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We need more Barbara Jordans. Issues of truth, justice, and loyalty in the impeachment of Trump.

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I listened to a number of the Judiciary speeches yesterday. A few were good. Many more dwelt on the speaker too much and on the topic too little. I listened to Barbara Jordan’s speech from the Nixon impeachment and was impressed by the economy of how she reached the quick of the issue and brought our emotions to bear. I believe it is such a powerful speech because it speaks to our basic sense of what is right and what is wrong, and what it means to be an American.

And so in the spirit of Barbara Jordan, I present the speech I wish I had heard yesterday, with the hope that perhaps we will hear it in the future:

Ultimately, Mr. Chairman, these long days and hours of hearings come down to a simple story and a simple moral choice. From the day that Mr. Trump released the call record of his conversation with Ukrainian president Zelensky, we have known that he was using the power of his office for personal gain, with the effect of corrupting our elections. All those hours of testimony simply confirmed that many other people knew about this perversion of presidential power and that only one was brave enough to put his or her career on the line to stop it.

The story of Donald Trump and Ukraine is a simple story, and it presents a simple moral choice. The right of ordinary Americans to express their aspirations for this country through the vote is one that hundreds and thousands of our families have suffered and died for. From the Continental Army army to the soldiers of justice led by Martin Luther King, all the American people have sought from their government is the right to have their voices heard through their vote. It is unelected kings, not presidents, who perpetuate their time in office through unjust means, not presidents. Let us say clearly that we have no king and the only ruler we accept is justice.  

Now, when I say that the American people sought the vote, I must hasten to add that not all the American people did so. During the Revolutionary War, many Americans wanted to stay subordinate to the king. Of their number, the most infamous is Benedict Arnold, who went on to burn down New London, Connecticut and slaughter Americans who tried to surrender at Groton Heights. Eventually he fled to be with the dictator of that day, King George III. But he was just the most well-known of the American Tories. And that tribe of people who would rather wear the yoke of submission to a king than to be free did not die out when our freedom was won and the Constitution was written.

Indeed, women didn’t vote in most states until 1917 and the Jim Crow laws that all but prevented voting by African Americans were the law of the land until 1965! Even today, we live in a nation where placebo ballots are handed out to allow American citizens to think they have voted when more likely than not, those ballots will not be examined. And we have placebo citizenship, where citizen who cannot afford to get their birth certificate or who are disabled or old and don’t drive can be denied the vote. This is not accident, but a deliberate choice to refuse the rule of justice and to accept the yoke of guilt and shame that comes from holding power through unjust means.

This is a season when traditionally joy fills our hearts as we celebrate light in a time of darkness. And yet I find bitterness and sorrow in my heart during this season. A foreign country has intervened in our elections and not every American has risen up to defend the right to vote. Indeed, one American has publicly and repeatedly welcomed foreign assistance to subvert those elections. Privately, he has abused the power of his office to extort that assistance. And it wasn’t just one phone call, or all the meetings and phone call that led up to it. The president is an unindicted co-conspirator along with Michael Cohen for election crimes. A number of Trump’s other close associates sit in jail or are awaiting sentencing or trial or indictment. While the crimes for which they were convicted have mostly to do with lying and unlawful personal enrichment, the lies have to do with election issues and the enrichment comes from bribes paid by foreigners seeking to buy influence.

The evidence of these betrayals  by our president and his associates are overwhelming. The president himself would have been charged with five felonies by Robert Mueller but for the fact that the president controls the Justice Department—and the Justice Department has claimed, without any judicial or legislative support, that the president cannot be tried while in office. That, by the way is the only reason why the president is not sitting in jail with Michael Cohen: because he controls the Justice Department. And Mr. Mueller has further said the lies and obstruction committed by the president and his associates prevented a full investigation of whether the president actually conspired with a foreign power. This obstruction continues today in the investigation which has resulted in articles of impeachment.

Some in Congress argue that no crimes have been charged. But the Congress does not prosecute crimes. The Congress sits as a counterweight to the president and to the courts. The Congress is the watchdog that guards against presidents who aspire to become kings. The alarms are ringing loudly in our ears. The president has said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. The president has said that Article II lets him do whatever he wants. We could dismiss these as hyperbole or jokes if the president were scrupulous about obeying the law in other regards. But he has not been so. Furthermore, he has met privately with our nation’s chief adversary and unlawfully suppressed the records of his meetings and phone calls so that even his own advisors do not know what he did. He has resisted all of this Committee’s efforts, and those of the Ways and Means, Foreign Affairs, and Intelligence Committees to understand what is going on. What is it that loves darkness? Evil.

We have chosen narrowly-drawn articles of impeachment only because the train of abuses committed by this president is too long and is the danger is too near. The president is taking steps to perpetuate his time in power through unjust means, which is well-illustrated by his attempt to use his office and the taxpayer’s money to coerce a “domestic political errand,” in the words of Dr. Fiona Hill. But this is only the picture on the cover of a weighty tome of this president’s corruption, lies, arrogance, and, yes, crimes. 

So, why do some watchdogs still sleep? The country is betrayed. The alarm bells are ringing. Our freedoms are at stake. Impeachment is the only peaceful tool at our disposal by which we may defend those freedoms. Colleagues: will you or will you not stand for the rule of justice? Let the spirit of truth and justice that animates our Republic speak to you.  Please, do not harden your hearts today, but open them to hear what is larger than words.


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