According to the United States Constitution, when the House of Representatives accuses a president of wrongdoing by impeaching him, the chief justice of the United States “shall preside” over a trial in the Senate to determine whether the president is guilty of the House’s charges and should be removed. It is no minor responsibility, no footnote in the job description: It is the only task the Constitution specifically assigns to the nation’s top judicial officer, and one of the most awesome powers bestowed on the Senate.
Once House Speaker Nancy Pelosi passes along the articles of impeachment, this is the duty that 100 senators and John Roberts, the current chief justice, must discharge. Now that the House has voted to impeach Donald Trump on two counts, it ultimately falls to the Senate and the chief justice to ensure that Trump’s trial for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress is real and not a spectacle or a sham.
There have been only two presidential impeachment trials, of presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, and in both of those proceedings the senators took the proceedings seriously and the chief justice’s role was not much more than a formality. Indeed, Chief Justice William Rehnquist attracted more attention for his sartorial choices than for any actions he took or didn’t take as he presided over the 1999 trial of Bill Clinton.
But in neither of those proceedings was the integrity and legitimacy of the process itself in question. Now it is. In the Clinton impeachment, Democratic leader Tom Daschle, in order to avoid the appearance of impropriety, took pains not even to speak about the process with the White House. Fast forward to 2019, and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, is coordinating trial strategy with Trump’s lawyer. Republican senators seem torn in two directions, neither of them in keeping with their actual responsibility to be impartial jurors: Some Republicans want to end the trial immediately without hearing arguments or witnesses; others want to turn it into a circus, by summoning former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter or the intelligence community whistle-blower.
In an era when one constitutional norm after another has been shattered by partisan politics — McConnell’s refusal to hold a vote on Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court, the House GOP acquiescing to President Trump’s defiance of the House’s own subpoena power — some GOP senators apparently want to turn the impeachment trial process outlined in the Constitution into the latest casualty. That is no legacy to leave future generations. Hopefully, senators care enough about their own oath to insist that the trial be a credible exercise.
But if they don’t, the chief justice should. The Senate may set its own rules for impeachment trials, but if necessary, Roberts should be more muscular than his predecessors in asserting the power over the proceedings that is implicit in the Constitution’s use of the word “preside.” Once senators take their oath as jurors, Roberts should conduct it in whatever way he feels is necessary to deliver a fair verdict on the charges that the House has brought.
An impeachment trial isn’t a criminal trial and needn’t look like one. But the American people will know a sham proceeding if they see one. At minimum, the trial should involve arguments from both sides and testimony from relevant witnesses. It should involve some measure of decorum; reality-TV antics, as when members of the House GOP interrupted the House’s depositions, should not be permitted. That might sound like a tall order in these times, when the president himself is a former reality television star, but the credibility of our institutions relies on it.
Political prognosticators believe most or all GOP senators will vote to acquit the president, no matter what evidence is presented in the trial. Perhaps they will. But whatever the trial’s outcome, insisting that the Senate follow a fair and thorough process as it weighs the removal of a president is what the American people — and their descendants, who must live with the precedent — deserve.
Ultimately, the impeachment of Donald Trump is not about just one president or just one election. The process that unfolds in the Senate may well determine whether future presidents will invite foreign interference in our elections and whether the American public will have confidence in the government’s ability to protect the integrity of those elections. Senators on both sides of the aisle should be eager to weigh the evidence instead of reflexively acquitting Trump because of partisan politics. And if they won’t choose the future of the nation, Chief Justice John Roberts must.