Trump impeachment: Senate delivers brutal dose of reality and ensures future corruption

I’ve watched too many late night TV showings of “Pretty Woman.” My mind knew how the impeachment hearings would end. Still, my gut was hoping that the Republican-controlled Senate was not just a prostitute, but a prostitute with a heart of gold.

The smallest part of me held out hope that the Senate would have a moral epiphany and extract the presidential splinter at the infected center of America’s thumb. But if living in Los Angeles has taught me anything, it is that Hollywood endings are not real. The Senate votes Wednesday to acquit President Donald Trump of the impeachment charges was a brutal dose of reality.

I shouldn’t be surprised. The fix was in from the start. Weeks before the impeachment hearings even began, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced he would work in “total coordination” with the White House to ensure there was “zero chance” the president would be removed from office.

True to his word, McConnell created a set of rules that predetermined Trump’s acquittal and hid much of the process from the American public he’s supposed to serve. McConnell’s ploy began by scheduling 12-hour days that ensured the impeachment hearings would extend into the night, to be seen only by die-hard politicos and nocturnal possums.

Objective is power, not truth

Then there was McConnell’s successful effort to prevent the public from hearing testimony from pivotal witnesses. Former national security adviser John Bolton referred to the president’s “American aid for Ukrainian dirt” scheme as a “drug deal.” Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney confessed to the illicit quid pro quo, telling the press to “get over it.” But McConnell corralled the Republican Senate to block the testimony of both. That’s like refereeing a murder trial and telling the prosecutor he can’t present the testimony of an eyewitness to the murder.

If McConnell gets points for anything, it’s consistency. He stopped the presentation of documentary evidence, too. With the help of all Republican senators, he choked efforts to subpoena evidence from the White House, State Department, Defense Department and Office of Management and Budget. That’s like telling the prosecutor he can’t play a videotape of the murder.

Untethered to history: I used to cover Republicans who are cowering to Trump. I don't recognize them now.

The GOP double-sucker punch left Democrats and pundits asking: “Don’t Republicans want to get to the truth?” We know the answer to that question and playing coy, at this late stage of the game, is maddening.

Republicans didn’t want the truth because their overriding interest is not public service to their country. Their primary objective is to stay in power, no matter the cost. To maintain their congressional paychecks, they need the president. In 2020, support from Trump’s base dictates the political life or death of all Republicans. And when Trump tells his base to jump, they ask “how high?”

To placate the president, Republicans rationalized a delusion that began by denying Trump’s efforts to bribe a foreign ally and ended with silent concurrence in response to Attorney General William Barr’s support of a court case in which Trump argued his title as president protects him from even being investigated. Given the current trajectory, no one should be surprised when “crown and scepter” become line-item additions to this year’s federal budget.

Before the impeachment vote, there was a moment when it appeared that Republican Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee might provide the four GOP votes needed for witness testimony, and ensure at least a veneer of fairness. After all, Alexander is retiring, so he could vote his conscience.

Revealing his conscience as a profile in cowardice, Alexander voted against witnesses. Murkowski did as well. And so, Senate Republicans conducted a “trial” with no witnesses, proving that when the bottom is perpetually descending, there is no bottom.

Last straw: For Republicans weighing Trump impeachment articles, patriotism has left the Senate chamber

Over two weeks of impeachment proceedings, Democrats rounded home base over and over again. And overwhelming evidence of the president’s guilt was met with the Republican pushback formula that begins with “Trump didn’t do it” and ends with “even if Trump did it, it’s not a big deal.”

To make their case, the president’s defense team rolled out Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. He argued that Trump can do anything he wants to further his reelection if he thinks serving another four years is in the public’s interest. It was a shocking argument that exposed the GOP’s core as consisting of something between chloroform and rat poison.

Four years ago, the president’s wholesale auctioning of American interests would have had Republicans waving flags of condemnation. Now, it just sets them scurrying for cover in a retreat reminiscent of cockroaches when the porch light is flipped on. Perhaps that explains the substantial number of GOP senators fleeing the Senate chamber during the Democrats’ impeachment presentation.

And while Romney’s singular vote in favor of conviction will ensure that history will treat him kindly, his act of courage underscores that Republicans could have done the right thing but did not. Romney is not a beacon of light representing his party’s future; he is the last principled flicker of his party’s dimming past.

Countless transgressions will follow

To those who believe that things will return to the way they were, when all that is left of Donald Trump is a bronzer stain that won’t bleach out of the White House pillow cases, you’re wrong. Long gone are the days of John McCain rejecting an opportunity to take advantage of a false statement that Barack Obama is a Muslim.

Why would the Trump playbook be abandoned when it succeeded in making a reality TV actor the most powerful man in the world — and protected him from accountability for his flagrant abuse of power?

Never mind that Trump’s Senate acquittal is the functional equivalent of a “get out of jail free” card for countless transgressions that will surely follow. It’s only a matter of time before other politicians try to “out-Trump” Donald Trump.

Evidence of this nascent evolution can already be seen in the form of Republican Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Devin Nunes of California, Matt Gaetz of Florida and Doug Collins of Georgia. Democrats dismiss these precursors as the crazy fringe, but they are the new superstars of the GOP. Shameless lying, grandstanding and enabling no-holds-barred corruption now pave the express lane to power. If history has taught us anything, it is that public tragedy is a price many politicians are willing to pay for personal gain.

It’s unclear whether Trump gave rise to a morally hollowed GOP or whether Trump’s rise was the result of Republican fertile ground. But it doesn’t matter anymore. Donald Trump and the Republican Party are forever twisted together in the sediment at the bottom of the ocean floor.

Michael J. Stern, a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors, was a federal prosecutor for 25 years in Detroit and Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter: @MichaelJStern1

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump acquittal: Republicans lay foundation for future corruption