By Matthew Continetti
Friday, January 10, 2020
Mitch McConnell was clear when he addressed the Senate on
December 18: Any impeachment trial of President Trump would follow the
precedent established by the trial of President Clinton 20 years ago.
Clinton’s trial was divided into pieces. The Senate
agreed unanimously to begin with a briefing, opening arguments, questions from
senators, and a vote to dismiss. Whether to hear witnesses or introduce
additional evidence were questions decided later. “That was the unanimous
bipartisan precedent from 1999,” McConnell said. “Put first things first, lay
the bipartisan groundwork, and leave mid-trial questions to the middle of the
trial.”
The arrangement satisfied Chuck Schumer back when he was
a recently elected junior senator from New York. Funny how times change. Now
Senate minority leader, and looking to damage Republicans in a presidential
election year, Schumer demanded that McConnell call witnesses and ask for
additional documents at the outset of the proceedings. Pelosi followed his
cues. After the House impeached Trump on December 18, she said she wouldn’t
transmit the articles of impeachment until McConnell gave in to Schumer’s
demands.
McConnell refused. He continued to point to the
(relative) bipartisanship of the Clinton era. “The Senate said, 100 to nothing,
that was good enough for President Clinton,” he said on January 6. “So it ought
to be good enough for President Trump. Fair is fair.” The following day,
McConnell ridiculed the idea that Pelosi had “leverage” over the Senate:
“Apparently this is their proposition: If the Senate does not agree to break
with our own unanimous bipartisan precedent from 1999, and agree to let Speaker
Pelosi hand-design a different procedure for this Senate trial, then they might
never dump this mess in our lap.” Fine with him. The Senate has plenty of other
things to do.
The reliance on precedent is one of McConnell’s most
effective strategies. In 2016 he invoked the “Biden rule” to prevent
confirmation hearings for Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee to
replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, until after the election. The
following spring, when Senate Republicans voted to end the filibuster for
Supreme Court nominees, McConnell noted that former majority leader Harry Reid,
a Democrat, had done the same for lower-court nominees in 2013.
Pelosi and Schumer want to up the pressure on Republican
senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Mitt Romney. The goal: drive them
to break from McConnell. What the Democrats failed to recognize is that
beginning a trial is a separate issue from calling witnesses. And no Republican
is particularly interested in holding the trial. Pelosi’s leverage was
nonexistent. The spin that she and Schumer were shining a light on a corrupt
process? Silliness. By January 7, McConnell had secured the backing of the GOP
conference. Republicans were unified.
Pelosi’s gambit fell apart. Democratic senators, from
Dianne Feinstein to Doug Jones, said it was time for the trial to begin.
Several Democratic congressmen agreed. The chairman of the House Armed Services
Committee, Adam Smith, said it was “time to send the impeachment to the
Senate.” Smith is one of Pelosi’s favorites—or at least he was before he said
that. Within hours, an abashed Smith was on Twitter, walking back his comments.
“I will turn them over when I’m ready, and that will
probably be soon,” Pelosi said at her January 9 press conference. “I know
exactly when” to appoint impeachment managers, she said earlier that day. She
has a funny way of showing it.
The chances that the House would strong-arm the Senate
into adopting the preferences of Schumer were always low. They shrank to zero
once Democrats and media personalities began questioning Pelosi’s tactics. The
comparison would horrify her, but Pelosi’s move reminded me of the Tea Party’s
plan to force a Democratic Senate to repeal Obamacare through House
appropriations bills. You can shut down the government, or prolong an
impeachment, only for so long. Soon you will take the blame.
McConnell’s victory carries risks. It guarantees that
there will be a trial. And a trial is an unpredictable entity. Any senator can
offer a motion. How involved Chief Justice John Roberts will want to be is
unknown. Party unity might help the Democrats more than Republicans. Once the
trial begins, if three GOP senators vote with a unified Democratic conference
on a given motion, Schumer will have his way. McConnell’s challenge: keep
Republicans together to limit the scope and duration of the proceedings.
Pelosi is an example of what not to do. Since announcing
the impeachment inquiry in September, she has seen independents turn against
it, Trump’s numbers rise, a House Democrat switch parties, and several
Democrats join Republicans to vote against one or both of the articles of
impeachment. Now her friends and lieutenants question her judgment in public.
Pelosi’s reputation as a “master strategist” is hype. It’s been reported that
she got the idea for withholding the articles from an interview with John Dean
on CNN. Dean once gave legal advice to Richard Nixon. And look what happened to
him.
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