Todd Bishop
Trump’s “Tunwumen” Senate impeachment trial actually ended on Friday (January 31). On the same day, the Republican-controlled Senate voted 51 votes against and 49 votes in favor. With only two Republican congressional voters in favor, it vetoed calling witnesses, paving the way for Trump’s next week’s acquittal. Although the interrogation of witnesses is also difficult to change the intended end of Trump’s acquittal, the impeachment scene ended in such an ugly way as “trial without witnesses”, which actually shows the void of the spirit of American democracy.
Need to summon “new” witnesses
In calling witnesses, Republicans have been moving out of a 1999 Senate trial of former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment case triggered by a sexual scandal over Monica Lewinsky. They alleged that many Democrats at the time also opposed the call of witnesses-the final dispute was only settled by people such as Lewinsky through video-accusing the Democrats of “double standards” at this time only because of bipartisan disputes.
However, the two are inconsistent. At the time, Clinton’s impeachment investigation was led by independent prosecutor Ken Starr for nearly nine months. Even Clinton’s personal blood samples were surrendered as evidence. What the Senate was calling at that time was “existing evidence.”
At this time, Trump banned any senior White House testimony and prevented the provision of key documentary evidence, such as a number of White House and Department of Defense emails related to Ukrainian military aid learned by the US media from court documents on Friday. The witnesses and evidence to be summoned are all information that has not been made public as evidence of impeachment. This, of course, is not a double standard.
Party disputes do not hinder the legitimacy of the impeachment case
The Democrats dominate Trump’s impeachment, although there are of course considerations for bipartisan parties fighting for political points. However, the right or wrong of a behavior can sometimes not be measured by the motivation behind it. For example, today’s vendors are looking for ways to import masks, and they are responding to public demand for masks, which even reduces the risk of new pneumonia transmission. However, the consideration behind these vendors is simply to sell more profits at a higher price— -A selfish motive can also lead to behaviors that benefit the public.
The Trump impeachment case is an example. The case is extremely clear: Trump violated the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act in order to withhold US $ 391 million of military aid passed by Congress in an attempt to exchange for Ukraine’s announcement to investigate the Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son want to crack down on each other’s elections. Anyone who sees these cases, whether or not they agree that Trump should be removed from office at this time, will agree that Trump’s actions “will make people feel improper.”
As the 2020 election approaches, and the current situation of the two parties in the United States is head-on, the Democrats knew that Trump would not be removed because of impeachment and still launched impeachment, which is of course a political operation. However, the Republican Party cannot jump to the end because it is a process with an early ending, regardless of the legitimacy of the process itself.
After all, the impeachment power of Congress and the information revealed by its investigations are one of the necessary conditions for the effective operation of the American democratic system. If the public does not have a clear understanding of the president’s “perhaps illegal or immoral” behavior, how can they make informed and well-thought-out decisions in elections?
Regardless of the results and the right of the people to know
On the other hand, the reason that Republicans do not call new witnesses and evidence is that they only care about the political turmoil of “returning Trump innocence” and stopping the impeachment case as soon as possible, and they completely regard the general voters’ right to know as nothing (according to opinion polls, 75% of Americans support calling witnesses).
First, we have the legal reason to impeach Alan Dershowitz, one of the defense representatives and a former law school professor at Harvard University: Let us assume that the exchange of military aid for political opponents’ black materials is indeed Trump ’s “re-election” plan; However, Trump ’s search for re-election is in itself “considered in the public interest”; as the president ’s conduct in the public interest must not be impeachable and dismissed, no matter how solid the new witnesses and evidence support, “ The fact that Tongwumen abuses power does not constitute a reason for Trump to be removed from office. As a result, senators have turned a deaf ear to new evidence that is “irrelevant.”
Secondly, we have the words of Tennessee Republican Senator Lamar Alexander, who is said to represent the thinking of many Republicans: We do n’t have to prove new evidence of proven misconduct with new evidence, but this behavior has not yet Touches the strict conditions imposed by the US Constitution on impeachment.
Finally, we have more arguments for Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio: Even if the president’s behavior has reached a standard worthy of impeachment, this does not mean that the removal of the president is in the national interest.
Ignorance or shamelessness?
These statements ignore the impeachment interrogation process, which exposes the president’s behavior to voters, and focuses only on whether Trump should be impeached. Even if the impeachment interrogated as soon as possible was the will of the Republican voters, the Republicans were so disregarding the people ’s right to know, there are only two possible explanations: First, they do n’t know that the democratic system must be supported by such right to know, only knowing who wins The actual result of who is negative; the second is that they know that if the public knows more, it will not be good for Trump, so they need to cover the facts as soon as possible. The former is ignorance, the latter is shameless, and both are reasons not to justify their decision.
What’s more serious is that the Senate, which has always had the ideal of “sages governing politics,” is full of these “politicians who are ignorant or shameless”. In addition to reflecting the politician’s democratic literacy, they can also see that they have voted holy What quality is given to their people.
There is no democratic system, but politicians and the masses who do not understand the spirit of democracy to practice this system. Democracy is just a false collective imagination with no name.
