(Oct. 15). Consider this a desperate plea on behalf of the American people to members of both parties in the House and the Senate: Please, please, with regard to the Trump-Ukraine impeachment mess, stop acting like partisan hacks and start acting like sober, thoughtful, fair-minded statesmen.
This whole thing shouldn’t be about partisan advantage and not about next year’s elections. This is about something virtually sacred. This is about the health of the American constitutional system itself. Please start acting like it.
Please reserve judgment. Please examine evidence. Please play fair. Please stop attacking the other side for long enough to clean up your own side a bit. Democrats, please admit that, at the very least, both Joe and Hunter Biden showed bad judgment in dealing with Ukraine. Republicans, please admit that if a president takes the utterly unprecedented step of asking a foreign government to investigate a particular U.S. citizen who is under no U.S. investigation, the request is at least more than a little disturbing on its face.
Republicans, please have the guts to tell your voters that there is plenty more testimony to come, plenty of facts still to be examined, and serious issues at stake. Even without the quid pro quo, Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to probe his political rivals is worrisome, and if the quid and quo were tied together, it would be a very significant abuse. And please admit that the evidence already shows that implications in that direction are strong enough that the jury, so to speak, is still out.
Admit all of that, because you know the paragraph above is a rigorously accurate assessment of what we know so far.
Democrats, please have the guts to follow well-established precedent by voting to formally launch an impeachment inquiry….
[The full column is at this link.]
