The curtain is lowering on President Trump’s trial in the Senate. A vote is scheduled for Wednesday. Inevitably, it will be an easy acquittal. So, what have we learned? That the Framers were wise to fret over the specter of impeachment as a partisan weapon.
The House impeachment inquiry was shoddy. The president’s counsel was denied the right to cross-examine witnesses and present evidence. That’s why a handful of Senate Democrats may vote to acquit, joining Republicans.
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The lesson’s clear: It is profoundly wrong to proceed with impeachment in the absence of egregious wrongdoing that galvanizes a public consensus that the president should be removed — wrongdoing so serious that it can move the required two-thirds of senators, regardless of partisan ties, to vote for conviction. Pursuing impeachment for lesser wrongs is paralyzing for our governance and divisive for our citizenry.
House Democrats never had anything close to that high standard. Instead, bullied by a hard-left base that has wanted the president impeached since the night he defeated Hillary Clinton, they viewed the convoluted Ukraine episode as a peg on which to hang their predisposition that Trump is unfit for office.
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