As soon as the Senate received the lone article of impeachment accusing President Donald Trump of “incitement of insurrection” in the Jan. 6 mob assault on the Capitol, Rand Paul rose to object.
The Senate, he said, has no right to try a private citizen, which Trump now is. Thus, what we are about to do is flatly unconstitutional.
Forty-five of 50 Republican members agreed with Paul’s motion.
“This vote indicates it’s over. The trial is all over,” said Paul. “If you voted that (the Senate trial is) … unconstitutional, how in the world would you ever vote to convict somebody for this?”
Consistency says you would not.
Susan Collins of Maine, one of five Republicans who voted against Paul’s motion, agreed that the vote portends the final vote on conviction.
“Do the math,” Collins said. “It’s extraordinarily unlikely the president will be convicted.”
Rand Paul may have just derailed the second impeachment of Donald Trump.
Chief Justice John Roberts, the constitutional officer designated to preside over Senate impeachment trials, has said he will not preside over this latest trial of the ex-president. With Roberts seeing no constitutional duty, and declining the honor, his replacement as the presiding officer will be Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the longest-serving Democrat and the president pro tempore of the Senate.
But Leahy is viscerally hostile to Trump and one of a Democratic bloc that voted twice last January to convict Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors. How will it look to the world if this partisan is installed as both judge and juror at the trial of his political enemy?
Welcome to Zimbabwe.
Does the liberal establishment, now back in power and controlling the House, Senate and presidency, not see how this is all going to look in the history books, generations hence?
Blinded by hatred of Trump, enraged by the mob that stormed the Capitol, Nancy Pelosi’s House, in a rush to judgment, without hearing a single Trump witness and without letting his lawyer offer a defense, impeached, i.e., indicted, Donald Trump for “incitement of insurrection.”
But how could Trump have incited the riot and the attack on the Capitol when the mob swept up the stairs before Trump finished speaking a mile away? And he would end his rally remarks by urging the crowd to march to the Hill “peacefully and patriotically.”
We have subsequently learned that plans and plots were being hatched days before the assault on the Capitol began.
Was the Trump White House, or Trump, privy to those plots?
In August 1974, it was a near certainty that the House would vote to impeach Richard Nixon. But after the president resigned, the House did not impeach, and Ford pardoned Nixon so the country could move on.
The rage of the establishment at being deprived of its revenge against Nixon who had turned the Silent Majority against it, not unlike today, knew no bounds. And, though history has vindicated Ford, his pardon of Nixon precipitated a plunge in his poll numbers.
Half a century on, however, history says Ford did the right thing.
Why then are the Democrats continuing with this exercise in vengeance?
They want Trump convicted so that he will be prohibited from ever again holding public office. The establishment fears that Trump could make a comeback, win the Republican primaries in 2024, become the nominee, and return in triumph as president.
They are determined to abort that possibility. Many openly admit it.
What does that say about the liberal establishment’s love of democracy when they would disqualify, in advance, the largest vote-getter their opposition party ever had, out of fear he might come back to win the presidency as he did in 2016?
“Trust the people!” was a campaign slogan made famous by George Wallace. Our national establishment prattles endlessly on about its devotion to democracy, but it does not trust the people.
But the establishment is going to pay a price for trying to squeeze the last ounces of juice out of this rotting fruit. President Joe Biden’s call to unity are being drowned out by Democratic howls for a trial, conviction and banishment.
This effort to convict and disqualify Trump from running again tells us more about the people behind it than it does about Trump.
For the odds are slim at best that Trump would or could, at 78, win the nomination and the presidency a second time, as Grover Cleveland did in 1892.
Yet, a fearful establishment does not want to take the chance.
For all the babbling about “democracy” we have heard in recent days, the establishment wants to eliminate the possibility that the people could rise up, and, horror of horrors, elect Trump once more.
You can smell the fear.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.” To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.
The establishment power users fear not Trump so much as they fear getting found out, and paying the price. Had they chosen to stand behind the strong walls of honesty and truth, instead of guardsmen & bullets, their fears would not even exist.
God created, all men, you, I, Biden, Pelosi Schumer and even Satan himself to be perfect, yet somewhere along the line, the seculars chose to no longer believe that God was good, but their evil was, and doubted that God had their best interests at heart. This doubt led to the fear that they would get found out, and they might get what they deserved. That fear, born of unbelief, doubt and lust for power, led to the secular socialist rebellion against the Creator, and the American country he created. They traded in the living God for the dying one in the mirror. Revelation 21:8 says that the fearful have their part in the lake of fire, the rebel’s acts against the perfect design which began in their self-chosen destruction in their rebellion of God’s image, first created within themselves but later denied. They soon find out you cannot serve two gods, or apparently two Governments. Some choose MAGA. Others the Democrats, and only God knows why, but the Devil is sure in their details.
AND since the left controls what’s TAUGHT< and what's wrote into those history books, WHY WOULD THEY CARE How they look?
Donald Trump shook up the establishment on both sides of the aisle and the bureaucracy! He wasn’t one of them. He came directly from the people, the voters, the primary voters who chose him over the stagnant Republican politicians who didn’t listen to its constituancy ending the days of politicians like Romney getting a nomination or winning the Presidency. The Democrats just hate everything they don’t stand for! The bureaucrats held on to the theory ‘we never did it that way before’, now working for a boss who knew how to manage in a busness like manner. Out of office he may have even more influence than establishment imagines because over 74M trusted and voted for him and figure he was given a raw deal!
HE was given a raw deal. NO figuring out needed.
The corrupt live for their god which is money and power. How sad those who have had a hand in the fraudulent election have given their lives, hearts and soul to satan for nothing.
Nancy, you and the Democrats “incited” the rioting in the streets, by antifa and blm. You, Nancy, the Democrats and the Republicans In Name Only should be impeached, as you condoned the criminal antifa and the criminal blm.
Plus, there WAs ZERO reason TO NOT RESUME TV COVERAGE OF PRESENTATION OF THE EVIDENCE OF VOTING FRAUD IN THE JOINT SESSION EXCEPT to further block a hand recount of the ballots in the Battleground states to PROVE OR DISPROVE IF THERE WAS FRAUD. It was a lie for any court to say this would not change outcomes, as Senator Perdue only needed 882 more votes to win without a runoff in Georgia, and John James needed 7,182 more votes to win in Michigan. This would give the GOP 52 SENATORS and a majority. HOW CAN THIS NOT BE SIGNIFICANT TO ANY COURT? Unity can only come after we verify who got what votes versus the machine counts AND to cull out the ballots with improper postmarks, illegal signatures, phony residences, dead people, and mail-in ballots with no creases. Then we can address the ballots that should have been illegal because they were not cast within the requirements of the State Legislatures and State and Federal Constitutions. We should DEMAND our State Legislatures make this be done because it is Federal law to retain all ballots for 22 months.
They should suffer MORE THAN JUST being impeached….
Very enlightening that the self appoint politicians need more armament to protect themselves from those they stole the election from. The stench of fear being emitted on capital hill speaks volumes.
Wait!
Joe Biden got 80,000,000 votes. He’s the most popular President in the history of the USA. He got more votes by percentage than John F. Kennedy did in 1960!
How is it that the most popular guy in Washington needs a battalion of National Guardsmen to protect him on day one. . ? and he doesn’t trust them either!
Note, not ONE reporter is even DARING TO ASK That question.
If I were Trump, I’d be hoping they would hold an impeachment trial. His defense should be that the election was stolen from him and his witnesses could all be called and could testify before the entire senate AND the world. The ONLY thing Donald Trump has ever said that could be construed by even the most ridiculously anti-Trumpers is that he said the election was stolen from not just him, but the American People.
An impeachment trial would give Donald Trump the day in court that the establishment has worked so hard to deny him thus far. Testimony during an impeachment trial would become a part of the Congressional Record forever and would be available as such to anyone who wanted to read it (or have it read to them, if they are a Democrat).
Since that seems to be his defense, EXPECT To see the left, work hard to DENY HIM the chance to bring any evidence in..
Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) has no limits!! Side effects can lead to females with hair under their arms, Flatulence while giving an interview with CNN (Eric Swallow), etc, etc, etc