On Convicting Donald Trump

Even though I think the better constitutional argument is that it is constitutional to impeach and try former President Trump (he was, after all, impeached while he was still in office), I probably wouldn’t have impeached him (for the reasons stated here).  However, once he was impeached, given what he did, I couldn’t not convict him. 

As I said here, I don’t know if he “incited” an “insurrection” in the legal meaning of those words, but what he did was wrong.  A president doesn’t have to be guilty of a crime to be impeached and convicted (and a president doesn’t always get impeached and convicted just because he committed a crime – see, for example, Bill Clinton).  What former President Trump did was sufficiently wrong that, as I said above, I couldn’t not convict him.  Unfortunately, it appears that not enough Republicans agree with me.

One final point:  We are told former President Trump needs to be convicted to make it clear that what he did was unacceptable and so it is not done again.  As I said back in November, the key to making sure that what President Trump did does not damage our democracy, and become a precedent for the future, is for us to agree not to do it again.  All of us.  Agree that we won’t say that former President Trump did “X” or “Y”, so it’s okay for us to do “Z”.  Even if President Trump is not convicted, which it appears he won’t be, what he did is only a precedent if we let it be.  It’s up to us.
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UPDATE (2/13/21 4:45 pm): This was posted about two hours before the Senate voted not to convict former President Trump.