The Democratic party’s desperate impeachment attempt to prevent President Donald Trump from running for re-election in 2024 is beginning to collapse. The first crack appeared when Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that Senate President Pro-Tempore and Democrat Patrick Leahy would preside over the impeachment trial and not the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts, this under the thin justification that “The president pro tempore has historically presided over Senate impeachment trials of non-presidents,” Leahy, 80, said in a statement.
Sen. @RandPaul: "This impeachment is nothing more than a partisan exercise designed to further divide the country. Democrats claim to want to unify the country, but impeaching a former president, a private citizen, is the antithesis of unity." pic.twitter.com/W8SHXO2URn
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 26, 2021
Rand Paul Returns (Gee Senator, Where have YOU been?)
Senator Rand Paul, in spite of his unwillingness to object to the highly irregular 2020 Election still mired in serious allegations of fraud, has risen to an impassioned defense of President Trump’s words and actions on Jan. 6th. Paul has called for the dismissal of the impeachment charge.
According to Congressional record on CSPAN Sen. Paul said,
“Democrats brazenly appointing a pro-impeachment Democrat to preside over the trial is not fair or impartial and hardly encourages any kind of unity in our country. No, unity is the opposite of this travesty we are about to witness.
If we are about to try to impeach a President, where is the Chief Justice?
If the accused is no longer President, where is the constitutional power to impeach him?”
Sen. Paul also took aim at multiple Democrats for their own incitement of violence over the last year. Specifically Paul referenced Kamala Harris as a possible impeachment target since she assumed the Vice-Presidency,
“Kamala Harris famously offered to pay the bill for those who were arrested. I wonder if she will be brought up on charges of inciting violence for that now that she is Vice President. Should Kamala Harris be impeached for offering to pay for violent people to get out of jail who have been burning our cities down?”
Schumer’s Justification for Impeachment Backfires Spectacularly
As expected, Senate Majority Leader Schumer made it clear that the entire goal is to prevent Trump from running for office ever again. But Schumer cited very thin precedent of the 1876 impeachment of Secretary of War William Belknap. saying,
“In 1876, President Grant’s Secretary of War, William Belknap, literally raced to the White House to tender his resignation before the House was set to vote on his impeachment. Not only did the House move forward with the impeachment, but the Senate convened a trial and voted as a Chamber that Mr. Belknap could be tried “for acts done as Secretary of War, notwithstanding his resignation of said office.”
The language is crystal clear, without any ambiguity. ”
It appears that Mr. Schumer is a poor student of history and an even poorer student of irongy. The Congressional record shows that Belknap was impeached on corruption and enrichment and indeed resigned before trial in the Senate.
But two things should be noted that Schumer conveniently left out: 1.) Belknap was acquitted of all charges by the Senate. 2.) One-Third of the Senators objected on the grounds that Belknap was a private citizen at the time of impeachment and prevented his conviction. Notably former Michigan Supreme Court Justice and then Senator Isaac P. Christiancy wrote,
“Whereas more than one-third of all the members of the Senate have already pronounced their conviction that they have no right or power to adjudge or try a citizen holding no public office or trust when impeached by the House of Representatives; and whereas the respondent, W. W. Belknap, was not when impeached an officer, but a private citizen of the United States,”
44 Senators Came to the Exact Same Conclusion
Yup, you read that right. The case that Schumer is trying to use to justify President Trump’s impeachment ACTUALLY supports the cause NOT to impeach Trump. You seriously can’t make this stuff up. And now… it’s de ja vu’ time, Senator Rand Paul’s vote to dismiss was defeated of course by the Democrat majority but proved the same point: 44 Senators hold that the impeachment of President Trump as a private citizen after the end of his term is: UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Only GOP Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, and Pat Toomey voted against dismissal. Therefore, as Paul said it “This “trial” is dead on arrival in the Senate.”
The Senate just voted on my constitutional point of order.
45 Senators agreed that this sham of a “trial” is unconstitutional.
That is more than will be needed to acquit and to eventually end this partisan impeachment process.
This “trial” is dead on arrival in the Senate.
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) January 26, 2021
