Is John Roberts Up To a Senate Impeachment Trial? – By David Catron (American Spectator) / Nov 26 2019
The chief justice has a history of succumbing to pressure from the political class.
The Democrats have manifestly failed to build the national consensus necessary to remove a sitting president from office. The “impeachment inquiry” decreed by Nancy Pelosi in late September, combined with Adam Schiff’s inequitable conduct of the subsequent public hearings, have produced the reverse of their intended result. Several reliable voter surveys show that they weakened support for impeachment among Independent voters, particularly those in crucial swing states, while hardening support for the president among Republicans. Yet the Democratic leadership is clearly determined to pass articles of impeachment against Trump, without regard to the legal merits or the misgivings of “moderate” members of their own caucus.
When the Democrats pass their impeachment resolution, the sordid spectacle will move to the Senate, where Chief Justice John Roberts must preside over a trial that will determine if the president has actually committed an offense that would justify his removal. This should worry the president and his supporters. Historically, the role of the chief justice in these proceedings has been somewhat symbolic. Yet it will be necessary for him to rule on a number of important motions. The weak Democratic case against President Trump, combined with the Democrats’ penchant for manipulating procedural rules, all but guarantees that they will inundate Roberts with a tsunami of parliamentary maneuvers that he may be ill-equipped to manage.
During the Clinton impeachment trial, Chief Justice William Rehnquist was forced to spend entire days refereeing disputes over frivolous Democratic motions. Almost an entire day, for example, was squandered arguing over a motion to dismiss the two primary articles of impeachment. The Republicans objected, of course. Rehnquist consulted with the Parliamentarian and ruled, only to encounter another such motion and another objection. The transcript of that day (January 25, 1999) shows that the words “object” or “objection” appear 29 times before that motion was resolved. Throughout this episode Rehnquist remained unflappable and in control of the proceedings. Does Roberts possess such mettle?
Moreover, even if the chief justice is fast enough on his feet to avoid some procedural blunder that harms the president’s case, it isn’t at all clear that he is immune to the general Beltway aversion to the homo novus. This is what Roman patricians called unwelcome outsiders who achieved high office and implemented unwelcome innovations. The most famous of these “new men” was Cicero, whose political enemies eventually contrived to exile. A similar impulse is behind much of the animosity that our political class feels for Donald Trump, and Roberts would seem to share that prejudice. He raised eyebrows a year ago by publicly rebuking Trump for referring to U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar as an “Obama judge”:
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