Why we need a trial
In 1969 I, like most Americans, was fascinated with the moon landing. I was very young, but I have vivid memories of building plastic models of the Saturn V and especially the lunar lander. The lander model even came with a little base that looked like the moon. My memories of watching the landing while I lay on a shag carpet may have been enhanced by the number of times I have seen it replayed, but the feeling I had working on that lander was all mine. I kept an interest in science all my life and went on to receive an engineering degree.
Some 20 years later I was flipping through TV channels and caught the beginning of a show about space. I quickly realized that this was a ‘documentary’ that set out to prove that the moon landing had been a hoax. At the end of the hour I was troubled, to say the least. The case seemed overwhelming, with what looked like fact after fact backing their claim. The next day I brought the subject up to a colleague. Fortunately, he was able to guide me to a video produced by NASA which addressed and easily dismissed the claims of the landing deniers.
My point? The Democrats have now laid out the best case they have, and that is all the public has seen. Buoyed by the media, these ‘facts’ may now seem overwhelming. A Senate trial would allow the President’s team to flood the country with information that has, for the most part, been repressed. The media would be in the awkward position of having to report what happened each day and, in the process, relay information damaging to the Democrats.
On the other hand…
The details of the Democrat’s rambling inquiry have long since passed the average American’s attention span. Bringing out more names, dates, phone calls and the like has confused the issue to the point where the majority of those that don’t like Trump have just thrown up their hands and moved on to something else. They are trusting the Democrats to get impeachment done and then just show them the final result without all the details. So if the Democrats decide that they want to avoid giving Trump’s team the opportunity to lay out their case and don’t vote to impeach, most folks will just assume that there was nothing there and this all was a waste of time.
So the Democrats are in a tough spot. Send the case to the Senate where the President will be exonerated and many of their dirty secrets and lies will be revealed or let it fizzle and never even bring the issue for a vote in the House. I honestly don’t see a way they win on this, and the end result may be that many of their supporters lose their budding interest in politics, decide it is all a sham, and stay away from the polls in November.
By the way – I couldn’t find out if the Senate has to have the case handed to them by the House in order to have a trial, but it seems that is the case. So the Senate could not go ahead without having the House vote to impeach. I am not sure if that would be the right way to go anyway. If they don’t get an impeachment in the House the best thing may be to just quit while ahead. Although it would be great to get the President’s case out the cost may be too high.