Let the party begin. The U.S. Senate trial kicked off this week on the impeachment of Donald Trump. They should probably turn this into a reality TV show. The only difference would be that the viewers already know the outcome, because the Republican Congress is not going to kick Trump out of office on the eve of the 2020 elections.
I never was a fan of the show 'Survivor' but I knew people who watched it every week trying to figure out who would get kicked out next. I already know the answer to the impeachment hearing. Trump will stay in office 'mostly along partisan lines' and Republicans will use the Democrats' attempt to kick him out of office as fuel to take back the U.S. House of Representatives.
I said months ago I felt Trump wanted to be impeached by the Democratic House because he knew the Republican Senate wouldn't kick him out of office and the Grand Ole Party could point the finger at Democrats for bringing Congress to a crawl and spending millions and millions of dollars on frivolous charges while other important issues are being ignored.
Trump becomes the third U.S. president to be impeached; Andrew Jackson was the first, Bill Clinton was the second and now we got Trump.
I had to argue with some people recently who said President Nixon was impeached, but he never was. In Nixon's case, the House Judiciary Committee approved the articles of impeachment and Nixon read the writing on the wall and resigned before the House of Representatives voted.
I don't know what happened with Andrew Jackson, the first president to be impeached, but I do know no president has ever been removed from office in an impeachment hearing in the Senate.
Clinton got impeached on obstruction of justice charges that surrounded his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. He was found not guilty in the Senate but he forever redefined the definition of sexual relations. I can still see him at the microphone saying “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”. I'm sure his legal team went through the Webster Dictionary and others to find a loophole that accurately described what he and Monica did in the Oval Office, wasn't 'sexual relations'. I doubt there are many married men on this planet who could explain to his wife that he didn't have 'sexual relations' with that woman and she'd simply say 'OK honey'. But Hillary was trying to ride his coattails and really didn't care about his multiple affairs as long as he could push her political career.
Did Trump tell Ukraine leaders he would withhold military aide to that country unless it investigated and exposed illegal activities by Joe Biden? Sure he did. We all know it, whether you are a Democrat or Republican. Did Clinton lie when he said he didn't have sexual relations with Lewinsky? Yes he did.
But back in the day, the Senate determined that Clinton's offenses didn't reach the level of high crimes and misdemeanors that the U.S. Constitution says are grounds for removal from office.
The U.S. Senate will again find that while Trump's conduct was not good, it doesn't rise to that level that requires the body to remove him from office.
Trump will not be removed from office and the Republican Party will blame Democrats for the millions spent and the time consumed that could have been better served addressing housing, immigration, jobs and health care.
The most important vote in the Senate may come from Democratic U.S. Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama. I still think he's a very long shot to win the election in 2020. A vote to remove Trump from office will put a nail in his coffin in a state that thinks Trump hung the moon. When Jones voted against Brett Kavanaugh for the U.S. Supreme Court he left a lot of local Democratic candidates hanging in the wind. If I heard it once, I heard it multiple times “I'm never voting for a Democrat again”.
Republicans elected Jones because of their distaste for Roy Moore. Democrats are about to put Trump back in for four more years because of the impeachment.
There are many old sayings like letting sleeping dogs lie and not poking a sleeping bear. There's that other saying about be careful what you wish for because it may come true. Democrats won the battle in the House, but they are about to lose the war.
I'd hate to be a Democratic candidate in a swing state once the Senate finds Trump not guilty. His base support will come out of the woodworks in November.
