U.S. Sen. Mike Braun, R-Indiana, delivered yet another nonsensical statement the other day.

He chided Senate Democrats for their “partisan” behavior in moving to dismiss the impeachment charges against Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.

Several things made Braun’s statement even more clueless than is his alternate-reality norm.

The first is that it wasn’t precisely true.

It is true that all 48 Democratic members of the U.S. Senate voted to dismiss the drummed-up and unspecified charges, but so did three independents—and one Republican, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, refused to line up with her GOP colleagues on one of the votes.

The second is that his argument that Democrats were somehow evading the rules by doing so was close to delusional.

The impeachment in the U.S. House of Representatives succeeded only on the second vote. On the first vote, it failed because Republicans couldn’t get their full caucus behind it.

It succeeded on the second, desperation vote because the GOP firebreathers persuaded a couple of Republicans to sit out the mulligan round.

Even then, the House Republicans’ “decisive” mandate fell four votes short of being a majority of the entire House, which considerably weakened its force as a statement of broad public disapproval.

Worse, it moved as a nonbinding resolution.

This meant it had all the legal enforcement power of a Valentine card.

But it was the timing that made Braun’s fulminations even more foolish than normal.

He issued it two days after the trial began of former President Donald Trump on charges that he paid porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about their alleged sexual encounter, lied about the transaction and did so to alter the outcome of a presidential election.

Trump’s is the first criminal trial of a former president in American history.

He also will face trial on nearly 60 other charges in three other criminal cases.

As Trump’s first trial ramped up, one Republican after another—New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and former U.S. Attorney General William Barr were the most prominent—who had been critical of the former president in the past lined up to say they would vote for him in November.

Even if Trump had been convicted on criminal charges.

I’m sorry, but that’s the very definition of rabid partisanship.

If a person is willing to support someone who flouted the law for an office that carries with it a duty to respect and enforce the law, that person’s loyalty is not to the nation or the law. It is to a political party or, more troubling, to a person who lacks respect for both the laws of the land and basic ethical behavior.

This should not be a hard bar to clear.

At least, it isn’t for many Americans.

If my best friend were charged with a felony, I might contribute to his or her legal defense fund. I likely would show up in court during the trial to demonstrate moral support.

And, if my friend were convicted, I probably would visit her or him in jail or prison, because a friend is a friend.

But I wouldn’t vote for my friend to hold any public office—much less the one that carries the ultimate responsibility for executing the law and justice across the land.

I owe my country more than that.

If anything, Mike Braun—who now is the frontrunner to be Indiana’s next governor—has been more abject in his capitulations to Donald Trump than any other Republican.

His fealty to the former president is so servile and obsequious that it would not surprise me if Braun mows the lawn, empties the trash cans and cleans the bathrooms at Trump residences.

Braun coveted—no, he begged—for Trump’s endorsement in the governor’s race and offered his own endorsement of the four-times-indicted former president so slavishly that it would make almost any other human being with a modicum of self-respect cringe.

Braun can say many things about the Democrats’ dismissal of the Mayorkas impeachment shortage.

He can say they were stupid.

He can call them short-sighted.

But he cannot expect any reasonable person to take him seriously if he accuses someone—anyone—else of being partisan.

Mike Braun doesn’t have a leg to stand on there.

Maybe because he’s stuffed his foot all the way down his own throat.