The GOP ‘once saw their roles as legislators first and Republicans second.’ Trump has destroyed that

One of the many characteristics of The First Former President to be Indicted (Twice Thrice, Four Freaking Times, for now) is that he sucks all the oxygen out of the room of our national public discourse (not to mention that he just sucks in general). Another is that he’s a fascist who’d destroy our democracy without a second thought in order to save his own skin, but we’ll leave that aside for a moment. This chaos agent’s actions reverberate throughout our politics in a way no American figure has before—not even Richard Nixon, who resigned from the presidency in disgrace in the aftermath of Watergate.

That scandal brings to mind another comparison between then and now, namely how differently leading Republicans, in particular those in Congress, have reacted to the leader of their party facing investigation and accountability for his behavior. Let me start with a little hint: The Trumpist Republicans of today don’t come out of this comparison looking very good.

RELATED STORY: House Republicans swiftly act to obstruct on Trump’s behalf

After The Man Who Lost an Election and Tried to Steal it made his first court appearance and entered a plea in response to the deadly serious national security-related charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith in the classified documents case, we saw responses from a broad array of Republican officials. Overall, it ain’t pretty. The same goes for the responses to the Jan. 6-related Trump indictments as well as to the indictments in Georgia offered by most of the Republicans running, in theory at least, against Trump for the GQP presidential nomination, along with other top members of the Trumpist party.

who is speaking out?

There are some exceptions, no doubt, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski, Bill Cassidy, and Mitt Romney, Rep. Don Bacon, and Gov. Chris Sununu. Within the Republican presidential field only several have spoken out strongly, but none of them exactly qualify as a frontrunner. Chris Christie said Trump “has been a one-man crime wave. Look, he’s earned every one of [the indictments]. If you look at it, every one of these is self-inflicted.” Will Hurd shared, “Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison.” Asa Hutchinson said, “I have said from the beginning that Donald Trump’s actions on January 6 should disqualify him from ever being president again.” The other candidates have been fairly mealy-mouthed at best (even after the fourth indictment, which caused little change in how they talked about the erstwhile frontrunner), with the Nikki Haley versus Nikki Haley debate being particularly pathetic. Meanwhile, a number of them have stated they’d even pardon the insurrectionist-in-chief.

Given his slavish loyalty along with the completely false presentations in support of his boss he made prior to the 2020 election, the assessments former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr offered on the documents case as well as on the Jan. 6 indictments carry perhaps the most weight. However, as Daily Kos’ Laura Clawson so helpfully reminds us, he remains a “sleazeball.”

But for the most part, the sycophantic (not to mention dangerous to our democracy) behavior of congressional Republicans is both awful and yet exactly what you’d expect, in particular from the MAGA caucus over in the House. It doesn’t get much more moronic than Barely Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who was asked whether it was perhaps problematic that the disgraced former president was knowingly storing national security secrets next to the toilet. He replied that “a bathroom door locks.” (Hey, Kev, you know it only locks from the inside, right?) Looks like he’s locked the remnants of his integrity behind such a door and has thrown away the key. Additionally, his comments regarding the Jan. 6 indictments were less laughable, but if anything more cynical.

Regarding the attempt by McCarthy and the other Trump stooges to attack the indictment by drawing false parallels to investigations of President Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton, Jesse Wegman of The New York Times thoroughly dismantled that malarkey one bald-faced lie at a time. What’s so harmful is that Trump—the most prodigious liar in American history—has set a precedent that Republicans who lie will never be punished by their own party. Would there have been a George Santos or a shady grifter like Vivek Ramaswamy in our politics if there hadn’t already been a Donald Trump, who has led with lies and deceit right from the start of his public career?

Moving forward, will we see more members of what remains of the Party of Trump actually reject their pro-crime, anti-law enforcement stance and turn on their leader as more evidence comes into public view? That’s a key question for the present.

looking to the past

But how about the past? Specifically, how did Republicans measure up on that very question a half-century ago, the last time a president from their party behaved criminally and put our constitutional democracy at risk? To start with, it's not as simple as saying that Republicans back then immediately turned on Nixon once reporting made clear by spring 1973 that the White House was engaged in a cover-up. However, during the following year, two profoundly important developments took place.

First, Republicans in the House backed the impeachment inquiry's subpoena efforts. Nixon had claimed that executive privilege gave him the right to withhold recordings of Oval Office conversations along with other relevant evidence. Michigan Republican Rep. Edward Hutchinson, the ranking member of his party on the House Judiciary Committee that ultimately voted to impeach Nixon, utterly rejected such a claim, stating that “executive privilege, in the face of an impeachment inquiry, must fail.”

Rep. Edward Hutchinson said “executive privilege, in the face of an impeachment inquiry, must fail.”

The House agreed overwhelmingly, and in a vote of 410-4 (!) gave the committee the authority to subpoena whatever it felt necessary. The four no votes were all Republican. Those subpoenas resulted in the production of the tapes that ultimately brought down a president. Second, when that overwhelming evidence came out, House and Senate Republicans assessed it fairly and told Nixon he had to go.

Garrett Graff, who wrote the recent book “Watergate: A New History,” offered the following summary to The New York Times: “In 1972 to 1974, the Republicans participated as good-faith members of the process. They saw their roles as legislators first and Republicans second.” Regarding the charges leveled against a president from their own party, “they definitely were skeptical” at first; however, ultimately “they followed the facts where they led.”

One separate but related point of comparison concerns the media. During Watergate, most Americans got their information from outlets that reported, well, the news. Now a good chunk of Republican voters soak up propaganda from sources like Fox, which just this June shamelessly and without any factual basis for doing so characterized the elected president of the United States as a “wannabe dictator.” (At least the producer who was responsible resigned three days later, but the damage was done.) That’s not good for our democracy.

Getting back to the politicians, Garrett further explained that when Nixon’s own second-in-command, then-Vice President Spiro Agnew, went after his boss’ enemies, he focused his ire “mainly against the press, not the F.B.I. or the special prosecutor.” Trump, on the other hand, has assailed our entire system of justice. He called Jack Smith a “deranged lunatic” and a “psycho;” referred to “the ‘Thugs’ from the Department of Injustice;” slandered Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who filed the charges against him in Georgia, by calling her a racist; and attacked Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the Jan. 6 case, as “highly partisan” and “VERY BIASED AND UNFAIR.” Ohio State law professor Joshua Dressler stated, “This could be interpreted as an attempt to intimidate Judge Chutkan.” Not even the Nixon White House went that far. Trump’s allies have shown themselves to be equally erratic—he sets the example and others follow it blindly—with Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona going all the way to no sense left at all.

Defund and dismantle the FBI.

— Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) May 15, 2023

Beyond Biggs, we’ve already seen violent rhetoric spewing forth from Trump supporters, along with threats of violence credible enough to lead to criminal charges. Unfortunately we can expect more of this as his trials move forward. Fuck a L’Orange himself has already incited one violent insurrection, and that was just to keep his day job. Do we really think he’ll hold back when the stakes are a prison sentence? That’s one punishment he won’t be able to buy his way out of.

but what about the democrats?

Because we’ve discussed Republicans acting in a bipartisan fashion during Watergate and contrasted that against the overwhelming majority of Republicans in the Trump era, it’s important to also address how Democrats acted during the investigation and impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. First, yes, Democrats were unified in opposing Clinton’s impeachment and removal from office, but there are fundamental differences between what happened then and what Trump has done over the past few years.

Most importantly, Clinton was investigated for private behavior. Trump (and Nixon), on the other hand, were investigated and, in the Tangerine Palpatine’s case, impeached for abuses of office that rendered them unfit to serve (though Trump obviously has some private behavior he’s on the hook for as well). Both demonstrated themselves to be threats to the rule of law.

Second, Robert Fiske, the initial, nonpartisan special counsel assigned to investigate Clinton, was unjustly removed by a panel of Republican judges and replaced by hyper-partisan Ken Starr. Fiske had at that point already concluded that there was no criminality in the Whitewater or Vince Foster cases, which happened to be the matters he was charged with investigating. Republicans in the House ultimately impeached Clinton over wrongdoing that would never have occurred without Starr coming in and forcing him to testify under oath.

Democrats were right to vote against impeachment and conviction there because not only did Clinton’s behavior, wrong though it was, not rise to the level of necessitating the overturning of the will of the people, the Starr process was partisan from the start. And the American public consistently agreed with the Democrats’ stance. In other words, just as Republicans acted on the side of our Constitution by working with Democrats during Watergate, Democrats did likewise by opposing Republicans during the Starr/Clinton business.

Getting back to the current cast of characters, Jackie Calmes wrote a year ago that Trump-era Republicans—as well as the Republican voters who keep rewarding them in primary elections—had already failed the American people by letting Trump off the hook for the unconscionable crimes he committed while in office. Will they, as a party, take this final opportunity provided by Smith and Willis to redeem themselves? Don’t hold your breath.

Here’s one thing we can say about how leading Republicans acted in Nixon’s time—a time when, as Calmes pointed out, “the truth had a common meaning to both parties.” Back then they knew when the game was up, and they made sure Nixon wouldn’t end up being able to raise $7 million for another White House run off a mugshot.

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putting democracy over partisanship

Were Watergate-era Republicans in Congress reading the political tea leaves? They couldn’t ignore them, that’s for sure (and neither will the Republicans of 2023, many of whom will only turn on Trump if and when it suits them politically). But beyond the polls, enough Nixon-era Republicans at least recognized the gravity of what their leader, the president of the United States, had done. They were prepared to join with Democrats in Congress to remove him from office. They sealed his political fate. They put democracy over partisanship. Country over party.

On the other hand, when Putin’s puppet got impeached the first time, Mitt Romney was the only Republican senator to vote for conviction. The second time around, he was joined by six others. I guess that represents progress? On the other hand, of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over Jan. 6, only a paltry two made it back into the next Congress. (Four retired, including Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, while four were defeated in GQP primaries.) Either way, I have not a single doubt that in the unimaginable hypothetical circumstance where a Democratic president had behaved exactly as Trump did, every single Republican member of the House would have voted to impeach, and every single Senate Republican would have voted to convict. Oh, and so would have every Democrat in their respective chambers. That’s another pretty damn important point of comparison to make here.

As it stands right now, congressional Republicans have no official responsibility for what becomes of Donald Trump, either criminally or politically. His criminal fate rests in the hands of the folks serving on various juries in Florida, New York, Georgia, D.C., and who knows where else, while his political fate, at least at first, is in the hands of Republican primary voters.

When it comes to moral responsibility, congressional Republicans as a whole showed absolutely none of it when they were charged with assessing whether Fuck a L’Orange should have been impeached and removed from the presidency. If they had acted responsibly, maybe our country wouldn’t be stuck where we are now: in a room without any oxygen.

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Ian Reifowitz is the author of The Tribalization of Politics: How Rush Limbaugh's Race-Baiting Rhetoric on the Obama Presidency Paved the Way for Trump (Foreword by Markos Moulitsas)

14 Republicans who voted to impeach, convict, and remove Clinton will vote to acquit Trump today

This afternoon, Senate Republicans will vote almost certainly with unanimity to acquit Donald Trump of the charges included in two impeachment articles brought against him—abuse of power and obstruction of justice. If that acquittal wasn’t already completely obvious, all doubt was removed last night by the enthusiastic fawning over the lawless Donald J. Trump’s spew of fabrications, exaggerations, and braggadocio in a speech of vindication and denial applauded by men and women who really, clearly don’t care about the gaping wound their decision will leave in constitutional norms. Not yet fatal to democracy, but this gives Trump the freedom to do something that could be.

Fourteen of those Republican senators who will vote today also voted on the impeachment of Bill Clinton 21 years ago. Eight of them, then members of the House, voted in favor of two articles of impeachment—perjury and obstruction of justice for lying under oath. Six others, who were already in the Senate then and still are, voted to convict Clinton. As you might guess, they had very different things to say about impeachment and what was impeachable at the time than they have said lately.

Below are some of their remarks during Clinton’s impeachment.

First, a look at the eight current Republican senators who were members of the House in 1998-99. All eight voted in favor of the articles of impeachment against Clinton.

Roy Blunt (Missouri)

"No president can be allowed to subvert the judiciary or thwart the investigative responsibility of the legislature," Blunt said, adding that Clinton had committed "serious felonious acts that strike at the heart of our judicial system. [...] Violating these oaths or causing others to impede the investigation into such acts are serious matters that meet the standard for impeachment."

Mike Crapo (Idaho)

"Our entire legal system is dependent on our ability to find the truth. That is why perjury and obstruction of justice are crimes," Crapo said. "Perjury and obstruction of justice are public crimes that strike at the heart of the rule of law — and therefore our freedom — in America."

Lindsey Graham (South Carolina)

He was one of the House impeachment managers in Clinton’s trial. "He doesn't have to say, 'Go lie for me,' to be a crime. He doesn't have to say, 'Let's obstruct justice,' for it to be a crime. You judge people on their conduct, not a magic phrase," Graham said. “[Impeachment is] not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office."

Jerry Moran (Kansas)

"I choose to be on the side that says no person is above the law; that this is a nation of laws, not men; that telling the truth matters; and that we should expect our public officials to conduct themselves in compliance with the highest ethical standards," Moran said.

Rob Portman (Ohio)

Portman said, “For myself, I believe the evidence of serious wrongdoing is simply too compelling to be swept aside. I am particularly troubled by the clear evidence of lying under oath in that it must be the bedrock of our judicial system.” He followed up with a press statement after he had voted, saying: “Committing perjury, obstructing justice and abusing the power of the presidency violate the rule of law that all citizens—even the president—must obey.”

John Thune (South Dakota)

Thune said, "There is one standard of justice that applies equally to all, and to say or do otherwise will undermine the most sacred of all American ideals. President Clinton has committed federal crimes, and there must be a reckoning, or no American shall ever again be prosecuted for those same crimes."

Richard Burr (North Carolina)

Burr said, "The United States is a nation of laws, not men. And I do not believe we can ignore the facts or disregard the constitution so that the president can be placed above the law."

Roger Wicker (Mississippi)

Wicker said that if Clinton urged Monica Lewinsky to lie, it "would amount to a federal felony, and that would mean serious, serious problems for President Clinton."

And here are the six Republicans who were in the Senate in 1998-99 and voted to convict Clinton:

Chuck Grassley (Iowa)

Grassley said that Clinton's “misdeeds have caused many to mistrust elected officials. Cynicism is swelling among the grass roots. His breach of trust has eroded the public's faith in the office of the presidency." The "true tragedy" of the case, he said, was "the collapse of the president's moral authority." He co-signed a statement during the impeachment proceedings pointing out that federal law "criminalizes anyone who corruptly persuades or engages in misleading conduct with the intent to influence the testimony of any person in an official proceeding."

Mike Enzi (Wyoming)

Bill Clinton "was intending to influence the testimony of a likely witness in a federal civil rights proceeding," Enzi said. "President Clinton was, in fact, trying to get Betty Currie to join him in his web of deception and obstruction of justice."

Jim Inhofe (Oklahoma)

Along with five other Republican senators, including Jeff Sessions and Pat Roberts, Inhofe signed a statement during the impeachment proceedings nothing that federal law "criminalizes anyone who corruptly persuades or engages in misleading conduct with the intent to influence the testimony of any person in an official proceeding."

Mitch McConnell (Kentucky)

McConnell said in a statement, "Do we want to retain President Clinton in office, or do we want to retain our honor, our principle, and our moral authority? For me, and for many members in my impeachment-fatigued party, I choose honor." He added, "The president of the United States looked 270 million Americans in the eye, and lied, deliberately and methodically. He took an oath to faithfully execute the laws of this nation, and he violated that oath. He pledged to be the nation's chief law enforcement officer, and he violated that pledge. He took an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and he willfully and repeatedly violated that oath."

Pat Roberts (Kansas)

In a statement, Roberts said that Clinton had sought to block the investigation into his actions. "Do these actions rise to the level envisioned by our founding fathers in the Constitution as 'high crimes and misdemeanors' so warranting removal from office? Our Constitution requires that the threshold for that judgment must be set by each senator sitting as a juror. Again, I believe an open-minded individual applying Kansas common sense would reach the conclusion that I reached."

Richard Shelby (Alabama)

The senator said after voting, “After reviewing the evidence, I believe that the House managers proved beyond a reasonable doubt that President Clinton obstructed justice. Therefore, I voted for his conviction and removal for the offenses charged in Article II. However, I do not believe that the House managers met the legal requirements of proving perjury beyond a reasonable doubt. Therefore, I voted against conviction and removal for the offenses charged in Article I.”

For your reading displeasure, let me also include the words of then-Sen. Jeff Sessions, since he could return to the Senate next year:

It has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty that President William Jefferson Clinton perjured himself before a federal grand jury and has persisted in a continuous pattern of lying and obstructing justice. The chief law enforcement officer of the land, whose oath of office calls on him to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, crossed the line and failed to defend and protect the law and, in fact, attacked the law and the rights of a fellow citizen. Under our Constitution, equal justice requires that he forfeit his office. For these reasons, I felt compelled to vote to convict and remove the President from office. ...

“It is crucial to our system of justice that we demand the truth. I fear that an acquittal of this president will weaken the legal system by providing an option for those who consider being less than truthful in court. Whereas the handling of the case against President Nixon clearly strengthened the nation's respect for law, justice and truth, the Clinton impeachment may unfortunately have the opposite result.