In a chat with Internet users, the correspondent of World In Washington, Gilles Paris, revisited the acquittal on Wednesday February 5 of Donald Trump following his impeachment trial.
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Orion: What impact can the acquittal have on the presidential election in November?
Gilles Paris: The political acquittal of Donald Trump is good news for the president, even if it was expected. There is no doubt that he will hammer him during his meetings, but he expresses himself there in front of fans. For the rest, the election is still far away. Nine months in politics is forever. By investigating his case very quickly, the Democrats who anticipated a favorable vote for Donald Trump in the Senate have shown that they want to rid the campaign of this affair as soon as possible. They would have had plenty of time to make it last. They are dated. Voters will judge.
Sacha: In your opinion, what is the worst scenario for the Democrats: the acquittal of Trump or the multiplication of candidates for the Democratic primary?
Acquittal is now a given thing. Not sure if he plays a lasting role in the voting motivations, even if revelations are still possible in the Ukrainian affair, given Donald Trump's strategy of obstruction which prevented his trial from taking place with a complete vision of what happened.
On the other hand, the illegibility of the Democratic nomination contest is potentially much more embarrassing for Democrats. If they did not succeed in bringing out a rallying candidacy, if on the contrary they remained divided into more or less equivalent poles in importance, they could hardly escape a "Brokered convention", in other words to a convention which nominates a candidate following bargaining in corridors, which would be a very bad omen for the November election.
Orion: Does this very political acquittal mean a lasting paralysis of the constitutional impeachment procedure?
The interest of this trial, the outcome of which was beyond doubt, was indeed to show the limits of the clairvoyance of the Founding Fathers. The latter obviously could not anticipate the effect of the political clanism which paralyzes Washington today. They have built a system based on a minimum dose of good faith on the part of its players. This is why the threshold of 67 votes has been set for dismissal, which requires a consensus between the two parties (none of which will have these votes alone for very long, if this ever happens one day. ).
The impeachment of Bill Clinton, charged with a trifle compared to what was accused of Donald Trump (perjury to mask an extramarital affair), had been a first warning. It was a question for the Republicans of settling scores with a president just over a year from his departure from power. The Senate Republicans' follow-up to the White House in the case of Donald Trump is a second. Part of Congress chose to relinquish its power and mandate.
Another path was possible, as some Republican senators have shown, very frustrated with the way things are going. They could further investigate the Ukrainian affair, highlight more clearly the possible responsibility of Donald Trump, while concluding that these faults, if they were proven, did not deserve a dismissal. But this path has not been explored. Therefore, two options are possible: impeachment can effectively become a useless constitutional tool or become commonplace and be lowered to a kind of symbolic censorship.
Cadi: Is Republican Mitt Romney's Vote for Trump's Dismissal So Exceptional?
Mitt Romney was the first senator to cross this line in a recall trial. He considers that the bargaining heavily proposed by Donald Trump to his Ukrainian counterpart constitutes a fault and a violation of the Constitution. He deprives Donald Trump, even if the president will still deploy this argument, of an element of speech already honed: that of a purely political dismissal trial, of a plot hatched by the Democrats only to oust him from the power.
The conservative credentials of Mitt Romney, the 2016 presidential candidate, are unassailable. He is elected to a conservative state, Utah. But his isolation also underscores Donald Trump's grip on Republicans who all fear being the target of a morning salvo of devastating messages posted to his Twitter account.
A highly respected figure in the Mormon community who is less inclined towards Donald Trump than the Evangelical Right, Mitt Romney has a solid foundation which few senators can boast of. This is what gave him this freedom on Wednesday, even if, moreover, relations between the two men were never simple. Donald Trump has often humiliated him, he is probably paying the price a little.
Mina: Everyone seemed to know that Trump was going to be acquitted so why did you start this procedure.
The question should be put to the speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. More seriously, the latter had anticipated the result by ruling against an indictment in March 2019. It’s "Such a source of division for the country that unless we are faced with something convincing, overwhelming and bipartisan, I don't think we should go that route", she explained. But it was then the case "Russian" and the 2016 election.
With the Ukrainian affair, the 2020 election was at stake since Donald Trump objectively sought to embarrass a possible opponent, Joe Biden, only from the moment when this latter became the favorite of the race for the 'Democratic inauguration, in spring 2019. The Democrats considered that this new departure from Donald Trump deserved a reminder of the institutional order, even a symbolic one. This is why the most moderate democratically elected representatives, the most exposed to electoral problems, actively supported the impeachment procedure.
NicolasBr: Can Donald Trump be sued by a civil court following this acquittal? Or is the Ukrainian affair definitely over?
One of the arguments of the president’s lawyers was that he could not be sentenced for want of a crime, adding that aid to Ukraine was ultimately released without consideration. The timeline shows, however, that Donald Trump gave up his haggling after he learned of a whistleblower's report, when he realized he had "Been caught", to use the expression of the leader of the democratic prosecutors, Adam Schiff. The latter defended the view that the intention to violate the Constitution was as important as the violation itself.
As it stands, it is unclear on what basis to initiate legal action even if the revelations are probably not finished. Many witnesses were unable or unwilling to speak, many documents were not released. The possible steps in the American system to obtain their publication will certainly feed a soap opera for months, which will however be relegated to the background.
