Further thoughts about the impeachment (on 2020-02-01) after the Senate voted not to call witnesses and before it voted on whether to find President Trump guilty.

The Republicans have disgraced themselves in their overwhelming support for Trump over the past 3+ years.  However, even though I believe I would vote for Article 1 and although I believe I would have voted to call witnesses, if someone truly believes that President Trump’s actions relative to Ukraine are not sufficient grounds for impeachment, more witnesses testifying about what he did are not necessary.  

I'd want to talk with the people who think he did the actions in Article 1 but don't think it is sufficient grounds for impeachment.  I'd want to discuss with them what makes those actions impeachable or unimpeachable.  t'd ask whether it would be helpful to have witnesses testify regarding whether these actions justify impeachment.  about the constitutional law would be helpful.  

By the way, had I voted for witnesses, I would not have limited my support to the witnesses the Democrats wanted to call; I would also have agreed to call the Bidens, for example.  I don’t believe that Joe Biden misbehaved relative to Ukraine, although his son obviously exercised terrible judgement.  However, if the President feels that interrogating the Bidens about their actions is important to his defense, I would support their testimony.  If Joe Biden did nothing wrong, he should be willing to testify, perhaps happy to be able to clear up this issue.  (His initial reaction about testifying was off-base.)

I would have liked to have seen the Democrats focus on why Trump’s actions justify impeachment and challenging the Republicans to explain why not, rather than the Democrats’ “sound-bite” posturing about the importance of witnesses

There were some good arguments on both sides, but both sides undermine their credibility with terrible arguments.  The President’s attorneys argued that he did not do it, but he clearly did so.  I suspect they made that argument at his insistence.  Dershowitz argued that it can’t be a quid pro quo if President Trump thought it was in the interest of the USA that he be re-elected; I’d like to hear him defend that!  That sounds scary to me!

The Democrats continually argued that if there is a disagreement between the Executive Branch and Congress, Congress should make the final decision.  That’s scary, too!  The courts should decide; that’s why we have 3 branches of government.  The Democrats never really answered why they encouraged Judge Leon to dismiss the executive privilege case submitted by Charles Kupperman, whose attorney sought to keep the case alive even after the Democrats decided not to subpoena Kupperman.  They claim they dropped the case because they did not want to delay their impeachment action, but that does not make sense.  They knew (or should have known) that executive privilege could be critical in the Senate, so terminating the Kupperman case prolonged their likely effort, rather than shortening it.  I believe they could have kept the case open, at least for some time, without hindering their impeachment timeline.  (Saying the Senate could anoint Chief Justice Roberts to decide is still saying that Congress has the ability to decide, by making whatever determination they want.)  When I wrote my original piece, I did not know how I would vote on Article 2; now I believe I would vote “no”.

It seems as though some Democrats may prefer that Senate Republicans vote “no” on removing President Trump from office because:

1. They want to run against Trump. 
1. He has a lot of baggage.  If he is removed, the Republicans would nominate Pence or someone else who has less baggage.
2. They have planned their campaigns against Trump. A substitution would be disruptive.
3. Some Democratic candidates argue they are most likely to beat Trump; their argument suffers if Trump is not a candidate.

2. They want to gain control of the Senate by campaigning against the Republicans saying “Look at the Republicans; they all "sold out" to Trump”.

3. If President Trump were to be removed from office, Democrats likely would have less support in November
1. Democratic voters might feel less need to vote in November, because Trump would already be removed and momentum would “clearly” be on their side.
2. Some Republican voters would be incensed and more likely to contribute and to mobilize to get out the vote to punish the Democrats.
3. Moderates who lean against removing President Trump from office might shift votes to Republican candidates.

4. The way they speak about the first article and the way it is written, voting for the first article seemed to me to imply that President Trump conspired with the Russians in the last election.  The Democrats keep talking about his doing that “again”, this time in Ukraine for 2020.  How can a Republican vote that Trump conspired with Russia?  When the Mueller report’s findings were discussed in the media, I thought that maybe there was a conspiracy which Mueller couldn’t prove.  However, upon reading the Mueller report, I now think that is unlikely and the passage of time without evidence popping up reduces the likelihood further.  (Some Democrats have told me that the wording is strictly intended to relate to asking for help, not conspiring, citing Trump's request that the Russians release Hillary Clinton's missing tapes, if they have them.  That request by Trump seems to pale compared to the Democrats having hired Steele to seek dirt on Trump from Russia and President Obama asking Medvedev for a "favor" in his open mic incident.)

5. The way they speak about the second article, it is mutually exclusive to the first article.  They say that President Trump is writing impeachment out of the constitution and that it is impossible to impeach him because of the obstruction.  If that is true, how did they come up with the first article?  I’m not saying that the first article is invalid; I’m saying that the way the Democrats discuss and worded the second article makes it harder to justify voting for the first article (not impossible, but harder).

6. I believe the strongest article of impeachment was obstruction with Mueller by instructing McGahn to lie and by tampering with witnesses, but the Democrats did not include that charge.  The explanation I’ve heard (“the Mueller report has been debunked”) doesn’t persuade me.  The Mueller report was superficially debunked; people who have seriously considered it do not consider it to be debunked.  Secondly, the Ukraine claims are being debunked in similar fashion.  If the Mueller obstruction issues are dropped because of being debunked, probably article 1 should be as well.  (I think it is obvious that I don’t think Article 1 should be dropped; my point being that the specified Mueller obstruction charges should not have been dropped.)

7. Some of their comments in the Senate trial seem to intentionally alienate Republicans who might side otherwise side with them.

Please understand, I am not defending President Trump.  He unquestionably has acted unconscionably repeatedly.  He certainly did what he is accused of doing in Ukraine.  I think he has acted in ways that justify being removed from office.