that Lamar Alexander is Lamar Alexander, not James Joyce, and it's likely a fool's errand to parse too closely the statement he issued announcing he'd vote against more evidence in the Senate impeachment conference, but I've read the statement again and, dammit, I can't help myself. Here is the paragraph I quoted yesterday:
It was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent and to withhold United States aid to encourage that investigation. When elected officials inappropriately interfere with such investigations, it undermines the principle of equal justice under the law. But the Constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president from office and ban him from this year's ballot simply for actions that are inappropriate.
First thing I noticed was that "inappropriate" seems like a somewhat pale adjective to affix to what Alexander, elsewhere in his statement, acknowledges the president did. Second thing I noticed is that there is a large volume of incoherence packed into the brief paragraph. What is the senator talking about in the second of the three sentences? It seems that "such investigations" could only refer to the investigation that he says, in the first sentence, the US sought to "encourage." But there never was such an investigation, nor was one ever contemplated: the whole point was to damage Biden just by announcing there would be an investigation. The object was to create an ethical cloud over Biden that Trump could then never cease talking about, in the event Biden became the nominee. But Alexander makes it sound as if Trump's sin was to interfere (inappropriately of course) with a Ukrainian investigation that was never launched and was never even intended to launch. The only question was whether there would be a phony announcement of an investigation. It isn't possible to interfere with a nonexistent investigation. Am I missing something, or is Alexander just on sabbatical from reality?
Actually, the Constitution does give the Senate power to remove the president from office and "ban him from this year's ballot." There isn't anything in the Constitution forbidding impeachment in years divisible by 4. I guess it is Alexander's point that the Senate shouldn't exercise this particular constitutional remedy for acts that are merely "inappropriate." But now we are back to "inappropriate" being an inappropriate description of the behavior. It's worth stating what exactly happened. Congress, exercising its authority under the Constitution, appropriated $391 million in military assistance for Ukraine. Trump secretly withheld release of the aid—an act that, according to the GAO, was itself against the law. He then worked with his team to extort from Ukraine, which desperately needed the aid, a televised announcement of a sham investigation intended to damage his political opponent. To get the aid, they make the announcement, on CNN. Alexander's conclusion is that this was "inappropriate" but that the remedy is an election, not impeachment. The election he puts forward as the remedy is the very election Trump was attempting to subvert by exercising his presidential authority to execute a corrupt scheme.
There's a few other things about the statement that are pretty weird—for example, the way Alexander keeps putting scare quotes around "mountain of evidence," as if to taunt the house managers for characterizing their case in this overblown fashion, even though his statement acknowledges that the house managers are right, they proved their case, Trump did just what they say he did, and the evidence is so convincing that there is no sense calling for more. Then there is this:
The framers believed there should never, ever be a partisan impeachment. That is why the Constitution requires a 2/3 vote of the Senate for conviction. Yet not one House Republican voted for these articles. If this shallow, hurried and wholly partisan impeachment were to succeed, it would rip the country apart, pouring gasoline on the fire of cultural divisions that already exist.
Um, the reason it's "partisan" is that the Republican party is now just a MAGA cult. You cross the leader, you're out. Justin Amash is out, and John Bolton will be too if he ever tells the truth. Under these circumstances, any opposition will necessarily be "partisan." There really is no argument here, unless you count Alexander's fear of what the cultists might do. But twice two wouldn't be five if the innumerate threatened to riot. I think it's interesting that Alexander doesn't seem worried that people like me will take to the streets with gas cans and matches after the Senate puts the finishing touches on its cover up.
"Jesus, what's the world's second greatest deliberative body?" I wonder, standing in line to order my latte.
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