Trump Ukraine scandal: House impeachment vote just made things trickier for Republicans
Impeachment proceedings have just entered into much more difficult and dangerous terrain for congressional Republicans.
To this point, Republicans have been able to focus on partisanship and process, not the substance of what President Donald Trump did.
There’s no question about the partisan motivation behind the impeachment drive. The left has wanted to impeach Trump for something, anything, since before he took office.
And the criticisms of the process were on the mark. Impeachment hearings commenced without a full vote of the House. Secret proceedings with damaging information were promptly leaked.
The Intelligence Committee took the lead, even though intelligence matters aren’t at the heart of the matter. Other members of Congress were locked out of the hearings and denied even access to transcripts of the testimony. The president had no ability to have counsel present or to question witnesses.
The new process is fair enough
These process criticisms hit home. But the resolution adopted by the House Thursday may change the landscape.
Although it was a vote to continue the existing investigations as impeachment proceedings, that now has been approved by the entire body, not simply dubbed as such by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. That will eliminate any legal question as to whether the broader impeachment investigative powers have been triggered.
They have.
Under the resolution, the Intelligence Committee is the lead investigative body and is charged with issuing a report. But it is the Judiciary Committee that will consider and vote on impeachment charges.
The Intelligence Committee has to conduct at least one open hearing and can publicly release transcripts. Judiciary Committee proceedings will be public and participation by Trump’s lawyers will be permitted.
Republicans are still complaining about the process. But if the Intelligence Committee promptly makes transcripts publicly available, the process is fair enough.
2 questions the GOP can no longer avoid
If the public perceives it as such, that will require congressional Republicans to address two questions they have heretofore been able to largely avoid:
Is what the president did wrong?
If so, what should be done about it?
Trump seems to understand that the terrain has shifted, or at least could shift. He is loudly demanding that congressional Republicans defend the substance of what he did, to proclaim that there was nothing wrong with asking a foreign leader to investigate a political rival.
Some Trumpeteers in Congress will do that. Some already have. And maybe they have rationalized it as the truth in their own minds.
But for any Republican in Congress with a thimble of independent judgment, that should be impossible.
It is wrong, and an abuse of power, for the president of the United States to ask a foreign government to investigate a political rival.
That wrong is compounded by asking a foreign government to work, not through official channels, but with the president’s private, personal attorney.
And the wrong is compounded if there is a quid pro quo involved, for military aid or a meeting with the president.
The evidence of a quid pro quo is accumulating. Any GOP member of Congress should be anticipating that, with the broader impeachment investigative powers triggered, the existence of one will be firmly documented.
A censure may have been smarter
It is possible for a Republican member of Congress, in good conscience, to take the position that what the president did was wrong, but removal from office through impeachment would be imprudent.
Impeachment is, in significant part, a political judgment. We are just a year away from a presidential election. The American people can decide whether what Trump did in Ukraine is disqualifying.
Some Democrats proposed censure as an alternative to impeachment for President Bill Clinton. Republicans would have been wise to have accepted it. Perhaps some Republican willing to withstand the inevitable Trump Twitter tantrum will be moved by the circumstances to do the same.
To this point, Republicans have had Democrats on the defensive regarding impeachment. But if Democrats truly move in a more open and fair manner going forward, it is Republicans who face the tough questions.
Robert Robb is a columnist with The Detroit Free Press where this column first appeared.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Impeachment vote just made life a lot more complicated for Republicans
