USA Today - 09.10.2019

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OPINION

MIKE THOMPSON/USA TODAY NETWORK

If House Democrats get their way,

they’ll vote to send articles of impeach-

ment against President Donald Trump

to the Senate in a matter of weeks.

What should happen next is simple:

The Senate should move quickly to vote

on a resolution dismissing the House

impeachment charges by a simple ma-

jority vote.

This would spare the nation the po-

litical agony of a drawn-out Senate

trial, where the outcome is a foregone

conclusion and the only result will be

further polarization. That would allow

the question of who is going to serve as

president of the United States to be de-

cided by America’s voters, the people

who should decide it.

House Democrats have made clear

that their move for impeachment has

nothing to do with the Framers’ vision

of impeachment. For House Demo-

crats, it’s not about defending the Con-

stitution against a usurper; it’s merely a

political response to an election they

still cannot believe they lost. They’ve

made clear from even before President

Trump was inaugurated that they be-

lieve him to be an illegitimate presi-

dent, and every action they’ve taken

proves their determination to kowtow

to their left-wing base, which demands

“resistance” in all its forms.

First, they wanted to remove him

over the allegation that he was a traitor

who had worked with Russians to un-

dermine our freedoms in the 2016 elec-

tion. When that narrative collapsed af-

ter a two-year investigation failed to

prove it, they shifted to “obstruction of

justice.” But that effort, too, came up

short, so they have shifted to this new

charge — that he abused his office by

seeking the assistance of a foreign gov-

ernment for personal political gain.

But the official record of the presi-

dent’s phone call with the Ukrainian

president shows no such thing. It does

not show a quid pro quo, it does not

show an offer of a bribe, it does not re-

veal the existence of a threat.

Moreover, the Democrats’ likely sec-

ond article of impeachment — that

moving the official record of the phone

call from one server to another is evi-

dence of an attempt to “cover up”

wrongdoing — doesn’t hold water, ei-

ther. It turns out the decision to move

similar records happened long ago and

was not confined to this one phone call.

Convicting an impeached president

requires a two-thirds vote. That’s 67

senators. But Democrats only have 47

(if we assume Maine’s Angus King and

Vermont’s Bernie Sanders, two inde-

pendents who caucus with Senate

Democrats, behave as Democrats on

this vote). Thus, it would require 20 Re-

publican senators to vote to convict.

That’s just not going to happen.

The Senate should plan for a motion

to dismiss the House’s charges as soon

as they come over, and it only requires a

simple majority vote to pass. In the 1999

Senate impeachment trial of President

Bill Clinton, West Virginia Sen. Robert

Byrd offered a motion to dismiss the

House charges before the Senate trial

began. Because Democrats were then

in the minority, the motion failed.

Now, for the first time during a po-

tential impeachment trial, the Senate is

controlled by the same party as that of

the president. There are 53 Republicans

in the Senate, and if they all vote to dis-

miss the charges, the trial could be over

before it begins.

Here’s an even bolder play for Major-

ity Leader Mitch McConnell: Circulate a

letter to your GOP Senate colleagues,

declaring that the undersigned will

vote to dismiss House articles of im-

peachment on the Ukraine matter.

Once there are at least 51 signatures on

it, release the letter publicly and de-

clare that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

might as well fold the impeachment cir-

cus tent now.

Speaker Pelosi could then continue

with impeachment proceedings, know-

ing her effort would be seen as nothing

but political, since conviction and re-

moval of the president from office

would be off the table. Or she could

shut down the circus and prepare to do

battle on terrain more appropriate for

deciding who gets to serve as president

— the electoral battlefield we’ve used

quite well for close to 250 years.

The path is clear. Will McConnell

make the play?

Jenny Beth Martin is honorary

chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action.

Senate should vote to

dismiss impeachment

Spare us a long trial that

won’t end in conviction

Jenny Beth Martin

YOUR SAY

I am proud beyond words of my West
Point classmate, Ambassador Bill Tay-
lor, who is the current U.S. charge d’af-
faires in Kyiv, Ukraine, for standing up
to be counted in the face of wrongdoing
of the still-developing Ukraine scandal.
We both graduated in 1969, and we
both chose public service as our calling.
He chose diplomacy and public policy. I
chose higher education. In his long and

distinguished public service career,

Taylor has, without exception, demon-

strated his commitment to the West

Point motto of “duty, honor, country”

and to the cadet honor code that prohib-

its lying, cheating and stealing.

By his most recent actions, calling

out the administration as wrong for

withholding military aid to Ukraine and

stating that he would quit, he has shown

himself to have fully internalized the

precepts drummed into us as cadets. He

has given me a strong measure of reas-

surance that the numerous West Point-

ers I have observed in recent years in

high public policy and general officer

positions who have undermined and

sullied the words in the academy motto

may be anomalies rather than the new

normal I had assumed them to be.

The West Point cadet prayer enjoined

us to “strengthen and increase our ad-

miration for honest dealing and clean

thinking” and “to choose the harder

right instead of the easier wrong.” Tay-

lor has done so, and for that I am grate-

ful to him. He is such an estimable role

model for all who would consider an-

swering the call to public service.

Gregory D. Foster

Vienna, Va.

In Ukraine scandal, Ambassador Taylor continues to espouse West Point ethics

LETTERS

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After expending tragic sums of
blood and treasure for decades in Iraq
and Afghanistan, the United States
military finally found a formula for suc-
cess in Syria at minimal American ca-
sualties and cost. Now President Don-
ald Trump is taking a wrecking ball to
this experiment.
In the name of ending America’s “ri-
diculous Endless Wars,” Trump on
Sunday ordered a pullback of U.S.
forces from the Turkish/Syrian border.
The abrupt move places America’s se-
curity interests at risk by threatening to
undo the U.S.-led campaign that de-
stroyed the Islamic State caliphate in
March.
Withdrawing the U.S. troops also ex-
poses America’s Syrian-Kurdish allies
— the same people who did most of the
fighting and dying to defeat ISIS — to
Turkish aggression.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Er-
dogan, who regards the Syrian Kurds as
terrorists, vowed in a telephone call
with Trump on Sunday to send troops
across the border to seize a zone
300 miles long and 20 miles deep into
Syria — an area where 300,000 people
could be dislocated. Trump gave the
autocrat a green light, ordering the
withdrawal of a small U.S. military con-
tingent whose presence on the border,
backed up by U.S. air power, had been a
check against Turkish attacks on Kurd-
ish allies.
The Kurds, who lost thousands of
fighters battling ISIS, now feel be-
trayed, and who can blame them?
This is the second time Trump has
ordered a Syrian withdrawal after a
phone call with Erdogan. Earlier this
year, Trump reduced to about 1,000 an
already small force of U.S. troops in
Syria that was working to finish off ISIS
and tamp down any resurgence.
By now pulling troops away from the
border, Trump demonstrates that
American promises to allies are not to
be trusted. His actions might also lead

Syrian Democratic Forces — already

stretched thin securing the former ca-

liphate and managing detention cen-

ters crammed with 10,000 captured

ISIS fighters — to shift resources and

defend against invading Turkish

troops.

Even some of Trump’s strongest Re-

publican supporters recognize this as a

strategic blunder. “A precipitous with-

drawal ... would only benefit Russia,

Iran and the (Syrian dictator Bashar)

Assad regime,” Senate Majority Leader

Mitch McConnell said Monday, urging

Trump to show leadership and reverse

course. Faced with withering biparti-

san opposition, Trump took to Twitter

on Tuesday in a schizophrenic blast

praising Turkey as a NATO ally and lu-

crative trading partner, while threaten-

ing Turkey with economic sanctions for

“unforced or unnecessary fighting.”

Trump also dangled a White House

visit for Erdogan. The Turks, so far, ap-

pear committed to crossing the border

and attacking Syrian Kurds.

The United States has for decades

positioned American troops around the

world, from Europe to South Korea, to

help allies maintain peace. If the light

American footprint in Syria can do the

same, there should be no reason to rush

for the exits.

TODAY'S DEBATE: NATIONAL SECURITY

Our view: Troop policy in Syria

wasn’t broke. So don’t fix it.

A protest at the White House on

Tuesday.ERIK S. LESSER/EPA-EFE

The United States should withdraw
its military from Syria quickly. But that
does not mean clearing a path for Tur-
key to attack the Syrian Kurds. The
United States does not owe the Kurds
indefinite protection, but they do de-
serve fair warning of U.S. withdrawal.
U.S. forces should have left Syria al-
ready. With the Islamic State caliphate
destroyedand local forces eager to at-
tack its remnants, there was no justifi-
cation for the U.S. forces to stay. And
there was grave risk of the U.S. troops
— whose presence Congress never au-
thorized — being pulled into a major
war or sparking terrorism rather than
suppressing it.
Turkey’s threat to attack Syrian
Democratic Forces complicated U.S.
withdrawal. But there was a rough so-
lution: Letthe Kurds negotiate with Da-
mascus to restore their status quo ante.
They lose autonomy but keep a militia,
while Syrian regime forces police the
border against remnants of the Islamic
State, also known as ISIS. That would
have kept ISIS down, Turkey out, and

the Kurds in reasonable shape.

Instead, U.S. officials discouraged

the Kurds from that course, giving

them a false sense of endless protec-

tion. And Washington saddled the

small U.S. military force in Syria with

impossible aims: Evict Iran, recon-

struct to prevent extremismand keep

pressure on Syrian dictator Bashar As-

sad by aligning with the Kurds, while

also pacifying Turkey, somehow. U.S.

policy ignored the ugly reality that the

Assad regime will win. Helping create a

durable peace requires dealing with it.

President Donald Trump’s failure in

Syria was not his goal of leaving; it was

failing to implement a full withdrawal.

Even now, the U.S. forces there are just

moving out of Turkey’s way, not exit-

ing. At this point, there is no pretty way

out. But a decent one would set a cer-

tain date for U.S. withdrawal, giving the

Kurds time to prepare and then imple-

ment it swiftly. No foreign interest

should be confused with our own and

used to keep U.S. forces in Syria forever.

Benjamin H. Friedman is policy di-

rector at Defense Priorities.

Opposing view:Get out, but

give the Kurds fair warning

Benjamin H. Friedman