History will record that Donald Trump was impeached. Will it also record that he received a fair trial in the Senate?
Have we become irreparably partisan and corrupt, blind to the truth, serving a politician rather than the nation? Isn’t that treason, a betrayal of our country just as much as anything of which Trump is accused?
Although I refer to the Senate, I write “we” because I also refer to the electorate, we the people. Will we demand that Trump receive a proper trial? Or will we permit a rigged verdict that indicates our democratic republic, as embodied in the Constitution, was a fine idea but contained too many flaws and vulnerabilities to work in practice, including exercising the safeguard to remove any president who flouts our laws?
We can dismiss the Constitution as an ineffectual document that has become outmoded if the Senate trial, whatever the outcome, is seen as a transparent sham rather than a sober, balanced exercise of judicial integrity. We should contact our senators to demand that the trial be conducted fairly with witnesses and evidence, that Senators who have declared their decision before the trail begins recuse themselves as biased, that the White House is not allowed to tamper with jurists in the form of campaign fundraising on their behalf, and rules for the trial are determined independently of White House dictates.
Our system of government and our love of liberty are on trial in the Senate, even more than Donald Trump.
DONNA LEE
Flagstaff
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