Much has been said in recent days about the supposed death of democracy in America, a fear shared with Sen. Angus King during a session he held Sunday at Bowdoin College. While the process leading up to the Senate’s expected acquittal of President Donald Trump is certainly cause for concern, it is far too early to write an obituary for our democracy.
That said, however, the impeachment process has certainly exposed — and deepened — the fault lines among Americans and in the government institutions that are meant to hold a president accountable.
The fear, of course, is that Trump will use his Senate acquittal to justify even bolder actions and to assert that he, and his motives, can’t be questioned. And should he do so, it would arguably be with the assistance of an acquiescent Republican majority in the U.S. Senate, led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who, despite each senator’s oath to render impartial justice, pledged to coordinate the Senate impeachment proceedings with the White House.
Republicans senators, with the notable exceptions of Susan Collins and Mitt Romney, voted last week to forgo subpoenaing witnesses and documents in the Senate impeachment trial, thus essentially guaranteeing a quick acquittal on charges that the president abused the power of his office and obstructed efforts by Congress to investigate that abuse.
Fifty-one Republican senators voted not to gather additional information, even as the existence and availability of new evidence is increasingly clear. Late Friday, hours after the Senate vote on witnesses and documents, the Department of Justice revealed that it was withholding emails that showed the president’s thinking on withholding aid from Ukraine, a central part of the impeachment charges. Such information is unlikely to remain secret forever, potentially opening the door to future investigations of Trump.
Against this backdrop, several senators offered logic-bending rationales for their decisions to skip more witness testimony and to eventually acquit the president.
“Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a president from office,” Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said in a statement.
He added that he would not vote to remove Trump from office because “doing so would inflict extraordinary and potentially irreparable damage to our already divided nation.”
Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said it was clear that the president withheld aid from Ukraine “at least in part” to pressure the country to investigate Hunter Biden, who served on the board of a Ukraine gas company, and his father, former President Joe Biden. It was inappropriate, Alexander said, but that is insufficient reason to remove Trump from office. That responsibility, he said, rests with the American people.
“The question then is not whether the president did it, but whether the United States Senate or the American people should decide what to do about what he did,” Alexander, a senior and retiring Senate Republican member, said in a long statement. “I believe that the Constitution provides that the people should make that decision in the presidential election that begins in Iowa on Monday.”
Of course, it does matter “whether the president did it,” but with a Senate that is unwilling to even answer that question, this is a dead end.
So, what now? Despite the failure in both houses of Congress to provide a fair and full process during this impeachment, the American people retain the power to render their judgment of Trump and the U.S. senators and House members on the ballot this November. We understand that this is a wholly unsatisfactory answer to many Americans, and that it tracks closely with some of the arguments from Trump’s defenders. But, it is now the one option without a predetermined outcome.
This does not excuse the Senate’s refusal to gather more testimony and documents to clarify the president’s actions. It does not excuse the rushed and incomplete impeachment investigation conducted by Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives. It does not excuse the president’s distortions of the truth and his assertions that his power can’t be checked.
These were all dangerous decisions that weakened our democracy.
In the face of these abdications of responsibility in Washington, the American people hold the keys to preserving that democracy. If they feel betrayed by their elected representatives, they have the power to vote for different representatives.
