Invitation to an Impeachment
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
The impeachment hearings against the President of America begin today. You’d think it might make the front page of, say, the New York Times. Its lead story, though, is about how the Supreme Court appears set to vindicate President Trump in his campaign to force Congress to act on the dreamers. The off-lead is about Turkey. The lead editorial is about — wait for it — electrical cigarettes.
We’re not here to lecture the editors of the Times about how to edit their newspaper. Their Page A1 today, though, suggests that in respect of impeachment, the eyes of even the Gray Lady are starting to glaze over. The editors at the New York Post did manage to find an angle to heft the hearings up into the wood, meaning the outsize headline type. “Guilty!” the headline reads. “Now for the Trial. . .”
Here at the Sun, we’re not sanguine about any of it. Our editor has been arguing since the days of Nixon that if the House thinks a president committed a high crime, misdemeanor, bribery, or treason, the right — and only constitutional — way to commence is to ditch the special prosecutors and begin in the House. Plus, too, the Constitution is clear that each house may determine its own rules.
With each passing week, though, it has become ever more clear that what begins today is a hearing of the witnesses only the Democrats deem pertinent. The House majority is eager to protect the whistleblower, who refuses to face the administration he or she is accusing — or the American people. But the House seeks to protect only the whistleblower. Protestations by other officers of the executive branch, it discounts.
It may be within the powers of the House majority to restrict the witnesses to those who will help the prosecution. It may also, though, explain why the opening of this supposedly historic hearing failed to make Page A1 of the Times. It has become a foregone conclusion that the House is going to impeach. The real drama will take place in the Senate, which, is also, let us not forget, empowered by the Constitution to make its own rules.
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The whistleblower refuses to face the administration he or she is accusing — or the American people. This editorial has been corrected to untangle a scrambled sentence that appeared in early editions.
