WSJ: "James Madison 1, Nancy Pelosi 0. Impeachment achieved nothing but more bitter political division."

A Wall Street Journal editorial from a few days ago.

A sorry period in Congressional history ended Wednesday with the Senate acquittal of President Trump on two articles of impeachment passed by a partisan and reckless Democratic House. Chalk up one more victory for the Framers of the Constitution, who realized the dangers of political factions and created the Senate to check them.

Republican Mitt Romney broke GOP ranks to convict the President on the other article, “abuse of power,” making that vote to acquit 52-48. That’s still far from the two-thirds that James Madison and the Founders, in their wisdom, required for conviction.

Mr. Romney will now be derided as either a traitor or a hero, but we take his word that he voted his conscience. His explanation for his vote is another story.

The Utah Senator set up the straw man that the President’s lawyers said an impeachable act must also be a criminal offense. But Mr. Romney knows that isn’t the proper standard that other Senators used to judge impeachable conduct. He also claimed Mr. Trump “withheld vital military funds” from Ukraine, when the President merely delayed it and no investigation of the Bidens was ever undertaken.

“Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one’s oath of office that I can imagine,” Mr. Romney said on the Senate floor. But no election was corrupted, and no national security interests were jeopardized because other Senators and advisers persuaded Mr. Trump to release military aid.

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In the bitter end, what has all of this accomplished? The House has defined impeachment down to a standard that will now make more impeachments likely. “Abuse of power” and “corrupt motives” are justifications that partisans in both parties can use.

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We doubt this is what Nancy Pelosi hoped for, but it is what her partisan impeachment has wrought. She lost to a better statesman—James Madison. Now let the voters decide, as Madison and his mates intended.

Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse offered a far more thoughtful argument in the Omaha World Herald for his vote to acquit: “You don’t remove a president for initially listening to bad advisors but eventually taking counsel from better advisors—which is precisely what happened here.”

Comments

[maria]

True wisdom from the Nebraska contingent.