Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

It’s all over but for the grinding of teeth – and the possibility down the road, if President Donald Trump is reelected to office, of yet another impeachment debacle. “Trump Acquitted” a Hartford paper blared on its front page – to no one’s surprise. The impeachment indictment in the U.S. House, controlled by Democrats, and an acquittal in the U.S. Senate, controlled by Republicans, were both foregone conclusions because, though the trappings of the proceedings in both chambers are quasi-judicial, the process is entirely a political affair.

'Sentence first -- verdict afterwards '   -- The Queen to Alice in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass It’s difficult to know where to begin with the story “ Blumenthal optimistic about GOP support in Senate for impeachment .” Perhaps one should begin by noting that no Republican in the U.S. Senate is Speaker of the U.S. House Nancy Pelosi or U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal. Reversing a sustained determination to leave impeachment on the shelf, Pelosi last week announced that the House, now in Democrat hands, has begun an “impeachment inquiry.” There are crucial differences between an impeachment inquiry and impeachment. Impeachment involves 1) the passing of a bill of impeachment in the House, and 2) garnering enough votes in a Senate trial to convict and remove from office the offender, in this case President Trump. Removal from office is the only sanction that applies to impeachment. Honest number runners would rate #2 at zero.

Realistically, what is the possibility that President Donald Trump will be impeached and removed from office before the next election? Impeachment is a two-step process. First there is an impeachment proceeding in the U.S. House of Representatives, now controlled by Democrats; then there is a trial in the U.S. Senate, presently controlled by Republicans. If the bill of impeachment is accepted by the House and the trial in the Senate is successful, the offender – in this case President Donald Trump – is removed from office, the only punishment allowed in an impeachment proceeding. Since the Senate is controlled by Republicans, the possibility that Trump will be removed from office before the next election is remote, so improbable that it ought not to be taken seriously. Pelosi’s “impeachment investigation,” announced before a transcript of a telephone conversation between Trump and newly elected President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky had been released to the public, is an effor...