January, 2021
Washington – What a week. The accounts of those trapped in the U.S. Capitol, calling for help, are the most unsettling to me. Moving furniture in front of doors, keeping quiet.
I worked in the Senate from 1979-84 and spent much time there, and in the House, from 1994-2001 as a federal agency congressional liaison. I've been back many times on various missions as a private citizen.
There must be consequences for those who committed crimes and for those who incited them.
The best way forward, unless someone has a better plan, is to impeach the President to hold him accountable, so he cannot run for office again, but to do it methodically over weeks or months. There seems to be no realistic way to do it in the few days remaining in his term.
The House should allow time for evidence to be gathered and other legal processes to move forward in the judicial system (both federal and state), so as to draft the articles properly. The House would then act to impeach, but hold the articles and not send them to the Senate until the votes are there to convict. Well-drafted and substantiated articles, passed with bi-partisan support from at least a few House Republicans, could result in a Senate conviction.
Impeachment articles should not be sent to the Senate if there is a substantial risk of acquittal. The act of a second impeachment is of huge consequence itself. It would also inform the historical record.
Impeachment should take a deliberate back seat to moving ahead with President Joe Biden's legislative agenda, which will seek bipartisan cooperation. Success with that agenda could pave the way for Senate conviction of Trump so as to preclude him from running again for any office.
This suggestion is similar to one I made in 2019, that the House should censure Donald Trump for his impeachable offenses, then initiate impeachment proceedings but not send impeachment articles to the Senate until there was a reasonable chance of conviction. Had the House held the first impeachment articles in abeyance, for however long, they would have been both a restraint on Trump's behavior and available in a crisis to be sent to the Senate for action.*
The key words now are methodical and bi-partisan. This will allow much new information to be gathered, including the possibility that impeachable offenses by others in office will be discovered. Once Donald Trump is no longer in power to wield fear of retribution, many who were a part of his administration may choose to cooperate with investigations, both congressional and judicial, to create a truthful record of the times.
Proceeding this way also allows the nation's focus to return to fighting the raging pandemic and shoring up cybersecurity measures, two other crises that need immediate and undivided attention.
If there is a need to remove the President before his term expires, the most likely route, it seems to me, would be for a handful of Senate Republicans to advise the Vice President that they will bolt the party if he does not act to invoke the 25th Amendment. Senate Democrats could aid this process by assuring the Senators that they would not lose their committee assignments and rankings for taking such action. Students of comparative government will recognize this as akin to actions in parliamentary systems, through which coalitions are formed to get through crises.
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* Sending the impeachment articles to the Senate without the votes to convict was a major blunder by House Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic Leadership; we have now suffered the consequences.
