"From a purely legal standpoint, the case against Trump has become moot and academic."
The Trump administration came in with smoldering arrogance in wanting to change the international political landscape that mankind collectively built without him looking back that he has only four years as President with an extra bonus of four years for the Americans to judge him how he fared in his governance. There was exuberance that he wanted to turn the world upside down. He wanted America to be the first, not minding that the world will not follow all what it wants.
He bombed Syria with 50 cruise missiles on suspicion it used poison gas against its civilian population while the US is agitating the Syrians to get rid of Assad. He wanted to change the rules on trade by imposing tariff on countries he naively think of giving the US a bad deal in trade; ordered his country to withdraw from such important world organizations; from the Paris Accord on climate change, the WHO, from the proposed multilateral trade of the Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Pacific agreement; close its border with Mexico and tightened immigration; ordered the killing of Iran’s top general Qasem Soleimani, recognized Jerusalem as the new capital of the Western-conceived Jewish state of Israel; and attempted to revoke the one-China policy US policy since 1972.
Trump wanted to change the world not knowing that the US is a co-passenger and transient in a world that lives on cooperation and shares what is common to mankind.
When the ominous signal showed he will be defeated, his first impulse was to cry he was cheated, the same reason voiced by people with narcissistic arrogance, which is to deny that the curtain is about to fall on him. Maybe he did not directly instigate his red neck followers to ransack the Capitol Hill but definitely his conduct as sore loser was telling that the gathering could break loose. His horde of fanatical supporters stormed and ransacked the so-called “citadel of democracy” causing death to three protestors and to a police officer. It was an embarrassment to the bigots for freedom and democracy seeing how their capital turned upside down that the democrats now want to punish politically unkempt Trump as quickly as possible.
In an unprecedented move, the Democratic Party headed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California moved to impeach the President for the second time. Note that on December 18, 2019, the 116th US Congress impeached Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. On February 5, 2020 the Senate acquitted Trump on both counts. The votes were 52-48 on the first count and 53-47 to acquit on the second count. The votes were sharply divided along party lines. Mitt Romney became the first senator to vote for impeachment and voting to convict him “guilty” on the first count.
The second impeachment occurred on January 13, 2021, one week before Trump’s term expired. The 117th US Congress adopted one article of impeachment against him for “inciting to insurrection,” alleging that Trump incited the January 6 storming of the US Capitol.
Now that the US Senate is about to decide whether President Trump shall be convicted for his alleged crime of insurrection, none of these people who want the blood of Trump to be shed could recall that when the marauding followers of Black Lives Matters were chanting in the major cities of the US to ransack, loot and burn down business establishment, nobody from among the authors seeking his impeachment dared to secure the arrest of those economically disenfranchised blacks lording it over in the streets to seeking to empty the stores of anything of value to them.
There are many questions on the propriety of impeaching the former President. The great majority of the legal scholars are one in saying that Trump is most likely to get an acquittal. Those that believe in his acquittal in his first impeachment was evidently based on party loyalty which means that his fate was decided by the majority of the members of the Republican Party who controlled the Senate and remained loyal to him. This explains why many political analysts are one in asking just how can the Senate convict an impeached former President when he is no longer in office, much that the basis for his impeachment connotes that he remains in office which is not the case.
Impeaching the President, even when he is no longer in office, remains logically plausible because US laws on this issue treats impeachment proceeding as a political and not a legal issue. Besides, there is an underlying reason why the Democrats want him out of US politics for good, and the only way to keep him out of the race is to convict him. It seems that the democrats are bent in using a crowbar to keep him out of the race. Remember, he was quoted saying he might just run again for president in 2024 banking on the 74 million votes he garnered which is more than enough to de-establish the gamut of a double-dealing US policy.
Political thinkers who owe their loyalty to the Republic tried their best to conceive of a scheme to convince Vice President Mike Pence to take over the presidency from the outgoing President who was defeated in his re-election bid to Joe Biden using the 25th Amendment of the US Constitution. This can happen if the President is sick or disabled for a short time. It could also happen until the end of the President’s terms, if the President died, resigned or is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.
Technically, the Democrats cannot remove him from office because the charge in the second impeachment states that he incited the public to insurrection on January 6, 2021 and for which he was impeached on January 13, 2021. From a purely legal standpoint, the case against Trump has become moot and academic, much that the conviction is to implement the punishment which cannot be done because the person is no longer in office.
Many doubt it very much whether the Senate can summon the former President to shed light or testify about the riot that took place at the Capitol Hill. Remember, Trump in this case is being summoned to appear before the Senate for his impeachment, and he cannot be a witness against himself. It would be equally ludicrous when one is sought to be impeached when the office no longer belongs to him. There is no showing Trump ordered them to ransack the nest of his political enemies. Maybe the Democrats wanted to use the footage of the video showing how, in one instance, he instigated the public who were more emotional in obeying to the exaltation on what many considered a political charlatan.
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