With all the focus on Trump, don't forget McConnell's dereliction of duty
Knowing that Trump had fomented violence to prevent the transfer of power, McConnell still voted to acquit on impeachment, missing the chance to disqualify Trump from federal office...forever
The January 6th Committee hearings have held up to their billing. Just when you think the Committee has demonstrated the depth of depravity to which Trump and his enablers sunk in the multi-pronged conspiracy to topple our constitutional order, the Committee reveals more evidence showing we still haven’t identified the nadir. In Thursday evening’s hearing, we found that even after Trump had a full day to reflect on how the medieval mob he inspired had pummeled police officers with flagpoles and sprayed them with poison, he was still unwilling to say the rioters had acted “illegally.”
The Committee’s unrelenting focus on Trump’s misdeeds, however, has allowed to recede into the historical haze another despicable dereliction of duty that continues to threaten the future of our democracy — the failure of the Senate to convict Trump of his second impeachment.
Remember, had the Senate convicted Trump, he would have been disqualified from holding federal office in the future - which would have removed the existential threat to our democracy presented by both his looming candidacy for the presidency and his plans to shred any limitations on his executive powers if he were to regain power in 2025.
The vote on conviction was 57-43 (the most votes for conviction in US history). Seven Republicans voted with all 50 Democrats. Had 10 more Republicans joined them, Trump would have been convicted. There is one person who had the power and influence to gain those 10 additional votes for conviction - the Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. Yet to the detriment of our country - he failed to pull the trigger.
There is no doubt that McConnell understood exactly what Trump had done. Indeed, his speech following the vote sounds a lot like what we have been hearing from Liz Cheney at each of the Jan. 6 Committee hearings. It is worth quoting at length from McConnell’s speech:
There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day. The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president. And their having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.
The issue is not only the president's intemperate language on January 6th. It is not just his endorsement of remarks in which an associate urged "trial by combat." It was also the entire manufactured atmosphere of looming catastrophe; the increasingly wild myths about a reverse landslide election that was being stolen in some secret coup by our now-president….
Even after it was clear to any reasonable observer that Vice President Pence was in danger, even as the mob carrying Trump banners was beating cops and breaching perimeters, the president sent a further tweet attacking his vice president. Predictably and foreseeably under the circumstances, members of the mob seemed to interpret this as further inspiration to lawlessness and violence. Later, even when the president did halfheartedly begin calling for peace, he did not call right away for the riot to end. He did not tell the mob to depart until even later. And even then, with police officers bleeding and broken glass covering Capitol floors, he kept repeating election lies and praising the criminals.
McConnell’s bill of particulars against Trump outlines perhaps the strongest case for impeachment imaginable. Using violence to reverse the results of a free and fair election is the gravest abuse of power possible in a democracy. Failing to impeach and convict a president for doing what Trump did is almost like erasing the impeachment process from the Constitution altogether.
McConnell justified his vote to acquit Trump not on the facts, but on his view that the Constitution did not allow Congress to convict Trump of impeachment after he had left office, the exact circumstances at the time. The House impeached Trump on January 13, President Biden took the oath of office on January 20, and the Senate voted on conviction on February 5. Important scholars have both supported and criticized McConnell’s constitutional interpretation.
While I do believe that constitutional officers — like Senators — have an right to interpret and define their proper roles in our system of government, I think that McConnell’s decision to stand behind a disputed interpretation of the Impeachment Clauses was a mistake. His first duty was to the safety of the country and security of the Republic - a duty that should have led to Trump’s conviction and life disqualification from federal office.
Impeachment is the constitutional safety value to protect American government from officials who are abusing their power. Wisely, the Framers realized that this safety value required two remedies. The obvious one is immediate removal of the dangerous person from office. But the Framers also understood that anyone who abused their power to such an extent as to merit impeachment would also present a continuing threat to constitutional democracy. That is why they also provided in the Constitution that officials who are impeached and convicted are “disqualified” from federal office for life. The Framers realized that tyrants don’t lose their thirst for power when they are removed from office and indeed might present an even greater threat to democratic norms when attempting to regain power they believe to have been unjustly taken away from them. Even though Trump had left office by the time of the Senate trial, his actions most certainly merited this other consequence of impeachable conduct - the life ban on future federal officeholding.
All of this was well known to Mitch McConnell. He had a front row seat for Trump’s four years of trashing constitutional norms that culminated in the siege of the Capitol. Of course he recognized at the time of the vote that the country would be better off with Trump out of the political scene. Given that it is an open question whether a president impeached while in office can be convicted after leaving office - McConnell could easily have decided to vote based on the merits of the impeachment. His own speech made clear that there was an overwhelming case for conviction.
The theme of Thursday’s hearing was that Trump is guilty of a “dereliction of duty.” What an understatement. Trump is guilty of conspiring to overturn American democracy.
But in McConnell’s case - “dereliction of duty” is really the appropriate phrase. In this gravest of moments - the impeachment of a president for attempting to overturn the results of a democratic election - McConnell had a duty to put principle over partisanship. He failed this test.
Coda: There could be an ironic end to this story. Weak Trump endorsed candidates have (or are favored to) win Republican Senate primaries in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Arizona. If Democrats win these three races, they most likely will hold on to their Senate majority, and deny McConnell the title of Senate Majority Leader. With a stronger set of candidates, Republicans would probably be strongly favored to take over the Senate. We’ll see…