Front Burner - Impeachment, a Senate trial, and the 'dead chicken' strategy

Episode Date: December 18, 2019

The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote Wednesday on the articles of impeachment. President Donald Trump is expected to become just the third U.S. president in history to be impeached. But after the House vote, the proceedings move to the Senate, where there will be a trial. Today on Front Burner, CBC Washington correspondent Alex Panetta explains how some Republicans want the trial to be swift, while others are hoping for a full-on spectacle.

This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. Well, here we are, in the final weeks of 2019, at the end of Donald Trump's third year as President of the United States. And unless something really weird happens, he's about to be impeached. And it's likely going to happen today, as the U.S. House of Representatives gathers to vote on the articles of impeachment. Trump stands accused of abusing presidential power by threatening to withhold millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine in an attempt to get Ukraine to investigate his potential Democratic rival Joe Biden.

And he's accused of obstructing Congress as he blocked key staff from testifying during the impeachment hearings. Today, I'm talking to CBC Washington correspondent Alex Panetta about the looming House vote and the potentially explosive Senate trial that follows. This is FrontBurner. Hey, Alex. Hi. Thanks so much for coming back on the podcast. Happy to be here. So here we are. The day has come. I understand you are on parental leave. You came back just to cover this. Yeah, my priorities so far. I think, well, one day I'll have a good chat with my daughter about it.

I'm hoping she forgives me. Yeah, I think she will. We watched the Judiciary Committee hearing last week together. She seemed to, she started to cry at one point. I'm not sure if she was speaking as a U.S. citizen or just as a three-week-old. And I just say a very big congratulations to you. Well, thank you. So I said off the top, unless something weird happens, because the vote on the articles of impeachment is scheduled for today, and it feels like we know the outcome, right?

And can you tell me how this is all expected to go down? Given the fact that very few Democrats basically have said that they'll vote against impeaching the president. One Democrat, Colin Peterson of Minnesota, he would not say. The other Democrat, Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, telling his colleagues privately that he plans to switch parties to the Republican Party. And given the fact that no Republicans whatsoever have said they'll vote for impeachment, No Republicans whatsoever have said they'll vote for impeachment. And given the fact that the Democrats have a relatively healthy majority in the House of Representatives, just basic math tells you that President Donald Trump will become the third president in the history of the United States to be impeached.

Right. The other two, Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson. Andrew Johnson was the first and Bill Clinton was the second. Okay, I want to talk to you about this letter too. Donald Trump expressed his unhappiness with the proceedings in a letter to the House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi yesterday. I just want to read you some quotes from this six page long letter that was on White House letterhead. He said, quote, you have cheapened the importance of the very ugly word impeachment and, quote, it is a terrible thing you're doing, but you will have to live with it. Not I! Exclamation mark. He also said more due process was given to those who were accused in the Salem witch trials. He said the Democrats have Trump derangement syndrome. What do you think he was

hoping to achieve with that letter? Well, I think he's, you know, the polarizer in chief. I think he thrives on polarization and that if there's a silver lining in impeachment for him, it's that it's going to energize his base. It's going to make the American political system angrier and more passionate. So it'll drive everyone into their respective corners. And I think that he sees some benefit in whipping everyone up into a frenzy over this, which, you know, to be frank, is not entirely different from what Bill Clinton did during his own impeachment, although he was a little bit more circumspect about it. I think what they were trying to do to her and all these other people who knew nothing about

sexual harassment was outrageous, just so they could hurt me politically. And he certainly didn't send a letter to the House of Representatives at the time with as many exclamation marks as Donald Trump's. It was just like a lot of series of his tweets, sort of. And it had this whole tone of, that's what you are, but what am I? Kind of like another quote from it is, you are the ones interfering in America's elections. You are the ones subverting America's democracy.

You are the ones subverting America's democracy. You are the ones obstructing justice. You are the ones bringing pain and suffering to the republic for your own selfish, personal, political, and partisan gain. Yeah, he's very big on the I'm rubber, you're glue strategy when it comes to debate. Nancy Pelosi's called him a master projector. When you call somebody else nervous, he's the nervous one. When he suspects that somebody's not praying, he's probably not praying. So, you know, he's been accused formally of obstructing justice or obstructing Congress and of abusing his power. And he says to Pelosi in this letter, you're the one abusing your power by, you know, pushing forward a partisan impeachment.

by pushing forward a partisan impeachment. Okay. Can I ask you, do you find this letter effective, or do you think that it will be effective to whipping up his base, like what you were just talking about? I mean, is there anyone left in the United States whose mind is not made up about Donald John Trump? Like, is there literally anyone left? And so, you know, I guess, you know, if you're about to get impeached, and again, I said, I think that he's obviously sees some benefit politically in

impeachment, but also, you know, there's an element of pride at play too. And I think that part of him is a little bit embarrassed to end up on this list of impeached presidents. So I think, you know, if you're facing impeachment as he is, and you're someone with a healthy ego as he has, or, you know, this definitely well-documented pride in himself, you want to defend yourself before this happens. You want to go down swinging. Yeah, he's going down swinging. And he says that he's writing this letter for posterity, for history,

because he wants people to read this 100 years from now and to read what a travesty it was, which speaks to the idea that he's writing this to get something off his and so that he can frame the argument in a way favorable to him. They know it's a hoax. It's a witch hunt. And it's just a continuation. It's been going on now for almost three years. And it probably started before I even won the election based on what we're finding out.

It's a disgrace. OK, so we talked about it looks like all but certainty that he's going to get impeached today. And then next comes the Senate trial. So what is the Senate trial? Anyways, explain it to me. Yeah. So the United States Constitution gives the House the power to impeach a president and then the Senate the power to conduct a trial on whether to acquit or convict the impeached president. One thing the Constitution is silent on is the procedure and how it should work. Other than saying that to oust a president, you need two-thirds of present senators voting for conviction.

That's not going to happen. Republicans control the chamber and there's no indication even one Republican is going to vote to convict Trump, let alone like nearly two dozen it would take. So it's just not going to happen. Here's what we know will happen. So what's going to happen is the House of Representatives will send so-called impeachment managers to the Senate. Impeachment managers, okay. These managers will announce to the U.S. Senate, hey, we've impeached the president, okay, and they'll essentially act as the prosecution.

Then it's up to the Senate to decide who else it might want to hear from in defense of the president. It'll also send a notice to the president, by the way, you've been impeached, and please respond to this message. It's very unlikely that the president will testify on his own behalf. But the impeachment hearing in the Senate will begin at 1 o'clock the day after the notice arrives from the House managers. I'm assuming it will happen in early January. Okay. And historically, the Clinton impeachment trial in the Senate lasted just over a month. The Andrew Johnson one lasted three months.

So you could expect that the Senate will be seized with this issue for a few weeks in January. Okay. And I want to talk to you in a moment about the strategy behind a long versus short trial. But first, you're talking about these managers, these impeachment managers, who might they be? So you might expect that at least one of the Democratic committee chairs, either Jerry Nadler, Adam Schiff, maybe both, might be sent over. There's some talk that this group of managers might potentially include a Republican who's left the party over-discussed with Trump. And that person would be Justin Amish. People are elected to Congress with an oath to support and defend the Constitution,

not an oath to support and defend one person, the president, who happens to be from your own party. His name's been reported as one of the people that Democrats are potentially looking at. Interesting. Just to try to make it bipartisan, although it's not quite bipartisan. No, it is not quite bipartisan at this point. And what about anybody else? Will anybody else be testifying?

Are we going to see different witnesses than in the House impeachment inquiry? So that's exactly what's being debated right now. The Democratic leader, Senator Chuck Schumer. The House has built a very strong case against the president. Maybe that's why Leader McConnell doesn't seem to want witnesses, at least not agree to them now. Maybe that's why the president is afraid, because the House case is so strong

that they don't want witnesses that might corroborate it. The Democrats would definitely love to hear from central players, people who spoke regularly to Donald Trump, who have not testified so far. Gordon Sondland was about as close to the president as you can get. They would love to hear from Mick Mulvaney, the White House chief of staff, and Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, Rudy Giuliani. I would also love to hear from Rudy Giuliani. Absolutely.

But the Senate Republicans have said, no way. We're not bringing these people in. If the House wanted to hear from them, if the House Democrats wanted to hear from them, they could have gone to court and fought to subpoena these guys. They didn't. So tough luck. Too bad. So sad.

We're not bringing them in. What House Democrats have assembled appears to be woefully inadequate. We're not bringing them in. What House Democrats have assembled appears to be woefully inadequate. So now the Senate Democratic leader would apparently like our chamber to do House Democrats' homework for them. And they're also accusing Chuck Schumer, who is the top Democrat in the Senate, of hypocrisy because in 1999 he was arguing against calling in new witnesses against Bill Clinton. Now, Schumer's point is things have changed. The House at the time had heard from every single witness imaginable. We didn't need to have these witnesses called, you know, hauled back before the Senate.

The witnesses in 99 had already given grand jury testimony. We knew what they were to say. And this time he's saying, well, it's different because the White House has been stonewalling any attempt to hear from these witnesses. And that's one of the charges. Obstruction of Congress stems directly from the fact that there are key players in this affair we haven't heard from yet. The four witnesses we've called have not been heard from. That is a difference, and it's a difference that is totally overwhelming. And so Senator Mitch McConnell is the Senate Majority Leader. What do we know about his position towards this whole impeachment process?

Like, for example, is he supportive of bringing in some of these other players? Mick Balvany, you mentioned John Bolton. some of these other players. Mick Balvini, you mentioned John Bolton. So my read on it is that he personally favors a quick, simple trial, that he would like it to be as speedy as possible. The Senate is meant to act as judge and jury to hear a trial,

not to rerun the entire fact-finding investigation because angry partisans rushed sloppily through it. He's in a bit of a pickle here because he's trying to keep the White House happy. He's trying to keep the Republican base happy. And there are elements of that Republican base and elements of the White House, possibly including the president himself, who would love to do nothing more than to turn this thing to a three ring circus, pull in every Democrat you can, put Hunter Biden on the stand, maybe even Joe Biden, and torture, you and torture Trump's opponents to turn everything against them.

Whereas I think McConnell, well, A, for the decorum of that chamber, I think, sees the drawback in that. And in addition, something that I think a lot of Canadians might not realize is the degree of comity and amity in that Senate. Joe Biden sat in that chamber for four decades. Senate. Joe Biden sat in that chamber for four decades. And I am sure a number of Republican senators probably consider him a better friend than Donald Trump. And just the other day, saw Lindsey Graham on TV, asked about Joe Biden. And remember, Lindsey Graham is one of Donald Trump's greatest defenders in the chamber. And I thought his voice was choking up. I thought he was on the verge of tears when he was talking about Joe Biden, whom he said several times in the course of an interview that he loved. These are legitimate concerns about what happened in the Ukraine. I love Joe Biden, but none of us are above scrutiny. I'd like to knock all this off and get back on governing the country.

Interesting. So then the idea that, you know, you're going to have Lindsey Graham and company torturing their longtime friend and bringing in his son and asking him questions about his past, including, I mean, his son had well-documented substance abuse problems. Some of these folks, including Republicans, don't want to go through that. So their preference is to just get it over with. But, you know, of course, there are differences of opinion. Okay, that's fascinating. You don't hear the word amity very much in American politics. But you mentioned that the White House and some others want to make this into a three ring circus. And how would that benefit them? How would that benefit the president? if you're President Trump.

The first is it's very hard for an incumbent president to turn out the same number of voters in his second term as he did in his first election. And so this kind of process gives Donald Trump the opportunity to say, you see, they don't want to hear from you. They don't respect your vote. And basically turn this into a grievance play and to try to drive out the same number of voters who voted for him in 2016 to turn out in 2020.

That's the first thing. I'm not entirely certain that gambit works. There are drawbacks to it potentially, but that's one potential element at play. The second is the Democrat who has polled consistently best against him over the last year is Joe Biden. I am confident in the ability of the House and Senate to deal with this. My job is just to go out and flat beat him. ability of the House and Senate to deal with this. My job is just to go out and flat beat him. And if I'm Donald Trump, I'm thinking, you know, what can I do to destroy Joe Biden before these this primary process begins? So if you can try to bring, you know, haul out Joe Biden's name, just say Joe Biden and corruption in Ukraine a thousand times, whether or not there's anything there, there, you know, you might potentially hurt him or tarnish him in the eyes of of iowa and new hampshire voters that said the potential drawback to that is you give joe

biden the opportunity to say you know this is me versus trump and to start fighting donald trump right away and to turn it into a two-person race in other words a general election right away which could help joe biden in iowa it could go. Exactly. I've also heard of this dead chicken strategy. Can you help me out with that? Sure. So there's one Republican strategist, Mike Davis, who was talking about this idea that, you know, he helped design the Brett Kavanaugh defense. The Supreme Court hearing last fall. Oh, interesting.

When Brett Kavanaugh came out, he gave that very sort of angry defense of himself. Exactly. This confirmation process has become a national disgrace. You have replaced advice and consent with search and destroy. So this idea, he calls it the dead chicken strategy because it's this idea that if you're on a farm and you have dogs killing your chickens, one of the ways apparently, and I've never run a chicken coop before, but apparently one of the ways to keep the dogs dogs killing your chickens, one of the ways, apparently, and I've never run a chicken coop before, but apparently one of the ways to keep the dogs from killing the chickens

is you sort of put a ring of dead chickens around their neck and have them rot to the point that their putrefied odor disgusts the dog and the dog will stop killing chickens. Okay. So the idea here is, oh, you Democrats, you guys want to engage in impeachment politics? No problem. We'll keep you here talking impeachment for weeks and weeks. We'll bring out Joe Biden.

We'll make this thing last a month and a half, two months. And while this trial is happening, keep in mind, like a half dozen Democratic senators are running for president. They're not supposed to offer an opinion on Donald Trump because they're supposed to be neutral arbiters during this process, right? So here you are running for president in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, but you're not allowed to leave Washington because you got to sit in on Senate impeachment proceedings and you have to remain neutral on Donald Trump. Essentially, the idea being, okay, we're going to give Democrats the impeachment fight they asked for and then some. Right. OK, so in this analogy, the Democrats are the dog. Are the dog.

And the chickens are impeachment. I guess. I'm not the one who came up with the analogy. Something that once looked very appealing becomes putrefied, really. We will make you wear the object of your obsession, essentially. Okay, so final question for today. What will you be watching for today and as the rest of this impeachment process unfolds? What I'll say is I'd be looking to see how many Democrats vote with the Republicans on this. I don't expect it will be many.

I probably gave up weeks ago on the idea that any Republicans would vote to impeach. And that in and of itself tells the story. If you told me a few months ago that we're going to have evidence that the president of the United States will withhold funds voted on by Congress. And remember, he's got a constitutional duty to enact the laws passed by Congress. That he would withhold funds passed by Congress and use them as leverage to try to force the government of Ukraine, a U.S. ally, all right? Russia's not an American ally here. It's the Ukraine. And to force the Ukraine to investigate his 2020 election opponent or his family, I would have thought, wow, that's explosive. It's a bombshell. How many Republicans will vote to impeach? And the answer we have now is probably zero. Okay. Alex Panetta, thank you so much.

Thank you. All right, that is all for today. You can follow along with CBC's coverage of the impeachment proceedings today at cbc.ca slash news. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Jamie Poisson, and see you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.