We are in \u201cImpeachment limbo,\u201d caught between the House and the Senate, waiting for someone to blink. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is holding onto the Impeachment Articles, waiting for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to outline the Senate\u2019s trial procedures. McConnell is refusing to budge, saying send the Articles, or don\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What the Speaker wants is a commitment from Leader McConnell to hear witnesses in the trial. McConnell is refusing to commit to anything, standing on his power to control the majority in the Senate. It might seem like a classic power standoff between the two Houses, but it’s really much more than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here’s what\u2019s at stake. McConnell wants to get Impeachment over, the President acquitted, and move onto the Presidential elections of 2020. He knows that there is no where near the sixty-seven Senators needed to remove the President, so let\u2019s get it over with. From a Republican standpoint, an uninspiring and dry presentation of already known information with \u201cno new news\u201d and a quick acquittal that would allow the President to declare \u201cexoneration\u201d is the goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Republican leader doesn\u2019t want to hear witnesses, voices that could change the voting equation in the Senate, or more importantly, in the 2020 election. So he stands firm in his \u201cstare-down\u201d with the Speaker. His only problem: can he keep an \u201cantsy\u201d President, desperate to get the trial on and over, under control. That isn\u2019t easy. The President is pressing for his counsel to be the \u201cscreamers\u201d from the House: Jim Jordan, Doug Collins, and John Radcliffe. Trump would like a replay of the House proceedings, with the Democrats presenting facts, and the Republicans attacking the process. It\u2019s not the boring, quiet, and sleep-inducing procedure McConnell wants. Trump wants a circus; McConnell wants spiritless droning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I anticipate that Speaker Pelosi will allow the President to build a little more pressure on McConnell, and then transmit the Articles. Leader McConnell will then begin impeachment proceedings with no witnesses, and, after the opening presentations, the Senate will go through a series of votes on whether witnesses will be heard. McConnell may be boring, old and seemingly lifeless. But he knows how to count votes in the Senate, and right now, he has the fifty-one votes to control it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The likelihood is that President Trump will get his acquittal. And it will be in large part because of two men: Mitch McConnell in the Senate, and Attorney General Bill Barr. McConnell because he is using all of his acumen to control the proceedings, and Bill Barr because he used all of the powers of the Attorney General to stifle investigations of the President.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s look back at the last two Presidents who faced Impeachment. Two different Independent Prosecutors in the Department of Justice investigated Nixon for almost two years. Every possible witness was deposed and then questioned in front of the Grand Jury. The House Judiciary Committee was presenting with volumes of evidence, testimony, and dozens of witnesses. Nixon was an \u201cunindicted co-conspirator\u201d in indictments brought by his own Department of Justice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the case of Bill Clinton, another Special Prosecutor, Ken Starr, spent almost four years investigating. It took a U-Haul truck to get all of the Starr evidence, Grand Jury testimony, and video evidence to the House Judiciary Committee, including a damning video deposition by the President himself (\u201c\u2026it depends what the meaning of the word is, is\u2026\u201d). And even with all of that evidence already available, in the Clinton Trial the Senate still heard from witnesses, including Monica Lewinsky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In both the Nixon and Clinton cases, the Department of Justice did their job of investigating potential crimes. Even though the Attorney Generals, the leaders of the Department, were political appointees, they saw a higher duty as the chief law enforcement officers of the United States. Nixon\u2019s Attorney General Eliot Richardson, resigned rather than fire his Independent Prosecutor. Janet Reno, Attorney General in the Clinton Administration, made it clear that the investigations were protected from Presidential interference. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the Congress considered impeachment in both Nixon\u2019s and Clinton\u2019s cases, all of the potential witnesses were already on the record. Nixon and Clinton both allowed the subordinates to be questioned. While Nixon tried to use executive privilege to shield some evidence, it was his own Justice Department that took him to Court to pry the White House tapes loose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bill Barr seems to have chosen loyalty to the Trump over dedication to justice. We saw it from the beginning, when the Mueller Report was held up while Barr peddled false conclusions. In those conclusions, we saw that Barr examined at least ten indictable charges of Trump\u2019s obstruction of justice, and waived them all. And we now know that Barr limited the scope of the investigation. Donald Trump was all but named in the Federal indictment of Michael Cohen (individual one) but Mueller was barred from that part of the investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And when the \u201cWhistleblower\u2019s Report\u201d came to the Department of Justice, it was disregarded without investigation. There was no FBI referral, simply a Department statement clearing the behavior. \u201cThese aren\u2019t the droids your looking for, move along.\u201d It hard to imagine that Bill Barr\u2019s hand wasn\u2019t in that decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So for the President\u2019s actions with Ukraine, there was no existing body of evidence, no volumes coming over in a U-Haul, no video depositions to see.\u00a0\u00a0The House was required to do all of that investigation themselves, all under the pressure of time, and the disruption of the Republican \u201cscreamers\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Remember young Congressman Matt Gaetz\u2019s storming of the secure \u2018SCIF\u2019, the closed hearing room?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And all of Barr\u2019s actions allowed witnesses to avoid testimony. The key figures in the Ukraine story, Mulvaney, Bolton, Duffy and Giuliani have not been heard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Witnesses heard Bolton call the pressure on Ukraine a \u201cdrug deal\u201d. Duffy\u2019s emails show that the funds for Ukraine were held on order from \u201cPOTUS\u201d (President of the United States). Mulvaney has publicly said that the funds were withheld. And Giuliani, well, he\u2019s still seems to be trying to get \u201cthe deal\u201d done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whether the Senate would remove the President or not, it seems likely that the testimony of these witnesses would serve as damning proof of Presidential abuse of power. And that\u2019s something that Mitch McConnell doesn\u2019t want. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He, and Donald Trump, can thank Bill Barr for giving them the choice. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"