Friday was the 22nd anniversary of the Senate vote to acquit President Bill Clinton for lying about having sex with Monica Lewinsky. After a five-week trial, 50 Republicans voted he was guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors for this act. After the vote, Clinton told the U.S. he was “profoundly sorry” for his actions and the “great burden they have imposed on the Congress and on the American people.” He promised to all people in the nation “to rededicate ourselves to the work of serving our nation and building our future together.”
Saturday, February 13, 2021, 43 GOP senators voted to acquit former Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) of any impeachment charges after he spent several months persuading his followers any election not making him president was “rigged” and “stolen.” After the election, DDT’s rhetoric heated up the rising violence in the United States, culminating in his rally on January 6, 2021, encouraging the attending mob to attack people in the U.S. Capitol with the purpose of blocking the Electoral College vote for legally-elected President Joe Biden. After the MAGA mob breached the building with the purpose of assaulting and possibly killing lawmakers, DDT refused to provide any help and encouraged his followers to attack VP Mike Pence. DDT has made no statement about his acquittal.
The vote followed a few hours of closing arguments by both the prosecution and the defense. Michael van der Veen, in a rambling and vague support for DDT, repeated his lies from his earlier presentation to let GOP senators they could vote to acquit. Van der Veen failed to understand that impeachment trials are not bound by constitutional process, but he did reverse his earlier lie about the attack, calling it a “violent insurrection” in his close. He accused Democrats of putting “fabricated evidence” into their “big” four volumes with “little tiny print.” “Shocking” was his conclusion as he said acquittal would start the nation’s “healing.” The defense lawyer also failed to mention jurors in a real judicial proceeding don’t help the defense with its strategy as GOP Sens. Ted Cruz (TX), Lindsey Graham (SC), and Josh Hawley (MO) did throughout the impeachment trial.
According to the acquittal—which may create the law of the land—U.S. presidents are free to say anything they want with impunity. In his opening, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) warned about this privilege, calling it the “January exception”—the time at the end of a president’s term when he is no longer accountable for constitutional offenses. Raskin said:
“It’s an invitation to the president to take his best shot at anything he may want to do on his way out the door, including using violent means to lock that door. To hang on to the Oval Office at all costs and to block the peaceful transfer of power. In other words, the January exception is an invitation to our founders’ worst nightmare.”
In his brief rebuttal, Raskin answered van der Veen’s assertion about an unprecedented impeachment trial for incitement to violence with the response that any presidential incitement to violence is completely unprecedented. Van der Veen complained DDT’s speech had been “stifled” and his “liberty” denied. Raskin pointed out that DDT’s speech has never blocked. In citing Bond v. Floyd, a Supreme Court case about civil rights activist Julian Bond not allowed to take his oath of office because he protested the Vietnam War, van der Veen drew a parallel with the impeachment trial. Raskin explained the defense’s error, that the court’s ruling meant Bond could take his oath in his newly-elected office while the impeachment trial concerned whether DDT could violate his own oath of office.
Despite the prevalence of evidence against DDT, all the GOP senators voted almost as expected. The six Republicans voting that the constitution permitted the trial after the subject was out of office, as approved for other officials, voted to convict him: Bill Cassidy (LA), Susan Collins (ME), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Mitt Romney (UT), Ben Sasse (NE), and Pat Toomey (PA). The seventh Republican voting for conviction, Richard Burr (NC), had voted no at the previous vote.
House Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), hoping for a Senate majority in the 2022 election, tried to ride both sides of the fence during the trial. After saying he was considering conviction, he notified the other GOP senators before the closing statements of his decision to acquit DDT. After this vote, he delivered a speech declaring DDT is guilty of inciting the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and guilty of a “high crime and misdemeanor.” McConnell called DDT’s actions a “disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty” and said DDT is “practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.” Therefore he blames DDT for the deaths on January 6 and for the threat to VP Mike Pence’s life. And he believes Democrats proved their case.
Yet McConnell said he voted to acquit because a trial cannot be held after a president is no longer in office. He alone is responsible for the trial being delayed because he refused to hold it before Biden’s inauguration. The House passed the Article of Impeachment on January 13, seven days before the inauguration. The trial lasted five days.
Of the 43 GOP senators voting to support DDT, fifteen may be running again in 2022. Marco Rubio (FL). Rand Paul (KY). Chuck Grassley (IA). Tim Scott (SC). Todd Young (IA). Ron Johnson (WI). Roy Blunt (MO). John Boozman (AR). John Neely Kennedy (LA). John Thune (SD). John Hoeven (ND). James Lankford (OK). Jerry Moran (KS). Mike Lee (UT). Mike Crapo (ID).
In Vox, Andrew Prokop called DDT a “winner”: acquittal leaves him to create the same chaos in 2024. If DDT wins, he can go back to destroying the country; if he loses, he can gin up the violence to a higher level because he figures no one will stop him. As Kerry Eleveld wrote:
“Trump could do it all over again. He could run the most incendiary, hate-filled, and vitriolic campaign ever seen in the nation’s history with the very intention of losing and then unleashing his dogs on lawmakers and the American public alike in order to violently overthrow the U.S. government.”
The U.S. constitutional system: For the first time since George Washington was picked for president in the 17th century, a person in the Oval Office tried to overturn an election to stay in the White House—lies about the election, frivolous lawsuits, demands on state officials to reverse the vote of the people, pressure to eliminate individual and electoral votes, and, when all else failed, a violent insurrection. And he was acquitted.
Mitch McConnell: DDT’s behavior probably lost McConnell the majority in the Senate after two Democrats won senate seats in Georgia, and he may not get it back in 2022. Now he burned his bridges with DDT, in a gamble for the power of the GOP to get a majority GOP Congress in two years.
The House impeachment managers: Deciding not to use witnesses after the Senate voted to do so may seem like a surrender. [Others may not see this as a loss. The Democrats had no idea what witnesses would say—or lie about—if they were called, and it would considerably lengthen the trial, taking time from Biden’s agenda to move the nation forward. It was also part of a deal to put into the congressional record the information about DDT refusing House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) plea for help as DDT’s MAGA people were breaking the windows to get into McCarthy’s office. DDT left the lawmakers and their staff to die, and 43 of them voted to acquit him.]
The United States Senate: Instead of considering evidence presented in the trial, senators prioritized leaving town for their recess.
DDT’s attorneys: They had no victory because everyone knew the fix was in, and their threatening, lying, vague performance was pathetically filled with mistakes. About the two-hour, forty-minute defense, Dana Milbank wrote:
“Even in that brief period, they misstated legal precedents. They invented facts. They rewrote history. Trump lawyer Bruce Castor, panned for his rambling opening argument Wednesday, closed the argument Friday by confusing Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger with Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.”
The acquittal leads to more fascist actions from Republicans; QAnon conspiracy theory, now tied into Republicanism, parallels Nazi anti-Semitic myths which includes white supremacy and patriarchal misogyny. In DDT’s cult, he is the father of the nation, the “only I” of his campaigning. Fascist propaganda includes a divisive sense of loss and revenge for those considered responsible, a glorification of the past, and a military attitude to overthrow multi-party democracy. DDT’s movie at his “Save America” exalts masculinity and loss from traitors while portraying President Biden, House Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (R-CA) as weak and completely unworthy because of their Jewish connections in contrast to images showing the military power of DDT.
The clearest message of the video? And the acquittal? The monster could return to the White House—or destroy it trying, thanks to GOP cowardice by 43 U.S. senators.
On Valentine’s Day, the U.S. has over 28 million COVID-19 infections and is about a day from 500,000 coronavirus deaths in one year. Shortly after the first death from the virus, DDT said the disease would disappear in a few days. He spent the rest of his term either ignoring it or trying to cover it up in what may be the biggest leadership mismanagement in U.S. history.