Mitch McConnell tried to 'square the circle'

Matthew Monahan
ACS?Michigan

The recent impeachment trial put a fraught political debate front and center. Some Republicans urged Senators to read the Constitution and conclude they did not have power to convict a former president. The House Managers argued just the opposite.

Both sides pointed to bits and pieces of the Constitution. Both sides insisted the text clearly supported their arguments. Despite each side's insistence on the clarity of their position, the back and forth only highlighted a constitutional gray area: did the Framer’s anticipate trying a former president on Impeachment charges?

GOP leader Mitch McConnell tried to square the circle. He agreed the House managers proved their case. But he conceded the Senate’s power to convict was a judgment call. And because he read the gray area in favor of limiting Congress’s power, he voted to acquit. 

Maybe McConnell has a good constitutional argument. Read some chunks of the Constitution and it sure looks like the Framers never intended to let the Senate try a former president. After all, why worry about removing a president from office when the people have already voted him out.

But on a prudential level, McConnell’s vote makes little sense. McConnell found the facts to be black and white but the Constitution gray. If the Constitution is as gray as McConnell believes, then the correct vote was to convict.

Our Framers were human. Quite possibly, they did not conceive of an Executive willing to orchestrate an insurrection on their last day in office. If indeed our Framers did not consider that possibility, then we need our leaders to speak clearly where the Constitution does not: never again.

In writing the Constitution, our Framers built some of the finest, most durable human institutions ever conceived. But human institutions are only as good as the humans that run them. When a president tries to run our institutions into the ground, our leaders should not point to a constitutional gray area as reason to leave those actions unpunished.