[NYSun] The verdict on the impeachment of President Trump may not be in ‐ formally. All the more pronounced, though, is the petulance of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, in the face of what appears to be her pending defeat in the Senate. She’s even hinted (please see above) at disbarment of the President’s lawyers. Her role in this proceeding will, we predict, go down as one of the most shocking performances by any holder of America’s third highest office.
This is a broader problem than just Mrs. Pelosi’s behavior. That is a point well made this morning by Michael Goodwin in Alexander Hamilton’s old paper, the New York Post. He reckons that it was Secretary Clinton who ended the tradition of gracious concessions that has, in the main, marked our politics. On impeachment he quotes Senator Schumer as attacking the integrity of the very Senate in which he serves.
Nothing civil from Mr. Schumer. No statement like, "Gee, the House did a fine job, but, I regret, it wasn’t quite thorough enough to convince the Senate. The Constitution sets a high bar." No, what Mr. Schumer said was: "The Senate turned away from truth and went along with a sham trial." The verdict Wednesday will be, he predicted, "meaningless." In other words, he put a dagger through the heart of his own institution.
"A Dishonorable Senate" is the headline the Times stuck over its editorial on the denouement of the trial of Mr. Trump. It couldn’t imagine another explanation. "Cringing abdication" is how the Washington Post described the Senate conclusion that it had enough evidence. Not one note of humility has been sounded by any Democrat over the failure of the House to adduce the evidence needed to convince the solons. Gee, who coulda' seen that comin'?:
The Internet is boiling over with warnings that the evidence is going to come out eventually, probably sooner than later. It’s not clear to us why that supports the Democratic case to call witnesses now. If the evidence is damning enough, the House can impeach again. If evidence comes out soon enough, the Democrats can take it to the hustings between now and November 5. What will linger is the Democrats’ petulence.
Speaker Pelosi’s own highly partisan role in the impeachment she claimed to want to avoid invites the same kind of cynicism she’s expressed in respect of Mr. Trump. We don’t share that cynicism. We understand, though, why some do. Mrs. Pelosi, after all, has used her office to advance an impeachment that, were it successful, would have been a benefit to her, moving her one notch closer to the presidency.
We touched on this in our editorial the second time Mrs. Pelosi acceded to Speaker. Both times Mrs. Pelosi broke the House’s glass ceiling, we joined in the joy expressed by many women. How sad that she has failed to set a better tone for the Democrats. They’ve tried faithless electors. They tried the courts. They tried the deep state. They tried a special prosecutor. Not even impeachment, it seems, will bring closure.