Republicans Aren’t Escaping Accountability This Time
Everything has finally come full circle.
Something interesting developed over the course of writing this article. It initially appeared Donald Trump somehow maneuvered to end his presidency early when the U.S. State Department’s website set the ending date of his tenure as President to today’s date. The department confirmed that it was in fact an error.
Despite the error, readers can still consider this article as a postmortem of Donald Trump’s political career (and potentially other Republicans).
Trump couldn’t outrun accountability forever
Adam Schiff had something of a Nostradamus moment back in 2019. After Trump’s [first] impeachment trial, Schiff attempted to appeal to Republicans in his closing argument.
“He is who he is,” Schiff declared. “You know it’s not going to stop. … It’s not going to stop unless the Congress does something about it.”
Republicans, of course, didn’t heed Schiff’s warning. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said, “This needs to end,” and other U.S. Senators and Representatives refused to even accept the context of Trump’s call to Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky in which Trump utterred 10 words which triggered the inquiry,
“I would like you to do us a favor, though”.
Republicans were giving Trump a free pass to do as he pleased which Trump has always done in the past.
Impeachment week begins
In her 60 Minutes interview — House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi seemed genuinely unnerved by the rioters who were looking for her during the U.S. Capitol attack last week. And with a growing voice of constituents demanding Trump be impeached — Pelosi made good on her promise after giving Vice-President Mike Pence 24 hours to invoke the 25th of Amendment or she would impeach Trump.
The article of impeachment simply accuses Trump of “incitement of insurrection”. It also cites his call to Georgia Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, whom Trump tried to persuade during the call. Trump begged, “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have.”
Not surprisingly, thar call triggered questions about what, if any laws, was he possibly breaking and there were ethical questions about a possible conflict of interest since he spoke with both the chief of investigation and Raffensberger while an investigation into Georgia’s elections were occurring.
But Trump sealed his fate way before that with his reckless actions.
It all came crashing down, just as Schiff predicted it would.
Things also might not bode well for Trump once he returns to life as a private citizen. There’s still state litigation against him and there are looming debts that are soon coming due. And while the latter obviously isn’t his greatest concern since he has many assets he can liquidate — it’s still a lot for someone who managed to outrun accountability for his actions for so long.
Republicans are on the chopping block too
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) have been two of the top targets in the GOP for calls of resignation. And what’s more, the two are also among the other Republicans — who vowed to reject certification of Biden’s win — have begun to lose out on donations from companies such as the Marriott International, health insurance network Blue Cross Blue Shield, and bank holding company Commerce Bancshares. (There’s a caveat that any of those companies can resume donations, but the move is still telling.)
And this is just the tip of the iceberg: there are many more companies dropping support for them and others who objected the election results.
Though Cruz and Hawley have condemned the action of the rioters — the latter believes that it’s Orwellian to target him. He calls those people the “woke mob” after publisher Simon & Schuster cancelled his contract.
Aside from his misuse use of the term Orwellian — he’s been adamant about suing the publisher and fighting the woke mob.
Other Republicans such as Lindsey Graham have been calling for Democrats to move on and have been preaching about unity.
But they believe that months of undermining the U.S. election and rallying a mob to storm the U.S. Capitol can be wiped away.
Americans are, thankfully, not having any of it.
Even if Marie-Antoinette probably never said, “Let them eat cake”, that’s exactly what I hope we’ve all decided they should do — as a united country.
They can join us after they’ve resigned and issued apologies.
Update 6:51 p.m. 01/11/2021: Congresswoman Cori Bush (MO-01) announced she is introducing H.Res.25. It will invoke the 14th Amendment. Section 3 to expel members of Congress who attempted to overturn the election which led to the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Update 9:10 p.m. 01/11/2021: Attorney General Karl Racine said Trump could face charges under the local criminal code in Washington, D.C.
