Posts tagged as “January 6 Riot”

Jacob Anthony Chansley and the January 6 Miscarriage of Justice

Jacob Anthony Chansley and the January 6 Miscarriage of Justice

By John R Guardiano on March 11, 2023

Chansley and other Jan. 6 defendants are peaceful and simple-minded dupes who got played by Trump and were screwed by the Biden Department of Injustice.

The Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol was a shameful and disgraceful event for which President Trump was rightfully impeached (by the House of Representatives) and wrongfully acquitted (by the Senate).

As a result, no American who loves his country should ever think of voting for Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

If our ex-president had any sense of honor and shame, he would devote himself to good deeds and public works of charity and penance rather than run again for president.

But Trump’s dishonor and impeachable conduct does not mean that the thousands of Americans who came to the nation’s capital Jan. 6 were all “insurrectionists” who “threatened our democracy.”

Peaceful Dupes. This characterization is simply untrue as we knew at the time and as we now know in more detail today. The vast majority of the protesters, in fact, were peaceful but simple-minded dupes who were played and taken in by Trump’s lies and deception.

Two to three hundred of the protesters, by contrast, were violent agitators who used flag poles, baseball bats, bear spray, and other items to violently assault the police. These violent agitators deserve swift and appropriate punishment. No one disputes that.

Yet, in a gross act of prosecutorial overreach, many peaceful Jan. 6 protesters reportedly have been charged with crimes and subsumed into the criminal justice system for months upon months of never-ending incarceration and administrative delay while their cases are reviewed and prosecuted.

For many of the protesters, their “crime” was to show up at the Capitol and “trespass” into the building, thereby “obstructing” an official federal proceeding.

Trespassing and Obstruction. But the charge of “trespassing” and “obstruction” is manifestly unfair when you consider that most of the protesters genuinely believed they had a right to enter the Capitol. Trump himself basically said they had that right in his earlier Jan. 6 speech inciting them to “stop the steal.”

The Capitol, after all, is often referred to as “the people’s house.” The inference is that since the Capitol, or “people’s house,” is paid for and supported by the taxpaying public, then the public has a right to enter the building.

For this reason, some of the protesters shouted “This is our house!” as they stormed into the Capitol building. And in fact, the Capitol historically has been open and hospitable to visiting constituents in a way that other federal buildings (e.g., the FBI headquarters and the Pentagon) have not been.

The Capitol Police, moreover, implicitly buttressed this notion when, at some entry points, they opened the doors of the Capitol and stood by and watched as protesters streamed into the building.

We saw this in video taken by participants and observers of the Jan. 6 protest. And we see it again with the release of some 41,000 hours of surveillance video, snippets of which were shown on Fox News this week by Tucker Carlson.

Now, Carlson is no one’s idea of a fair or honest journalist. His reporting and analysis of Russia’s war on Ukraine has been dishonest and objectively pro-Putin and anti-Ukraine. But the Jan. 6 video that Carlson has shown doesn’t lie.

One defendant in particular, Jacob Anthony Chansley, appears to have been unfairly singled out for harsh and excessive punishment.

Chansely was sentenced to 41 months in prison for “obstruction of an official proceeding.” But as law professor Jonathan Turley observes:

The newly released Fox footage from that day raises serious questions over the prosecution and punishment of Chansley. The videotapes aired on Tucker Carlson this week show Chansley being escorted by officers through the Capitol.

Two officers appear to not only guide him to the floor but actually appear to be trying to open locked doors for him.

At one point, Chansley is shown walking unimpeded through a large number of armed officers with his four-foot flag-draped spear and horned Viking helmet on his way to the Senate floor.

Why didn’t the police stop Chansley? Because, we are told, there was a violent riot going on nearby and the outnumbered police were trying to “deescalate the situation.” Confronting Chansley, we are told, by Andrew C. McCarthy,

might have attracted attention and sparked a forcible reaction from him and other demonstrators. That would have been dangerous for the police (many of whom suffered injuries during the uprising) and for the demonstrators (one of whom was killed by an officer, and others of whom died during that afternoon’s frenzy).

The police objective, in those moments, was to stabilize an already bad situation so that it did not become a bloodletting.

Self-Serving Rationalization. I’m sorry, but this is a hyperbolic and self-serving rationalization for the Capitol Police interactions with Chansley. And it simply does not comport with the factual record, the video footage, and the geography of the Capitol building.

Yes, there was a violent riot that was developing outside of the Capitol; and there was a swarm of loud and agitated protesters within other parts of the Capitol. But as Turley points out, at the time in question, Chansley was far removed from the crowd, the noise, and the agitation.

At no point in the videotapes does Chansley appear violent or threatening. Indeed, he appears to thank the officers for their guidance and assistance. On the Senate floor, Chansley actually gave a prayer to thank the officers who agreed “to allow us into the building.”

The “new footage,” notes Wilfred Reilly, “reveals that Chansley and his first line of protesters/rioters were heavily outnumbered—at one point nine to one—by Capitol force officers with semi-automatic sidearms once inside the building.”

Adds New York Post reporter Miranda Devine:

In a jailhouse interview played by Carlson, he [Chansley], says: “The one very serious regret that I have [is] believing that when we were waved in by the police officers, that it was acceptable.”

And how, exactly, was Chansley, engaged in “obstruction of an official proceeding”? He walked into an empty Senate gallery opened for him by the Capitol Police. And for that, this nonviolent, first offender, and Navy veteran was given a “heavy 41-month sentence” after initially being held in solitary confinement, Turley notes.

Violent offenders, by contrast, are sometimes given much lighter sentences. David Jakubonis, for instance, was charged last year with second degree assault for attacking New York GOP gubernatorial candidate Rep. Lee Zeldin.

Jakubonis was arrested July 23, 2022, and released in late October “under strict conditions,” according to RochsterFirst.com.

He would have to go through a 28-day alcohol program at the VA in Bath, he would wear a GPS monitor and a monitor to gauge his alcohol intake, and after the Bath program, go to Veterans Treatment Court and live at the Richards House—a housing program provided by the Veterans Outreach Center.

Evidence Withheld. In light of all this, why did the Judge Royce Lamberth, who adjudicated Chansley’s case, come down so hard on him?

In large part, says Turley, because the judge didn’t know what we now know. He didn’t see the same video footage that we all have now seen.

Incredibly, this footage was withheld from Chansley’s attorney—even though, in the American legal system, exculpatory evidence must be shared with a defendant and his attorney.

“I have great respect for Judge Lamberth,” says Turley. He “has always shown an admirable resistance to public pressure in high profile cases. I cannot imagine that Lamberth would not have found this footage material and frankly alarming.”

The bottom line: justice is supposed to be blind and discriminating. But it is hard not to conclude that in the case of Chansley—and doubtless other wrongly maligned Jan. 6 defendants as well—justice was politicized, disproportionate, and vengeful.

Chansley and other like-minded Jan. 6 defendants are guilty of being simple-minded dupes who fell for Trump’s lies and deception. But they are not violent insurrectionists. They threatened no one and they assaulted no one. Others did and they deserve their punishment and comeuppance.

But Chansley deserves better—and America deserves better—than the miscarriage of justice carried out against him without liberty and justice for all in the name of freedom and democracy.

Our nation should right this wrong even as it rejects Trump’s contemptible quest to regain the presidency.

Feature photo credit: Jan. 6 defendant Jacob Anthony Chansley, courtesy of CBS News.

Biden’s Meek Response Jeopardizes the Safety of Supreme Court Justices

Biden’s Meek Response Jeopardizes the Safety of Supreme Court Justices

By John R Guardiano on May 9, 2022

To prevent a violent calamity, the President needs to demand that thuggish left-wing protesters stand down or be prosecuted.

If one or more of our Supreme Court Justices is attacked, injured, or God-forbid, assassinated, it will be because President Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Congressional Democrats failed to forthrightly condemn, while sometimes implicitly encouraging, the thuggish behavior of “progressive” agitators, who have targeted the Court’s conservative justices for harassment and intimidation.

That may sound harsh and hyperbolic, but unfortunately—and alarmingly—it is true.

As we noted yesterday, far-left radicals have published the home addresses of six “extremist justices” whom they have placed in their political crosshairs. And Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer have raised nary a peep of concern, let alone outrage and condemnation.

Meek Words. Oh, to be sure, after being criticized for not condemning the thuggish protesters, Biden finally and belatedly sent out his press secretary, Jen Paski, to issue a meek, pro forma call for “peaceful protests.”

But as The Dispatch’s Stephens Hayes points out, this was a box-checking exercise— “putting out a statement to put out a statement.” Notably absent was a clear, full-throated denunciation of the agitators’ intimations of threats and violence.

And make no mistake: that’s what we’re dealing with. As National Review’s Rich Lowry observes:

These weren’t run-of-the-mill protests. No one doubts that demonstrations have an important role in showing popular support for, or passion around, a given cause. No, these protests were—and were meant to be—threatening.

There’s no reason to go to the homes of the justices unless it is to send the message that people outraged by their prospective decision know where they and their families live. In other words, to the justice who dares say that Roe and Casey have no constitutional basis: Beware.

“We hate to say this,” warns the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, “but some abortion fanatic could decide to commit an act of violence to stop a 5-4 ruling. It’s an awful thought, but we live in fanatical times.”

Political Violence. Indeed, and that’s what makes these threats so ominous and real: that, in recent years, we have seen venomous leftists violently assault Constitutional officeholders.

Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), for instance, was badly beaten up outside of his home in a wholly unprovoked, violent assault by an angry left-wing partisan. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana) suffered life-threatening injuries during a Congressional baseball game after a man with a pathological hatred of Republicans opened fire on him and other GOP lawmakers.

The Senate, consequently, has approved a measure that provides security for the families of all nine justices. “The risk is real,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told CBS News.

Yet instead of recognizing this risk and confronting this threat, Speaker Pelosi has championed the thuggish protesters for “channel[ing] their righteous anger into meaningful action: [by] planning to march and mobilize and make their voices heard.”

This is the same Nancy Pelosi who has hyperventilated incessantly about the “threat to our democracy” from the “January 6 insurrection.”

The January 6 riot was bad and President Trump should ave been been impeached and convicted because of it, but it was no insurrection, and our democracy was never in jeopardy.

The legitimacy of the Supreme Court, by contrast, is being viciously attacked and, as a result, the lives of several Supreme Court justices are now in jeopardy.

President Biden needs to step up and speak out before it’s too late—before some left-wing goon decides to take it upon himself to “save democracy” from five or six “extremist justices.”

Speaking out against these fascist agitators is the right thing to do—especially for a president who promised, in his Inaugural Address, to bring us together to “fight the common foes we face: anger, resentment, hatred, extremism, lawlessness, violence…

“I ask every American to join me in this cause,” Mr. Biden declared, because “we have learned again that democracy is precious. Democracy is fragile.”

Yes, it is. Which is why, at this particular moment in our nation’s history, we need presidential leadership: to help avert a violent calamity that would destroy the people’s faith in our institutions and rub raw the wounds of division.

Yet the President is missing in action. If Mr. Biden meant what he said in his Inaugural Address, then he will speak out now—clearly, forcefully, and with conviction—and insist that the thuggish left-wing agitators stand down or be prosecuted.

History is calling and the fate of our democracy is at stake.

Feature photo credit: Screenshot of radical agitators protesting outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, courtesy of a tweet from Douglas K. Blair.

Threats Against the Supreme Court Show Biden Democrats Are Hypocrites and Frauds

Threats Against the Supreme Court Show Biden Democrats Are Hypocrites and Frauds

By John R Guardiano on May 8, 2022

By Biden’s illogic, the assault on the Capitol was an assault on democracy, but the assault on the Supreme Court is the essence of democracy.

Political hypocrisy is nothing new, but President Biden and Congressional Democrats have been especially two-faced, and on things that really matter, such as assaults on our political institutions and the integrity of our democracy.

Biden, of course, came into office promising to restore “unity.”

“We can see each other not as adversaries but as neighbors,” he piously intoned in his Inaugural Address. “We can treat each other with dignity and respect.

We can join forces, stop the shouting, and lower the temperature. For without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury. No progress, only exhausting outrage.

True words these. Yet when, this past week, “progressive” Democrats launched a brazen assault on the Supreme Court for its apparent decision to overturn a false and fabricated Constitutional right to abortion, Biden was silent and accommodating of the political arsonists and assailants.

Here, bitterness, fury, and exhausting outrage are understandable and completely permissible. And, far from lowering the temperature, we instead should turn up the heat until our entire Constitutional order (or at least the judiciary) burns to the ground.

Targeting the Justices. Think I’m exaggerating? Think again. Angry, “progressive” agitators have published the home addresses of six “extremist justices” whom they have targeted for harassment.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has charged the Court with composing a “monstrous draft decision” that “assaults” the Constitution.

“We gotta be a menace to our enemies, and our enemies is anybody that’s attacking our reproductive freedom.,” declared one angry protester.

As a result of this incendiary rhetoric, notes the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, “a violent act by a fanatic can’t be ruled out… Federal law,” it adds, “makes it a crime to threaten federal judges, and that includes threats of vigilantism.”

But instead of calling for calm and understanding, the President has been solicitous of the “progressive” or radical left. “The president’s view,” explained White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki

is that there’s a lot of passion, a lot of fear, a lot of sadness from many, many people across this country about what they saw in that leaked document [aka the draft Supreme Court opinion].

We obviously want people’s privacy to be respected. We want people to protest peacefully if they want to protest. That is certainly what the president’s view would be.

January 6 Riot. Of course, President Trump, too, made the obligatory, pro forma nod to a “peaceful protest” January 6, 2021.

And of course, Mr. Biden and Congressional Democrats never called for understanding the passion, fear, and sadness of the January 6 protesters who instigated a riot on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

Instead, they have said ad nauseam that the January 6 riot—which, by their definition, includes the events that led up to January 6—was an “insurrection” that “threatened our democracy.”

In other words, the assault on the Capitol was an assault on democracy, but the assault on the Supreme Court is the essence of democracy. Heads we win; tails our political opponents lose.

Everybody’s equal but some are more equal than others. Some are worthy and some are, as Hillary Clinton infamously put it during the 2016 presidential campaign, “deplorable” and unworthy.

Feature photo credit: Screenshot of President Biden speaking to reporters, May 3, 2022, courtesy of CNBC.

January 6 Lies and Distortions

January 6 Lies and Distortions

By John R Guardiano on January 2, 2022

January 6 is a day that will live in infamy. So, too, will left-wing lies and distortions about that infamous day.

The January 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol never should have happened; and Donald Trump bears responsibility for inspiring the assault, for failing to deter and prevent it, and then failing to help stop it once it happened.

This was more than enough reason to impeach and convict Trump, as I argued at the time.

However, Democrats and “progressives,” aided by the media, have since depicted the protest as something that it was not: an insurrection involving hundreds of “racists” and “white supremacists” intent on “hanging Mike Pence” and violently seizing control of Congress.

In truth, a few thousand protesters marched on the Capitol and a few hundred of these protesters violently clashed with the police. None of the protesters were found to possess guns or firearms; and, despite hyperbolic, martial rhetoric from some of the protesters, they had no plan or scheme to seize control of Congress.

The protest got out of hand and became a full-scale riot because the Capitol Police were, as Andrew McCarthy explains, “grossly undermanned [and] unprepared.” Weakness begot aggression.

Yet, today on Face the Nation, Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago repeatedly referred to protesters who “broke into the Capitol.” But in truth, as we’ve seen in real-time video, many of the protesters were allowed into the Capitol building by police who opened the door for them and let them in.

Nor is this surprising. The Capitol has long been welcoming and hospitable to visitors. Ours is a democracy, after all; and those who foot the bill and elect our Congressional representatives have always been welcomed into the corridors of power.

For this reason, many of the protesters genuinely seemed to think they had a right to enter the Capitol. And the Capitol Police initially took a soft and relaxed approach to the protest because they seemed to view it as benign and non-threatening.

It was only after a small minority of protesters grew violent and viciously assaulted the police that things began to change.

Professor Pape also insists that “race is an element and race is a driver” of Trump’s January 6 protest. But he reaches this conclusion only through the worst possible interpretation of the evidence that he himself presents.

The evidence that Professor Pape presents is this: most of the 700+ indicted Trump protesters came from politically blue urban areas with declining white populations. This, he says, “dovetails with the right-wing conspiracy theory… called the great replacement.”

In short, these Trump protesters were racists and white supremacists angry that their communities are becoming more black and brown.

Blue State Politics. That’s one possible, albeit farfetched, interpretation. Here’s another more plausible interpretation:

These Trump protesters who live in blue enclaves have seen firsthand the damage wrought by “progressive” Democratic rule. Thus they are more politically engaged—and enraged—and more politically sensitive than ordinary red state voters.

In other words, politics, not race, is what drove these Trump supporters.

Because minorities vote Democrat in significantly greater numbers than white voters, it is all too easy to conflate race and politics. But we should avoid conflating these two factors unless we have clear and compelling evidence that race and not politics is at work. Professor Pape presents no such evidence.

The bottom line: we can and should condemn Trump and the January 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riot. However, we mustn’t allow “progressives,” Democrats, and their media fellow travelers to use January 6 as a pretext to vilify all of the Trump protesters and especially all Trump supporters.

Most had peaceful intentions and were the misguided victims of Trump’s lies and demagoguery. Others were more malicious and sinister in their intent. Fair enough. However, the same can be said of Trump’s political opponents in the media and Democratic Party.

Feature photo credit: Political Science Professor Robert Pape (L) and Donald Trump (R), courtesy of Face the Nation and Ballotpedia, respectively.

Most Senate Republicans Whiff on the Constitutionality of Impeaching Trump

Most Senate Republicans Whiff on the Constitutionality of Impeaching Trump

By John R Guardiano on February 15, 2021

For blatantly partisan political reasons, most Republican were willfully wrong about the Constitutionality of impeachment; but in the end, it did not matter: Justice, albeit not conviction, was done.

Senate Republicans eager to condemn Trump without voting to convict him during this, his second impeachment trial, found a convenient if disingenuous way to do so. They seized upon the notion that the impeachment itself is unconstitutional.

I say disingenuous because even if you grant that this is a legitimate point of view, Senate Republicans—and Democrats—are hardly sticklers for a narrow and cramped legalistic reading of their Constitutional authority or the president’s Constitutional authority.

Indeed, since at least the New Deal, the vast majority of elected officials have adopted a wide and expansionary view of their Constitutional authority. Yet, curiously, when it came to Trump’s second impeachment, Senate Republicans suddenly found that the Constitution prohibited them from acting.

The Constitution prohibited them from convicting a president who, plainly and obviously, was guilty of inspiring or provoking a violent attack on Congress and who, plainly and obviously, was guilty of a gross dereliction of duty as that attack transpired.

How politically convenient this was for Senate Republicans eager to find an excuse—any excuse—to shirk their Constitutional duty. Thus 43 of them voted to acquit Trump, while only seven voted to convict.

Plausible Deniability. How is this possible? How could Senate Republicans argue with a straight face that the Constitution prohibited them from impeaching and convicting Trump?

After all, Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution gives the House of Representatives “the sole power of impeachment.” Article I, Section 3, likewise, gives the Senate the “sole power to try all impeachments.”

That seems straightforward and unambiguous. Case closed, no? Trump’s impeachment trial is perfectly legitimate and Constitutional.

Well, here’s the rub: when the Senate trial began, Trump already had left office. And the Constitution, some scholars argue, only allows for the impeachment of incumbent officials, not former officials.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) expressed this argument in full-throated fashion shortly after the Senate voted 57-43 Saturday (Feb. 13, 2021) to acquit Trump of “incitement of insurrection.”

McConnell began his remarks by unequivocally condemning Trump in no uncertain terms. In fact, an uninformed reader might think that McConnell is explaining why he voted to convict Trump, but no.

Although, “there is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day,” McConnell said, “we have no power to convict and disqualify a former officeholder who is now a private citizen.”

But of course, Trump was not impeached for what he did as a private citizen; he was impeached because of his conduct as President of the United States. And the Constitution does not specify that only incumbent officials can be impeached. Instead, it clearly allows for the impeachment and conviction of former presidents and former officials.

Impeachment Authority. That is because, as Chuck Cooper observes, one of the Constitutional penalties for an impeached and convicted official is “disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States” (Article I, Section 3).

That punishment can be imposed only on former officers. That is because Article II, Section 4 is self-executing: A convicted officeholder is automatically removed at the moment of conviction.

The formal Senate procedures for impeachment trials acknowledge this constitutional reality, noting that a two-thirds vote to convict “operates automatically and instantaneously to separate the person impeached from the office.”

The Senate may then, at its discretion, take a separate vote to impose, by simple majority, “the additional consequences provided by the Constitution in the case of an impeached and convicted civil officer, viz: permanent disqualification from elected or appointed office.”

Thus a vote by the Senate to disqualify can be taken only after the officer has been removed and is by definition a former officer.

Given that the Constitution permits the Senate to impose the penalty of permanent disqualification only on former officeholders, it defies logic to suggest that the Senate is prohibited from trying and convicting former officeholders [emphasis added].

Nonsensical Reading. In short, it is simply nonsensical to suggest that the Constitution does not allow for the impeachment and conviction of former presidents and former officials.

To arrive at such a conclusion, you have to read one provision of the Constitution (Article II, Section 4) legalistically and out of context, while divorcing it from its necessary and obvious relationship to a second provision of the Constitution (Article I, Section 3).

As the House impeachment managers pointed out, if McConnell’s nonsensical view of the Senate’s impeachment authority were adopted, it would mean that a president could commit impeachable offenses and then quickly resign to avert impeachment.

It would mean a “January exception” that would allow a president to commit impeachable offenses in his final days or weeks in office safe in the knowledge that Congress lacks sufficient time to impeach and convict him. It is inconceivable that this is what our Founding Fathers intended.

Founding Fathers. And in fact, as Princeton Politics Professor Keith E. Whittington notes:

For the Founders, it would have been obvious that the “power to impeach” included the ability to hold former officials to account.

The impeachment power was imported to America from England, where Parliament impeached only two men during the 18th century, both former officers. No U.S. state constitution limited impeachments to sitting officers, and some allowed impeachment only of former officers.

In 1781 the Virginia General Assembly subjected Thomas Jefferson to an impeachment inquiry after he completed his term as governor.

As the sixth President of the United States, John Quincy Adams, put it:

I hold myself, so long as I have the breath of life in my body, amenable to impeachment by this House for everything I did during the time I held any public office.

Historical Precedent. There is, of course, very little case law or precedent governing presidential impeachments. Only three presidents, after all, have been impeached, and Trump’s second impeachment was just the fourth impeachment in our nation’s entire 245-year history.

There is, though, one notable precedent, and that is the 1876 impeachment of Secretary of War William Belknap.

Belknap was impeached for malfeasance while in office, but resigned before the House impeached him. Nonetheless, the Senate asserted jurisdiction over his case and tried him for malfeasance in accordance with the House articles of impeachment.

Jurisdictional Question. The Senate also asserted its jurisdiction over Trump’s case after Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) introduced a procedural motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that the hearing was unconstitutional because Trump no longer was in office.

McConnell voted for Paul’s procedural motion; but as Quin Hillyer points out: “McConnell was [nonetheless] not duty-bound to vote to acquit Donald Trump if he thought the trial wasn’t constitutionally proper.”

For the purposes of impeachment, Hillyer explains, the Senate acts as a tribunal and thus is analogous to a federal court or judicial body. “Think of it this way,” he writes:

If a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court rules that the court lacks jurisdiction on a certain case, but the whole appeals court en banc decides that jurisdiction is indeed proper and thus sends the case back to the panel to decide on the merits, then, by gosh, the panel must decide on the merits.

Its judgment of jurisdictional constitutionality has been overruled by a higher authority.

Each individual senator is in somewhat the same position as that three-judge panel. His oath to the Constitution includes an oath to respect a higher constitutional authority—and, in this case, the full Senate is a higher constitutional authority than the individual senator is…

In other words, once the whole Senate, acting according to its agreed-upon rules, determines that it does have constitutional jurisdiction, then the individual senators should accept that determination and adjudge the impeachment solely on the merits.

In sum, the constitutional question becomes moot.

Put another way, even if McConnell genuinely believed that the Senate’s trial of Trump was unconstitutional, the entirety of the Senate ruled against him and decided otherwise. Thus that question no longer had any standing or relevance to the Senate’s deliberations.

McConnell’s task, then, was to address the sum and substance of the charges leveled against Trump. It was not his task, or any senator’s task, to revisit a jurisdictional question that the Senate already had decided.

The bottom line: if McConnell and other Senate Republicans wanted to convict Trump, they had more than ample Constitutional authority to do so. The truth is they chose not to convict Trump because they viewed Trump’s conviction as too politically problematic and difficult for them and the Republican Party.

That is, they chose their perceived partisan political priorities over the imperatives of the Constitution while pretending to do the exact opposite. Shame on them. These senators are profiles in cowardice, and their constituents and donors should remember this come election day.

The good news, though, as David Frum notes, is that “a clear American majority—including a sizable part of the Republican Senate caucus—[voted]… to condemn Trump as an outlaw and a seditionist…

The 57 votes against Trump silence any complaint that he was condemned on some partisan basis or by some procedural unfairness. It crushes his truculent lawyers’ claim that the argument against Trump was mere chicanery

The senators who voted to acquit are the ones likely to justify their decision on some strained, narrow, technical ground. The number who truly believed Trump innocent of the charges brought against him is surely smaller than the 43 who voted to acquit.

Statements by senators such as Mitch McConnell and Rob Portman show that their votes did not match their thoughts.

In sum, Donald Trump has been thoroughly discredited. His treasonous and insurrectionary conduct has been catalogued for history and for all to see. His failure to live up to his oath of office to ensure that the laws of the land were fully and faithfully executed has been thoroughly documented.

As a result, Trump is a spent political force in American politics. He won’t win another national or presidential election, as even the Trump-friendly Wall Street Journal editorial board acknowledges.

What remains unclear, though, is whether Trump is a spent political force within the Republican Party. Forty-three GOP Senators seem to think not, and that does not bode well for the party of Lincoln, Coolidge and Reagan.

Time will tell and we will see. Stay tuned.

Feature Photo credit: For better and for worse, GOP Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, both from Kentucky, played instrumental roles in the Republican Party’s posture toward Trump’s second impeachment (courtesy of Donkey Hotey, Forward Kentucky).