Good.

Senate Judiciary Chair Lindsey Graham and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell introduced a resolution today to condemn the House Democrats “illegitimate impeachment inquiry.”

This is a case of better late than never. The despicable plot of House Democrats, and others, to cripple the elected President by claiming 1) that his Presidency is illegitimate and 2) by contriving one false justification for impeachment or removal after another for three long years, should have been opposed directly by Republicans and the Senate majority long ago. It is clear that most of the Republican Senators don’t like President Trump, but he is President, and they are supposed to like the Constitution, which modern Democrats evidently do not. This resolution will draw a line in the sand, and that line should have been drawn before this point.

From Politico:

“This is a kangaroo court and it will not stand,” Graham said this week. “I’ve got a resolution saying if you’re going to impeach the president give him the same rights that Richard Nixon had and that Bill Clinton had…what’s going on now is disgusting.” …

And it has been disgusting for a very long time. Checking Ethics Alarms can verify that. Just click on the 2016 Post Election Ethics Train Wreck tag, and take a week off.

Graham also said,

“Here’s the point of this resolution. Any impeachment vote based on this process, to me, is illegitimate, is unconstitutional, and should be dismissed in Senate without a trial….[the resolution] puts the Senate on record condemning the house for the future of the Presidency. We cannot allow future Presidents and this President to be impeached based on an inquiry in the House that’s never been voted upon that does not allow the President to confront the witness against him, to call witnesses on his behalf and cross-examine people who are accusing him of misdeeds…All I’m asking is give Donald Trump the same rights as Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton had when it comes to impeachment. I’m insisting that Donald Trump be given the same rights that any American has at when you’re giving a parking ticket to confront the witnesses against you, can’t be based on hearsay … ”

 

As documented here and elsewhere, it is already too late to give President Trump the same rights as Nixon, Clinton, and every other President. All of them were allowed to take office with the acceptance and acknowledgement of their legitimacy, with was their right of office. All were given the presumption of good will, as well as the previously guaranteed basic respect due to an elected leader. Donald Trump was not. From the beginning he was undermined, denigrated and accused in a simultaneous, if not orchestrated,  effort among the Democratic Party, the judiciary, the intelligence agencies, the entertainment industry, various professions (psychiatrists, historians, educators, legal ethicists, academics, and others), and, most damaging of all to the democracy, journalists,  to strip him of all influence, dignity and power, attempt to force him into committing an actual impeachable offense, and to directly undermine U.S. institutions as a means to the end of undoing the 2016 election.

The Democratic scheme, for a scheme it is, has been to  appease its radical, resistance” base their base by pretending to proceed with an impeachment inquiry while avoiding a  vote that might put vulnerable members in pro-Trump districts at risk.  This required, however, ignoring the  precedent requiring such a vote. (This is especially cynical coming from the same people who have cited “failure to follow democratic norms” as one of their contrived justifications for impeachment).   The House has the power of impeachment under the Constitution, and the power of the House can only be exercised by a formal vote of the House.

I would go further. The Democratic Party leadership has turned the impeachment process on its head, in direct opposition to the Constitution, beginning with a presumption that this President must be impeached and that removal is justified  by his very existence, without evidence of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” It has been proceeding with the course of searching for an excuse to sustain an impeachment that it already was committed to accomplishing. No prosecutor could get away with such an abuse of power, or continue in office after demonstrating such obvious bias. This is the equivalent of the vengeful cop telling a suspect that has been freed for lack of evidence, “I’m going to be watching your every move, and if you so much as spit on the sidewalk, I’ve got you.” That’s harassment, and it is illegal. Yet that is the condition under which President Trump has been expected to govern. It is to his great credit that he has somehow managed to function at all.

The only way an impeachment will have legitimacy and be seen as anything but the culmination of a three-year coup attempt by bitter partisans is if the Senate accepts the House verdict as fair and transparent, and convicts by bi-partisan vote.

The resolution signals that if it conducts itself the way it has been, the Democratic House-led impeachment efforts are an offense to the Republic, and doomed.

Yes, GOOD.