This is a defining moment for the Senate. We have always maintained that impeachment is the proper procedure for resolving questions of integrity and fitness for office. The framers of our Constitution clearly intended the Senate to be the sole authority in all matters related to an impeachment trial. The provisions of our Constitution clearly say so.
We maintain that a sober reading of the Constitution clearly shows the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction over the Senate in impeachment trials. But from the very start, the Chief Justice, his lawyers, and defenders, have threatened to provoke a constitutional crisis: now, they have thrown down the gauntlet. While the supporters of the Chief Justice clearly lacked the numbers to go even further and try to stop the proceedings, the TRO handed down by the Court is a brazen effort to derail the proceedings.
The Senate has said before that it will assert its prerogatives, and uphold its right to do its duty. The burden of history must be weighing heavily on the shoulders of the Senate. But it can look back to its history as the defender of the people’s liberty, and the enemy of autocracy to know where its duty lies.
