In the classic movie about the Watergate era, All the President’s Men, reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein discuss the dilemma of “proof”. Their argument: if you go to bed and there’s no snow on the ground, and you wake up and there’s snow on the ground, can you factually say it snowed in the night? Or is it just circumstantial evidence? Can it be reported in the paper, or does there need to be a first-hand witness to the snowfall?
The Trial
We are entering the second week of the Trial of Donald John Trump, President of the United States. The first day, and night, and part of the next morning of the trial were consumed with political wrangling. Democratic Senators wanted to hear witnesses and subpoena evidence, Republican Senators voted item after item down, putting off that decision until after the cases were presented.
The House Managers, what would be the “prosecutors” of the case in a criminal court, took three days to present an exhaustive case against the President. Their overarching theme: the President used the power of his office, the structures of the government, and the money appropriated by Congress to further his own political goals. He not only did it before, but he was still doing it now, and there was no reason to believe he won’t do it again if he’s not stopped.
Even more, the President was willing to risk the national security of the United States to pursue his own personal political goals. He was willing to abandon our allies, and give aid and support to our enemies. Without using the word, the House Managers raised the specter of treasonous behavior.
Stonewall Defense
But there is an unavoidable flaw in the House Managers’ presentation. No matter how many facts they marshal, no matter how eloquent their appeals to justice and fairness, no matter the mountains of “snow” they find on the ground. They don’t have the “direct” connection.
President Trump has mounted the ultimate “stonewall” defense. He has, in an unprecedented act, ordered the entire Executive Branch to refuse cooperation with the House investigation. The President ordered all witnesses to refuse to testify, to even appear in front of the investigators. He has withheld every shred of paper evidence. And he is getting away with it.
My Roy Cohn
The President’s apologists in the Senate default to the past impeachment of President Clinton, when the House sent over literal truckloads of evidence gathered by the four year Justice Department investigation led by Ken Starr. They argue that the House didn’t do the “due diligence” required in an impeachment investigation, that the Democrats “don’t have it”.
Of course, that’s a specious argument. This President, unlike Clinton, or Nixon, or even Reagan in the Iran-Contra investigation, has an iron-lock on the Justice Department. His “Roy Cohn,” Attorney General Bill Barr, has not allowed the Justice Department to enter into the investigation. In fact, it may well be that the Department is withholding pertinent information. Recently revealed texts and phone calls from the case against Lev Parnas in the Southern District of New York further damn the President’s case, but were only released from Parnas’ attorney, held back for months by the Justice Department team.
So the key witnesses to this critical national crime, National Security Advisor Bolton, Chief of Staff Mulvaney, the executives at the Office of Management and Budget who held the money, all remain silent. The House Managers are forced to build powerful bridges of evidence, but they fall one section short of completing the crossing.
The Jury
Speaker Pelosi argues that the criticality of the timing required the House to impeach. She maintains the risk to the 2020 election posed by Trump’s actions required them to take the evidence they have and move on. The Speaker could not allow the “stonewall” strategy and the co-opting of the Justice Department to cover-up the crimes.
The President’s attorneys are not presenting a case. It is all about obfuscation, of clouding the facts with wild theories of Ukrainian attacks on the 2016 election, and Trump’s “deep concern” about corruption. Their job is as “fig leaf weavers”. They need to give just the smallest cover to the naked subservience of the Republican Senators. And they will.
But the House effort is not in vain. Early on, the House Managers recognized that the real jury in this trial is not the Senate, but the American people. And while the “Fifth Avenue” Trump supporters remain at his back, the majority of Americans already get it.
It snowed last night.
