Lisa Murkowski Wants It Both Ways - But I Suspect She's Alienated Everyone

I believe that Sen. Murkowski has thought hard on the issue of how to vote on the president's impeachment.  In the end, she has fallen into the trap laid for all people who try to see both sides (actually one needs to see all sides, but she talks in her speech more about two sides).  She has tried to cut the baby in half.  She's chastised the Senate (and the House) for having a rotten foundation, so the fair process she worked for failed.  BUT, nevertheless, she's voting against impeachment.

So she's probably alienated both sides.  I don't know what sort of bargains she's made with fellow Republicans, but I suspect her showing any sympathy at all for the House arguments is going to to be seen as challenging the president.  This will alienate members of her own party in Alaska and  she'll have a serious challenge in the 2022 primary.  Although acting 'moderate' she's decided to  vote to acquit Trump, and thus she'll have no support from the Democrats as she did last time when she ran as a write-in candidate.  No matter how much you wring your hands before doing it, voting to acquit won't cut it for those who are appalled at the president's behavior and the Senate majority's part of the 'jury' collusion with the defendant on trial issues, their  obfuscation of the issues, and refusal to hear more evidence.

The Republican Party simply has no more room for 'moderate' Republicans.  And the Democrats are tired of being teased by all the professions of 'making up my mind.'

Here's the video of her speech.  Below is the transcript with my comments in red.  I'd note the transcript comes from Sen. Murkowski's website and while it deviates slightly from the video, I'm guessing it's what she read from.




Transcript:

“I rise to address the trial of Donald John Trump. The founders gave this body the sole power to try all impeachments, and exercising that power is a weighty responsibility.
“This was only the third time in the history of our country that the Senate convened to handle a presidential impeachment, and only the second in the past 150 years.  I was part of a small group that worked to secure a fair, honest, and transparent structure for the trial, based on how this chamber handled the trial of President Clinton.  Twenty-four hours of arguments for each side, sixteen hours of questions from members, with the full House record admitted as evidence, should have been more than enough to answer the questions: do we need to hear more?  Should there be additional process?
“The structure we built should have been sufficient, but the foundation upon which it rested was rotten.
“The House rushed through what should be one of the most serious, consequential undertakings of the legislative branch simply to meet an artificial, self-imposed deadline.  Prior presidential impeachments resulted from years of investigations, where subpoenas were issued and litigated.

[The White House lawyers made two conflicting arguments:  1) that the House rushed this through, and 2) that there was no need for more information because the House had gathered an exhaustive collection of witnesses and documents.  Murkowski is leaning on their 'rushed it through' argument.  Of course, the years of litigation she mentions would mean that impeachment would drag on for years, which would have been against one of the other WH arguments - that impeachment focus prevents any legislation from getting passed.  Though they failed to mention the hundreds of passed House bills being blocked by the Senate Majority Leader.]

Where there were massive amounts of documents produced and witnesses deposed.  Where resistance from the executive was overcome through court proceedings and accommodations.
“The House failed in its responsibilities.  And the Senate should be ashamed by the rank partisanship that has been on display.  We cannot be the greatest deliberative body when we kick things off by issuing letters to the media instead of coming together to set the parameters of the trial and negotiate in good faith how we should proceed.  For all the talk of impartiality, it is clear that few in this chamber approached this with a genuinely open mind.  Some have been calling for this President to be impeached for years.  Others saw little need to even consider the arguments before stating their intentions to acquit.

She's a little cagey here.  When she accuses the House, she's clearly accusing the Democrats.  But when she accuses the Senate of 'rank partisanship' it's not clear if that's directed at the Republicans alone (who openly worked with the WH on how to proceed, to exclude witnesses, and try to get this done before the State of the Union speech.  Or if she is including the Democrats too.  Clearly she's implicating them when she talks about some calling for impeachment for years.  But, really, it doesn't matter when people called for impeachment.  It matters whether the charges are grave and the facts are certain.  

“Over the course of the past few weeks, we have all seen videos from twenty years ago, where members who were present during the Clinton trial took the exact opposite stance than they take today.  That level of hypocrisy is astounding even for D.C.

A good point.  

“The President’s behavior was shameful and wrong.  His personal interests do not take precedence over those of this great nation.  The president has the responsibility to uphold the integrity and honor of the office.  Not just for himself but for all future presidents.  Degrading the office, by actions or even name calling, weakens it for future presidents, and weakens our country.

More good points.  

“All of this rotted the foundation of the process, and this was why I reached the conclusion that there would be no fair trial.  While the trial was held in the Senate, it was litigated in the court of public opinion.

It's not based on the rules of a court of law.  The 'jury' worked with the defendant on the trial rules.  The foreman of the Senate/jury already declared the defendant would be acquitted from the beginning.  Public opinion IS important to impeachment.  Nixon resigned when public opinion changed and Republican senators told him they would vote for impeachment.  

“For half the country, there had already been far too much process.  They consider the entire impeachment inquiry to be baseless, and thought the Senate should have dismissed the case as soon as it reached us.  For the other half, no matter how many witnesses were summoned or deposed, no matter how many documents were produced, the only way the trial would have been considered “fair” was if it resulted in the President’s removal from office.

I think she's simplifying public opinion here.  She might have added that for at least 40% of the country, Trump could commit any crime and they would not have a problem.  But well more than half wanted to see witnesses called. I'm regularly astounded that Republicans keep chastising Democrats about fairness when the president violates all norms of fairness on a daily basis.  

“During the month that the House declined to transmit the articles to the Senate, the demon of faction extended his scepter, the outcome became clear, and a careless media cheerfully tried to put out the fires with gasoline.  

Let's give Murkowski's staff credit. "The demon of faction extended his scepter" comes from Federalist Paper # 65 written by Publius (Hamilton) where he writes about impeachment and who should carry it out.  The demon might come because of procrastination and prolonged inaction he argues.  But the thirty days the But the House held back the  articles of impeachment because the Senate Majority leader wouldn't disclose anything about how the trial would be conducted, is nothing compared to the years of litigation Murkowski was calling for earlier.  Here's part of that section from Hamilton:

". . . the injury to the innocent, from the procrastinated determination of the charges which might be brought against them; the advantage to the guilty, from the opportunities which delay would afford to intrigue and corruption; and in some cases the detriment to the State, from the prolonged inaction of men whose firm and faithful execution of their duty might have exposed them to the persecution of an intemperate or designing majority in the House of Representatives. Though this latter supposition may seem harsh, and might not be likely often to be verified, yet it ought not to be forgotten that the demon of faction will, at certain seasons, extend his sceptre over all numerous bodies of men." 

We debated witnesses instead of the case before the Senate. Rather than the President’s conduct, the focus turned to how a lack of additional witnesses could be used to undermine any final conclusion.

It's true, the White House counsel focused on witnesses and all other manner of process and theoretical legal issues.  The House Managers were much more focused on the details of Trump's violations  

“What started with political initiatives that degraded the Office of the President and left the Congress wallowing in partisan mud, threatened to drag the last remaining branch down along with us.  I have taken tough votes before to uphold the integrity of our courts.  

I'm assuming this refers to her not wanting to force the Chief Justice to become involved if the vote for witnesses was 50-50 and he would be called on the break the tie.  

And when it became clear that a tie vote in the Senate would simply be used to burn down our third branch of government for partisan political purposes, I said—enough.
“The response to the President’s behavior is not to disenfranchise nearly 63 million Americans and remove him from the ballot.

This is one of the specious arguments repeated over and over by the the White House defense team.  

1.  Impeachment is the remedy in the constitution for making the president accountable.  The idea that impeachment is illegitimate now because it "removes him from the ballot" is just plain wrong.  That is what an impeachment does.  Period.  The fact that this is the president's first term and he can run again is irrelevant.  There were no term limits in the Constitution, so when they wrote this they knew that impeachment would  remove someone who might run again.   Actually it appears that the Senate is given two options - they can vote to remove him from office, plus they can ban him from running for any future office.  But they don't have to do the latter.  So, if they only removed him from office, it's possible the Republicans could nominate him again.  So this wouldn't remove him from the ballot .
2.  "disenfranchise 63 million Americans" -  This argument neglects the fact that the 65,844,954 Americans who voted for Hillary Clinton were disenfranchised by the arcane rules of the electoral college.  Furthermore,  the 2018 election wiped out the large Republican majority in the House and gave the Democrats a large majority.  This more recent election gives us a better look at the will of the American people than 2016.  They empowered the House to proceed with impeachment.]

 The House could have pursued censure, not immediately jumped to the remedy of last resort.  I cannot vote to convict.  The Constitution provides for impeachment, but does not demand it in all instances.  An incremental first step, to remind the President that, as Montesquieu said, “Political virtue is a renunciation of oneself” and this requires “a continuous preference of the public interest over one’s own.” Removal from office, and being barred from ever holding another office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States is the political death penalty.  [Again, being barred from running for office again is not automatic.  Here's another opinion on that. Furthermore while 'political death penalty' might seem a horrible fate for a Senator, it's minor compared to actual death penalty.  Or even prison.  This is more like removing someone from a job for misdeeds.] The President’s name is on ballots that have already been cast. The voters will pronounce a verdict in nine months, and we must trust their judgment. [emphasis added]
“This process has been the apotheosis of the problem of Congressional abdication.  

"Apotheosis

Description  Apotheosis is the glorification of a subject to divine level and most commonly, the treatment of a human like a god. The term has meanings in theology, where it refers to a belief, and in art, where it refers to a genre. In theology, apotheosis refers to the idea that an individual has been raised to godlike stature. Wikipedia "

Through the refusal to exercise war powers, or relinquishing the power of the purse, selective oversight, and an unwillingness to check emergency declarations designed to skirt Congress – we have failed time and time again.  We cannot continue to cede authority to the executive. [So, since we have failed over and over again to reign in presidential usurpation of Congressional power, and even though you cite the president's failures in your eight paragraph, now is not the time to re-exert our power.  "We cannot continue to cede authority to the executive."  How does that lead to a vote to acquit?]
“The question that must be answered, given the intense polarization in our country, is where do we go from here?  Sadly, I have no definitive answers.  But I do have hope – because I must have hope.  As I tried to build consensus over the past few weeks I had many private conversations with my colleagues.  Many share my sadness for the state of our institutions.  It is my hope that we have found the bottom.  That both sides can look inward and reflect on the apparent willingness each has to destroy not just each other, but all of the institutions of our government. And for what?  Because it may help win an election?
“At some point – for our country – winning has to be about more than just winning – or we will all lose.”