As I watched the House of Representatives’ procedural debate on impeachment, I was downright mesmerized by the Republicans’ demagogic antics. I couldn’t decide which Trump cultist had guzzled the most Kool-Aid.
Remember how they’d complained for weeks that the Trump investigation was supposedly so secretive? Yet here they were earlier today, presented with a golden voting opportunity to endorse the probe’s next phase – the open, transparent phase – but they didn’t want that, either. Because, in truth, the last thing they want is for Americans to see and hear the damning evidence in open hearings.
So their only recourse was to plumb new depths of despicability. Kevin McCarthy, the House GOP leader, said that the Democrats’ impeachment push, in advance of the ’20 campaign, is merely an attempt “to interfere in elections from their bubble in Washington. D.C.” – an hilariously irony-free argument, given the fact that Trump has been caught red-handed pressuring Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election from his bubble in Washington, D.C.
Steve Scalise, the GOP whip, sank lower. He brandished a Soviet hammer-and-sickle poster and denounced the Democrats for supposedly proposing open hearings with “Soviet style rules.” Posing as a history scholar, he said, “What kind of fairness is that? Alexander Hamilton warned of days like this.” I have two observations about that: (1) Soviets didn’t have impeachment rules; they just put a bullet in your head, or, in the case of Trotsky, an ice pick (2) What Hamilton actually envisioned, in the Federalist Papers, was that impeachment would be a constitutional check on “the misconduct of public men…from the abuse or violation of some public trust.”
But the bonkers prize goes to Trump apparatchik Devin Nunes, who denounced Adam Schiff’s House Intelligence Committee as “like a cult.” That was too much for Jackie Speier, who was shot five times in 1978 while trying to save people at the actual Jim Jones cult in Jonestown. She had arrived with her boss, House member Leo Ryan – who was shot dead. She survived, and now she has Ryan’s seat. She said today: “I know about cults. Cults are led by maniacal narcissists who expect complete adoration and relinquishment of independent thought. I suggest Mr. Nunes look elsewhere.”
Naturally, no Republicans voted for the successful resolution to open the impeachment inquiry (which also includes the release of the Schiff panel’s depositions), either because they truly believe that solidly documented abuses of power are somehow not impeachable (at least when Dear Leader does the misdeeds), or because they’ve read the polls back home and realized that, like it or not, they’re chained to the railing of Trump’s Titanic.
By contrast, House Democrats seem more confident that Trump voters will be moved by the weight of the impeachable evidence from career public servants and nonpartisan military personnel. Ten Democrats from strong Trump ’16 districts voted Yes to open the impeachment inquiry. They’d likely be further comforted by the new national poll which says that 61 percent of Americans believe Trump has little or no “respect for this country’s democratic traditions and institutions.”
For Republicans, this is a classic case of “Be Careful What You Wish For.” They assailed secrecy, demanded transparency – and now they’ll get it. Do they have any credible witnesses who can refute Ambassador Bill Taylor and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (both of whom are likely to testify in public)? What are the odds that Republicans can destroy the likes of Taylor and Vindman during cross-examination in an open hearing?
Naturally, Trump seems to think that his servants have plenty to work with. In a tweet yesterday, written in a manner that would shame a grade-school slacker, he said that Republicans should “go after the Substance even more than the very infair Process. Rupublicans, go with Substance and close it out!”
Close it out with what, exactly? The reason Rupublicans keep complaining about infair procedures is because Trump has given them no Substance. His idea of Substance is to tweet “Read the transcript!” Whereas, in reality, (1) the summary of his fateful July call to the Ukraine president is not a “transcript,” (2) it has gaps and ellipses that Lt. Col. Vindman, who listened to the call, was barred from filling in, and (3) the call itself is only the proverbial tip of the iceberg – as documented and contextualized by multiple credible witnesses who revere our democracy.
But when the open hearings arrive, rest assured that Trump and his troops will yank out the kitchen sink and throw that, too. Which reminds me of something John Adams once said: “The most abandoned minds are ingenious at contriving excuses for their crimes.”