Conrad Black

Of course president Trump was acquitted

The impeachment of President Trump was unfounded in law and in fact and was never anything but a smear-job organised by the Democratic House intelligence chairman (Adam Schiff) with a pretend whistleblower. Trump asked the president of Ukraine for the facts about the association of former vice president Biden and his son’s activities in Ukraine, not a condemnation; that was not inappropriate. president Zelensky has said there was no pressure, the investigation seems not to have occurred, and the assistance to Ukraine was sent within legislated deadlines.

The House of Representatives procedure was spurious; the president received none of the rights accorded to defendants in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights, and which had been granted to the three previous presidents in the same process, (Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton). The charges were not crimes, and no evidence of Trump committing what was charged (abuse of power and contempt of Congress), was adduced anyway.

The impeachment and removal of a president was foreseen by the authors of the Constitution as a remedy to criminally egregious conduct or an assault on the Constitution itself.

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