Charles Ruff - Attorney for President William Jefferson Clinton
"The genius of impeachment lay in the fact that it could punish the man without punishing the office."
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr - American Historian
In 1998, President William Jefferson Clinton was brought up on impeachment charges, making him only the second President to undergo impeachment proceedings in front of the nation. The charges stemmed from an investigation into the Clinton's real estate dealings that led to the President perjuring himself in front of grand jury when responding to a question about an illicit affair he was later discovered to have had with one of his interns, Monica Lewinsky. Obstruction of justice charges were also filed.
The resulting trial ended in an acquittal of the President, though it was clear wrongdoings had been done. Yet, the question remained as to whether Clinton, in being the President, had used his office for his own personal gain at the expense of the country. Had he committed high crimes and misdemeanors as President?
Perhaps as an answer to that, then Senator Jeff Sessions summed up the result of that impeachment proceeding this way:
"Whereas the handling of the case against President Nixon clearly strengthened the nation's respect for the law, justice and truth, the Clinton impeachment may unfortunately have the opposite result."
It is clear that while Nixon was under investigation for what eventually became a near unanimous belief he used his office inappropriately to help seek his re-election, Clinton's misgivings, though certainly of flawed character, may not have risen to the level where impeachment was necessary.
We now find ourselves at another point in history, wherein the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, finds himself at the front door of an impeachment proceeding. The question of whether he has committed high crimes and misdemeanors as to deem himself no longer fit for office is up to debate by those that will wage such arguments.
What is not up to debate is the pain this nation feels, and the divisive nature which this administration has sought to paint the process. Never mind the reason it has come to this, but with witnesses lining up around the block to contradict the administration's stated positions on its dealings with Ukraine, the one thing that is clear is that this is not a manufactured crisis.
Many Republicans, and even those whom I refer to as friends, still insist that impeachment was a foregone conclusion, electing to point to a book review the Washington Post days ran near the time of the election of a historian's thoughts of why Trump could end up in an impeachment proceeding such as this one, or hearkening back to those that claim since Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by three million votes, the election was essentially a sham.
Such articles appeared in many publications based on the appearance of impropriety in many of Trump's business dealings, including, but not limited to, Trump University. There was also unease at the insistence by Donald Trump that his taxes were under audit and could not be released, an argument that at the time seemed fraught with inconsistencies. Left wing publications also made the case that with Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote, the electoral college has lost its value, thus tainting the wishes of the majority of the population. So some of their wariness might be considered warranted.
However, what the above lacks is any accountability of the President and his advisers behavior since November of 2016, and reflection on what those choices have had on our country and its citizens. The proposal to remove the electoral college can be debated, but it is hardly the time to do so days after a heated election process.
The impeachment process itself is clearly defined, but what is not is how to deal with it and its aftermath. At the heart of any impeachment should be the best intentions of the country and protecting the rule of law. One thing that I would hope all Americans agree on is that the law is tantamount to our country being whole. The rule of law works only so much as we condemn those who break it, and if such offender happens to be the President of the United States, it becomes even more imperative that the process be encouraged, painful as it may be. If the President is allowed to break the law and is not held to account, the precedent it sets for any future leaders and those under his governance would be perilous to say the least. The law is up for interpretation by the courts, but the responsibility of the two other branches of government is to create new ones and enforce current ones. Thus Lindsay Graham and Adam Schiff's opinion of whether impeachment is necessary is irrelevant. The law as it stands determines this.
What remains after this proceeding is just as important as the proceeding itself. Those that have lashed out in anger proclaiming loyalty to the President at all costs are no more helpful than those that have sought his removal at all costs. Each carry the pain of feeling betrayed by our country and our system of government, and each will have to come to their own reckoning of whether or not they believe and trust in the process, despite what they know of the other party. Narratives are developed in such ways and such narratives developed over a long period of time become damaging. If you don't believe this, see the narratives that have enveloped Palestinian and Israeli relations, plunging both groups into an endless conflict devoid of any substantive talks, and often relegating them to finger-pointing that gets nowhere.
What is certain is that the pain of this once United States is palpable, made more so by the lack of solid past political discourse paired with lack of filter on anonymous social media. How we treat each other will determine, no matter the outcome, whether we survive this. No matter who is in the right and who is in the wrong, somewhere the impasse dyke must give way to allow the flow of ideas in both directions with less personal criticisms and more substantive critique.
The world has looked to the United States for decades as a model of how democracies can work. We have ceased to be that model, and may, in fact, become nothing more than a warning for future attempts at the great experiment in citizen run governance. Nowhere on earth do people carry the tremendous responsibility of citizenship in the way Americans do. Nowhere do people truly enjoy the opportunity and possibility that America has offered its citizenry. Nowhere has a larger group of people recently forgotten their civic lessons, ignored its processes and attended to their personal wishes over the betterment of the whole.
Our country's responsibility sits only with its citizens, not only to understand the government at hand, but to employ at its helm responsible people who have its best interest at heart.
We all would be wise to learn to use it again and to use it wisely. Soon.
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