The dean of the U.S. Senate on Monday castigated the body’s Republican leadership for failing to guarantee a fair and impartial trial of President Donald Trump.
As the Senate prepared to vote on the rules of the trial, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) of bending to the wishes of the White House.
“He’s treating the Senate as though it is a branch of the executive, which of course it’s not,” Leahy told Seven Days. “I think no matter what comes of this, if there’s not some significant changes in the procedure, history books are always going to [say] the whole thing was a farce.”
Vermont’s two U.S. senators are likely to play notable, if different, roles in the trial, which is expected to begin in earnest on Wednesday.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, will have to divide his time between the Senate proceedings and the campaign trail. He held events in New Hampshire over the weekend and was scheduled to appear in South Carolina and Iowa on Monday — then in Iowa again on Wednesday night.
Speaking to reporters at the Capitol last week, Sanders expressed displeasure with the timing of the trial. “I would rather be in Iowa today. There’s a caucus there in two and a half weeks,” he said. “I’d rather be in New Hampshire and Nevada and so forth. But I swore a constitutional oath as a United States senator to do my job, and I’m here to do my job.”
Sanders has not said whether he will miss any portion of the trial. He did not respond to an interview request.
Leahy’s role may be notable for a different reason: the institutional memory he brings to Trump’s trial. First elected to the Senate soon after president Richard Nixon resigned from office, Leahy has previously participated in three impeachment proceedings: two for federal judges and one for president Bill Clinton, whom the Senate ultimately acquitted.
At the time of Clinton’s trial, Leahy was serving as ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He was tasked with deposing three witnesses: Clinton confidantes Vernon Jordan and Sidney Blumenthal, as well as former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, whose sexual relationship with the president was at the heart of the proceeding.
This trial, Leahy said, is likely to be “entirely different” from what he’s seen in the past. During Clinton’s trial, Senate leaders of both parties “felt the reputation and the meaning of the Senate was also on trial,” Leahy said. “We had to do it in a serious way that historians [could] look back at and say, ‘OK, we did it in the right way.’ Now, we have the majority leader saying he’s coordinating everything with the accused, the president. He wants to make it as quick as he can and acquit him.”
Leahy said he was particularly bothered by Republican resistance to taking new testimony and hearing from witnesses who did not take part in the House’s impeachment proceedings. At the very least, he said, Trump’s acting chief of staff and budget director, Mick Mulvaney, and his former national security adviser, John Bolton, should be forced to testify. “There is no reason why they should not testify,” Leahy said.
Some Republicans have floated the notion of allowing those witnesses to appear before the Senate if former vice president and current presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, were also to do so. Leahy said he “could care less” about the idea, but he argued that even Republicans privately agreed that “calling Joe Biden would make everyone look foolish.” He said Hunter Biden was “irrelevant” to the matter.
To prepare for the trial, Leahy said, he’s been holed up with legal advisers for days and has been reviewing the roughly 130 pages of notes he took during the Clinton proceedings. This time around, he said, “I suspect I’m going to be sitting there taking notes as I always have.”
As for whether Leahy will vote to convict or acquit the president? “If the evidence [is] what I think it might be, I have a sense of how I’ll vote,” he said.
The senator would not, however, reveal which way that would be. “You know I’m not going to,” he said.
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Moscow Mitch is a deranged idiot just like trump!
Senator Term Limits is right, history books will show this whole charade is a democratic farce.
I suppose it is good that Sanders finally recognizes he “swore a constitutional oath as a United States senator to do my job”, and he’s going to take a few days off the campaign trail to actually do the job he was elected to do, and is duty bound to recuse himself due to his glaring conflict of interest.
I completely agree with Senator Leahy that this whole thing is a “farce.” I first became concerned about that when House leadership rushed Articles of Impeachment through that body as an emergency and then promptly sat on them instead of immediately turning them over to the Senate. I became convinced of that when Majority Leader McConnell blatantly announced there would be an acquittal. I became alarmed about that when Senator Leahy, who had just taken an oath to be a fair and impartial juror in the Senate’s upcoming trial, published an op-ed piece in VtDigger outlining why his suspicions of guilt were now confirmed by an outside-the-courtroom report and explicitly concluded that Trump “broke the law.”
Both McConnell and Leahy have taken oaths to be fair and impartial jurors. Impeachment proceeding rules require them to sit silent and listen to the evidence presented before rendering a verdict. Suspicion, press reports and rushed House proceedings are not “evidence” in a trial that hasn’t even started yet. Even President Trump is entitled to a “fair and impartial jury.” Our country is entitled to (at least) a proper following of its constitutional precepts, especially by those chosen to represent us. No matter what side of the Trump argument one is on, it is crystal clear that no fair trial can take place because political grandstanding has clouded the courtroom. History will not judge this “farce” kindly.
Many senators, including both of ours, have spoken out over the past couple months expressing that Trump should be impeached. They all perjured themselves last week when they swore “to do impartial justice”. Their decision should be made after the facts are presented in the senate.
The only farce thus far occurred throughout the House impeachment proceedings. Its embarassing golden poison
pen signing amid giddy, immature, gleeful behavior illustrates clearly that Democrats are afflicted with TDS. Which began the moment Trump was elected under our Constitution. I hope Schiff, Nadler, Pelosi, the Whistleblower and both Bidens are called as witnesses. And that Trump walks away stronger than ever as the hateful Democrats finally end their sick agenda and are voted out of office by the legally registered voters of our country.
The Joker fears a farce! Film at 11.
Trump broke the law then tried to cover it up. More evidence of his corruption comes out daily.
Like the farce of the F35 fighter jet basing process Mr. Leahy?
If only our Congressional delegation cared as much about their actual constituents as they did about posturing for the media. Senator Leahy would do well to serve the people he was elected to represent but given he seems to have no interest in doing so, he could at least be honest with Vermonters about his undue influence during the F-35 basing process. The people of Winooski; South Burlington; Burlington; and Williston have not forgotten. Democrats talk the talk while walking the military-industrial walk, regardless of negative impact to health and home values of the very demographics they pretend to care about. At least the GOP is honest about their priorities.
Leahy lost significant credibility over the last 10 years and probably should have retired already.
St.Patrick says “to guarantee a fair and impartial trial of President Donald Trump.” Actually, since Trump is the defendant, it must be a fair and impartial trial ‘for’ President Trump.
The House proceedings were fair and impartial, right Pat? Secret basement testimony, no witnesses for the Repubs, rush to get the impeachment articles to the Senate – due to clear and present danger, sit on them for 4 weeks… What a friggin fiasco! Now the Dems, Pat too, want the Senate to try to come up with something, anything, to get the House action out of the minds of the voters.
I find it amusing that our esteemed senior senator is boning up on comparisons to the impeachment trial of Bubba Clinton. Maybe he’ll be reminded that the House articles and all involved 11 felony charges. Now how many felonies is Trump accused of here, Pat?
How many tens of millions of taxpayers money will be spent by the Congress to try to dig something up on Trump that will stick?
BTW, it’s good to know that Patrick participated in the Nixon and Clinton impeachments. Wasn’t he there at Andrew Johnson’s, too? Time to retire, Pat!
Senator Leahy is right, filth like McConnell and Graham are not fit to be senators, IQ45 is not fir to be president and all three are traitors and should be treated and punished as such. Period.