The Non Judicial Nature of Impeachment

It didn't really strike me until the opening statements.

These are hearings, of course, but they have the false air of a judicial proceeding.  The most analogous thing to them, I suppose, would be a grand jury, with the Congressmen being the jurors.

Except they're completely partisan.

It would be as if the prosecution fielded it's own jurors and the defense its own jurors, with the presiding judges being members of the prosecution and the defense.

It's rather odd, and frankly unfair by design.

By that I don't mean to be seem to take sides in the matter.  But the Wall Street Journal, which basically has a side, was correct in its opening remarks on this impeachment.

House Democrats went public Wednesday with what the media are calling “historic” impeachment hearings, but what strikes us is the pre-cooked nature of the exercise. This isn’t a search for truth. It’s a set-piece production to promote a foregone conclusion.

The same can likely be said for the last impeachment exercise, that being the one that resulted in the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton.

And hence we're really exposed to a Constitutional weakness in our system.  Andrew Johnson was subject to an impeachment trial as members of his own party didn't think him radical enough in the wake of the Southern surrender in the Civil War (they were right on his not being radical enough, but wrong to subject him to the trial).  Bill Clinton went through that as the Republicans just didn't like him.  Whether or not Trump's actions in regard to Ukraine amount to enough to really consider impeaching him is something we  have yet to see, but Democrats have been crying for his removal from the moment he entered office.  The fact that smug Adam Schiff is in the prosecutorial seat makes a mockery of any pretense of a fair inquiry, just as the GOP's presiding Congressman clearly has his mind made up as well.  This is simply a strange vote of no confidence with cause.

In retrospect, a different system of impeachment, with a real trial, would be a better way to go about this. There's still be a political element of some sort.  But if it was in front of the senior jurists of the combined Courts of Appeals, or something, it would be a better system.

At least that's the way this one looks if you are familiar with court proceedings. 

I'm not opining on the evidence one way or another.  Indeed, I haven't watched or read of it yet, which brings me to my next post. . . .