Open Letter To Senator Lamar Alexander Regarding His Vote Not To Impeach

(Letter to the Knoxville News Sentinel, 10 February 2020, which as usual was not published even though similar letters by others were published before and after I submitted this)

(This is an open letter to Senator Lamar Alexander.) Regarding your votes not to allow more witnesses at the impeachment hearings and not to impeach President Trump:  Sir, you are a moral coward.

Many important actors had not been interviewed during the House inquiry, but you didn’t think any witnesses needed to be heard or questioned by senators. Your reason for not voting to impeach was that although you recognized that Trump had actually done what he was accused of, you did not think that it was an impeachable offense. Trump’s using the power of his office for his own personal political gain, against the interests of the United States and its promises to its ally, Ukraine, was not impeachable?

You said, “The question then is not whether the president did it, but whether the United States Senate or the American people should decide what to do about what he did. I believe that the Constitution clearly provides that the people should make that decision in the presidential election.” No, the Constitution clearly provides for impeachment by the House and trial by the Senate. So to cast this as a decision that the American people and not Congress should make is ludicrous.

This statement is consistent with your whole career in public service. Over and over, in whatever capacity you happened to be working in (governor, president of UT, senator, and especially presidential candidate in 1996 and 2000), when presented with a knotty decision that some influential group wanted you to make to their benefit you would natter on about objectivity, fairness, and doing what was best for everybody. But then, often at the last minute, you would come down on the side that everybody knew you would all along, i.e., that of the special interest or political favor-giver. Clearly you did this in the case of the impeachment trial.

You are not running for reelection and you could well have voted your conscience. That is, if you had one.