Friends of Padre Steve’s World,
Just a short post for the night. Last night, the House of Representatives I peached President Donald Trump on basically a party line vote, but it wouldn’t have been that had the Republicans (who I was one for 32 years until I saw the lies and bullshit used to justified the war in Iraq, something that I initially supported and believed the propaganda until I actually spent eight months there with our advisors in Al Anbar Province.
President Trump and his allies tried to obfuscate, divert, and minimize the charges against him. The reason that the House vote was along party lines is because the Republican Party has lost its soul and is lock stock and barrel part of the Trump Cult. This is not new, the GOP for more than four decades has spent itself losing its way, its ethos, as well as its courage and honor promoting and defending the indefensible. It is not Lincoln’s Republican Party, but the Southern Democrats of the Ante-Bellum, and Jim Crow era. Although I am a Democrat today, I do have a lot of criticisms of my party, but not today. As so many other former Republicans including Bill Kristoll, Jennifer Rubin, Representative Jason Amash, George Will, Brett Stephens, Rick Wilson, Michael Gerson, and so many others I saw through the charade, long before any of the others mentioned here did.
But the House did its job under the Constitution which has been validated by the Supreme Courts which wrote in United States v. Rumely 1953:
It is the proper duty of a representative body to look diligently into every affair of government and to talk much about what it sees. It is meant to be the eyes and the voice, and to embody the wisdom and will of its constituents. Unless Congress have and use every means of acquainting itself with the acts and the disposition of the administrative agents of the government, the country must be helpless to learn how it is being served; and unless Congress both scrutinize these things and sift them by every form of discussion, the country must remain in embarrassing, crippling ignorance of the very affairs which it is most important that it should understand and direct. The informing function of Congress should be preferred even to its legislative function.
Trump, regardless of whatever happens in a Senate trial joins Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton as members of the “Scarlet I Fraternity.” In other words he is one of only three Presidents to be impeached. Richard Nixon would have been impeached and convicted without the courage of men like Republican Senator Barry Goldwater who demanded he resign or be impeached and convicted. Nixon was a smart enough lawyer to know, that once he had been impeached that he could not be pardoned for his crimes. Even so, his legacy is stained with having to resign to avoid impeachment and conviction.
Now it is true that the current Republican Senate majority will vote to acquit the President if the House sends the articles of impeachment to the Senate. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has stated that he will not allow witnesses, while both he and Senator Lindsey Graham have defied the Constitution by saying that they will “not be impartial jurors” in an impeachment trial. Such a statement means that they would perjure themselves by taking the oath required of Senators during impeachment. That oath is different than their oath of office which they already spurn. That impeachment oath which is part of the Senate Impeachment Rules of 1868 states:
Form of oath to be administered to the members of the Senate sitting in the trial of impeachments:
“I solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be,) that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of ___________ , now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws: so help me God.”
Those rules also demand that witness be called and the defendant or his representatives appear. Senator McConnell has said that he will allow no witnesses, and his and Senator Graham’s statements saying that they cannot be impartial should force them to be recused from the proceedings or face charges of perjury if they take the oath.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is now doing the prudent thing regarding the articles of impeachment. She is not sending them to the Senate until the Senate promises a fair trial and to abide by its rules of impeachment. I believe that until such a guarantee is provided for, including the calling of witnesses as in a real trial, that she should not send the articles to the Senate and instead hold them over the President and the Senate like the Sword of Damocles for as long as is necessary, while continuing to investigate the actions of the President and his associates. According to the Constitution, our laws, and precedent it is her only recourse if justice is to be done.
But no matter what the outcome is, and no matter what the President’s propaganda machine and cult say, he will bear the indelible Mark of the Scarlet I of impeachment for the rest of his earthly life and history, and he will deserve it. History has not been kind to Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Richard Nixon. In fact Clinton’s crimes helped elect Trump by helping to poison the attitude of many towards his wife Hillary Rodham Clinton, and trust me, back in 1998 I wanted Bill Clinton impeached and convicted for far less than President Trump is charged. The fact is that a President who perjured himself before a Grand Jury, to cover up a blow job, is far less important than a President who is accused of what amounts to treason, and refuses to testify under oath (in its more common and less rigid form stated in the Constitution) in working with enemies of the United States to assure his election and reelection.
President Trump will bear that Scarlet I on his orange face for eternity. Ascetically, the color combination leaves much to be desired, but it fits every deed in his life, draft dodging, bankrupting his companies, and leaving those who worked for him or contracted to work for him broken and destitute.
I think that it would be morally, legally, and ethically correct for Speaker Pelosi to hold these articles in the House and continue to investigate. If the President and his defenders cry foul, let them hang themselves. After all, when Russian State TV refers to the President of the United States as their agent, any true American regardless of their party affiliation, as it did Thursday, should be concerned
So until tomorrow, I wish you all the best,
Peace,
Padre Steve+
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