The Question of Conviction in the Senate

Nadin Brzezinski
3 min readFeb 9, 2021

Over the next few days, we will be witnesses to the unprecedented second Trial of Impeachment for a President of the United States. The arguments that we already heard are silly. No, this is not unconstitutional. And yes, it has happened in the past with lower-level officials, as a Secretary of War.

The good man resigned just as he was going to face the trial. Why? He wanted to short circuit the outcome, and the Senate said nope, you are going to face a trial. From the Senate history of the Trial we read:

The Senate convened its trial in early April, with Belknap present, after agreeing that it retained impeachment jurisdiction over former government officials. During May, the Senate heard more than 40 witnesses, as House managers argued that Belknap should not be allowed to escape from justice simply by resigning his office.

On August 1, 1876, the Senate rendered a majority vote against Belknap on all five articles. As each vote fell short of the necessary two-thirds, however, he won acquittal. Belknap was not prosecuted further; he died in 1890.

President Donald Trump did not resign from office. Ironically, if he had, like Richard Nixon, he might have avoided the second impeachment and trial. But that is neither here nor there. The good Secretary was tried because he lived a lavish lifestyle, perhaps taking bribes, well beyond his government salary. The former president is facing this for inciting insurrection. When you compare bribes to insurrection, there is an ocean of difference, What the president wanted was a self-coup, and to end the constitutional order of the republic. He violated his oath of office in ways that we have not seen since 1860.

What should the Senate do? After all, the trial is happening at the scene of the crime and they are witnesses as well.

Well, the first is to understand that they have a duty to the constitution. We have way too many Republicans who believe this is not legal. It appears they believe there is a January exception to the Constitution for a Lame Duck President. This to me is irresponsible as can be, and I guarantee, they would not make that argument if the president who did this was a Democrat. Republicans (and to a lesser extent Democrats) tend to have very situational ethics, tied to…

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Nadin Brzezinski

Historian by training. Former day to day reporter. Sometimes a geek who enjoys a good miniatures game. You can find me at CounterSocial, Mastodon and rarely FB