Of course it would Donald Trump can do completely differently. For example, like the last president who had undergone an impeachment procedure in the Senate before him. After his acquittal in 1999, Bill Clinton stood alone in the Rose Garden of the White House, repentant, and apologized to the Americans. He is sorry that his behavior triggered all those events that were such a burden for the country. He asked his compatriots to forgive him and he was also willing to forgive himself. “This must be a time of reconciliation and renewal for America now,” said Clinton. Then he turned and trudged back to the White House.
But Trump would not be Trump if he hadn’t chosen a completely different path. The day after the Senate acquittal, the President entered the East Room of the White House. He let himself be celebrated for minutes by the people in the room, by Republican MPs, members of his cabinet, and conservative activists who applauded and cheered. Then he immediately pulled over the Democrats, the media, former FBI chief James Comey, ex-special investigator Robert Mueller and a number of other people.
“Evil and corrupt”, “bad people”, “dirty cops”, “liars”, “shame” and – a little later – “scum”: these were just a few of the terms Trump used to throw around. In short, he was doing exactly the opposite of what Bill Clinton had done.
A confused appearance
Trump’s appearance dragged on for an hour, about which he said at the beginning that he was not a press conference, not a speech, “that’s actually nothing, just a celebration. We won. “He went through hell with the impeachment procedure.” He repeated that the telephone conversation with the Ukrainian president was “perfect”. The whole Ukraine affair, the investigation by the House of Representatives, the allegation of abuse of power: “It was all bullshit.”
Once he held up the front page of the Washington Post, on which his acquittal was announced in bold letters. He thanked Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader in the Senate, and many other Republican politicians in the room. About MP Jim Jordan, who never wears a jacket, Trump said: “He is very proud of his body.”
Sentences like this showed that the 73-year-old did not read from a manuscript, but – generously formulated – shuffled freely from one topic to the next, from the Russia affair to the share prices to his children and back again. So it was a confused appearance, even for Trumps, about which the democratic MP Don Beyer wrote: “When was the last time the president had a health check?” The CNN television station called the speech “vengeful”. A Fox News presenter, on the other hand, described it as “haunting”.
Romney dominated the headlines
Not surprisingly, Trump also attacked Mitt Romney in his speech. The Utah senator was the only Republican on Wednesday to vote Trump over guilty of abuse of power. The end of the impeachment process, which seemed so predictable, was still a surprise. Romney dominated the headlines with his decision, at least for the first few hours, stealing Trump to a certain extent from the moment of triumph.
Above all, however, his vote nullified the President’s argument that impeachment was a purely party-political matter. Romney is now the first senator to vote for a guilty verdict by the president of his own party in an impeachment process.
No trace of reconciliation
He received a lot of praise for this from the Democrats. Democratic Senator Brian Schatz said he had tears of emotion in his eyes when he listened to Romney announce his decision in the Senate hall. Romney also seemed close to tears during his speech. He swore an oath that as a jury he would seek an independent judgment. As a believer, he must adhere to it, said the Mormon.
The facts are clear: the president is guilty of an “appalling violation of public trust”. He was aware that he would be hostile to his stance, said the former presidential candidate. But he had to listen to his conscience.
The hostilities did come – and they were violent. Trump’s son Donald junior demanded that Romney leave the Republican Party. The president himself published a video in which Romney was described as the “secret agent” of the Democrats. At Fox News, the pitch got even stranger. Presenters and studio guests called Romney a “traitor”. Trump’s spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said: “Maybe people will have to pay for it.” The reconciliation and renewal that Bill Clinton once called for in the rose garden: It never seemed so far away.
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Created: 02-06-2020, 08:46 PM
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