Why the Senate Will not Convict
The last time Trump was caught red-handed, making his perfect telephone call to the president of Ukraine, various lawmakers asked rhetorically, “If this is not an impeachable offense, what is?” Now again the same question can be asked, and this time with even less room for doubt. And yet, once again, the Senate won’t convict. Why not? For one thing Trump did not explicitly call for insurrection in his Save America Rally speech. I heard him calmly state, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” What he did do was present a litany of false claims as grounds for overturning an election. Was he lying? That depends on whether he believed what he was saying. Barring discovery of an Access Hollywood-type tape where he is caught admitting, “I don’t believe a word of it myself, but it sure fires up my fans,” it is impossible to say for sure. Even so, Trump might be considered criminally negligent ...