Here are some of my thoughts about the Trump impeachment acquittal and where we go from here, a week after the conclusion of the Senate trial:
1. Mitch McConnell's vote and statement: I of course was very disappointed but not surprised by McConnell's vote to acquit Trump. I was surprised by McConnell's accompanying statement, both the content and the intensity. In particular, that McConnell said
There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it.... Trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office, as an ordinary citizen. Unless the statute of limitations is run, still liable for everything he did while he was in office. Didn’t get away with anything, yet. Yet. We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation and former presidents are not immune from being accountable by either one. [See here for the transcript of McConnell's statement.]
There's no doubt that the country -- and therefore the world -- would have been better off had Trump been found guilty and thereby prohibited from ever holding public office again. But McConnell's statement is nonetheless part of the record of the impeachment process, and is and will be of great value. It shows that, whatever McConnell's reasons for voting for acquittal, he nonetheless thought Trump was responsible for the insurrectionist riot, and, just as important, ought to be held accountable for his actions and non-actions. Coming from the Republican Senate Minority leader, that's significant, and will be prominently noted by historians.
2. Republican attacks on Republican Senators who voted to convict Trump: McConnell also said that "I respect my colleagues who’ve reached either conclusion" about whether a conviction of Trump in the impeachment trial would be constitutional. Not so some other Republicans around the country, including local Pennsylvania GOP Chair Dave Ball, who said
We did not send him [Senator Pat Toomey, who voted to convict Trump] there to vote his conscience or ‘do the right thing' or whatever he said he was doing there. We sent him there to represent us. [Interview on KDKA-TV]
Now there's been a debate as old as our republic about whether our elected representatives should vote their conscience or ascertain what the people who elected them want. I've always been a strong supporter of conscience, on general principle, and also given the unreliability of polling in discovering what the voters want. But the position of finding out what the public wants and basing your vote on that at least has a logic to it, and is consistent with the democratic process. Is that what Ball was urging? I don't think so. The "we" in that last sentence more likely refers to the Republican Party, who put Toomey up for general election and supported his campaign. And if that was what Ball was saying, that Toomey should keep in line with his party's policies, that's disturbingly reminiscent of insistence on adherence to the party line in totalitarian societies like the former Soviet Union.
3. Biden Administration response to Trump acquittal: The Biden Administration clearly wants to focus on the pandemic and other challenges it views as more urgent than what to do now about Trump. Vice President Kamala Harris said today on the Today Show:
Right now I'm focused on what we need to do to get relief to American families and that is my highest priority, it's our administration's highest priority, it's our job, it's the job we were elected to do, and that's my focus. [See more on that here.]
I agree completely with Biden and Harris. Not only is the pandemic an obviously immediate life and death matter -- on a massive scale -- but there are other ways to hold Trump to account. New York and Georgia are already investigating criminal charges against Trump, and the U.S. Attorney General's office, which Biden wants to be non-political, i.e., not serving Biden's political interests as Attorney General William Barr did Trump's, can investigate Trump and seek to indict him, without instruction from Biden.
In sum, although conviction of Trump in the impeachment trial was amply merited and would have benefited the country, we who value justice and freedom and democracy are in a good position to do something about the fascist former President who did so much damage to our country.
