TheStatehouseFile.comÂ
INDIANAPOLIS – The truth, it seems, won’t set President Donald Trump-free.
That’s what the opening skirmishing over the rules regarding the president’s impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate has made clear.
Democrats, almost 70 percent of the public and, somewhat surprisingly, a small plurality of Republicans want the trial to include witnesses and to have the White House produce requested documents.
The president doesn’t want witnesses. Nor does he want to release documents pertaining to his administration’s contacts with Ukraine’s government.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, has tried to stand with the president on this. He drafted a set of trial procedures that would have done a Soviet bureaucrat proud.
They were so draconian that 15 or so GOP senators – perhaps mindful that not even a majority of Republican voters supported the Trump/McConnell stonewall – pushed back. McConnell relented and relaxed the rules.
And the president railed at an impromptu press conference that, once again, the whole thing was a witch hunt.
To those who are not part of the Trump cult or, for that matter, not rabid partisans on either side, the whole thing seems more than a little bizarre.
To most rational people, the solution seems obvious:
Release the relevant documents. Let the Democrats call the witnesses they want. Let the Republicans and the president call the witnesses they want.
Each side should make a case.
Then we’ll sort out what happened and decide what we want, should or must do.
But, again, that’s the way reasonable people approach things.
It’s certainly not the way things get done in the Trump world, where truth often is viewed as an obstacle rather than a virtue.
Democrats haven’t helped themselves in making the case that finding the truth is the true goal.
The Democrats’ reluctance to let Republicans call Hunter Biden is mystifying. If the GOP wants to turn the president’s defense into a sideshow, they should be allowed to do so. Most Americans are going to be smart enough to see through that.
Besides, the best guess is that even the sharpest questioning of former Vice President Joe Biden’s remaining son is going to reveal he is nothing more than an amiable oaf who has coasted through life trading on his last name.
If Republicans somehow manage to transform that into a punishable crime, then President Trump’s own should consider themselves also eligible for stays in less-resplendent government housing than they currently occupy.
The question here is not really about whether Donald Trump should be removed from office. The chances that 20 Republican senators will break ranks and vote to convict him are still somewhere between nil and non-existent.
But there are many Americans – including many Republicans – who are troubled by what the president did regarding Ukraine. They want answers and, in a self-governing society, they’re entitled to have them.
The members of Congress who prevent the public from getting those answers do their offices and their constituents a tremendous disservice. These elected officials are supposed to be the people’s representatives and servants, not the president’s lapdogs.
An aside: Given their slavish, full-throated and unquestioning defense of everything President Trump does, wouldn’t it be cheaper and more efficient for Hoosiers just to put a cardboard cut-out of the president at the desks of Sen. Mike Braun, R-Indiana, and Rep. Jim Banks, R-Indiana? We could let the president cast their votes for them and issue their press releases. That way, the taxpayers would save money on Braun’s and Banks’ salaries and office expenses by eliminating the middlemen.
This trial in the Senate will not result in Donald Trump leaving office.
But it can and should be a vehicle for Americans to find out exactly what this president is doing in their name and with the authority they grant him. It also will tell them if there are any lines or laws he is willing to respect.
That’s the knowledge – and the truth – President Trump fears.
As he should.
It’s not likely to flatter him.
But it just might set the country free.
FOOTNOTE: John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.
The liberal hack, Krull, teaching a course in fake news writing at liberal Franklin College, obviously is unfamiliar with a document known as the United States Constitution. If he was, he would know it’s the House’s duty to find evidence, determine if it rises to an impeachable offense, vote to impeach, and then present their evidence to the jury, the Senate, which will then decide if the evidence is sufficient to find the defendant guilty. That’s how it works and even if the socialists like Krull don’t like it, tough for them.
I never read a Statehouse File completely because it’s always the same liberal hogwash. I read the headline, then the first few lines, and the the last few lines. I already know everything in between is garbage. Frankly, I seldom even click on the story if I know it’s from the Franklin “journalism” class.
blahhhhhhh blahhhhhh………the house should have had the evidence when they “impeached MAGA”…….but they had none because MAGA did nothing wrong…………in my opinion according to the recent findings and krulls own articles krulls “journalism college” is nothing more nothing less than a anti MAGA liberal pervert playground………….just sayin………
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