It's time for the senate and house to make new rules

The days of expecting politicians (especially Republicans) to behave themselves are over

The days of expecting readers to subscribe are NOT over!

It’s being reported tonight that Senators Mike Lee, Lindsay Graham, and Ted Cruz – Republicans all – have met with Trump’s legal team and consulted with them about what would be the best strategy to follow when it comes time to put on their case tomorrow. 

It would appear that such collaboration between jurors – in the case of an impeachment trial, the senators – and the counsels for the defense or prosecution would be illegal.  It is illegal within the walls of any courtroom in this country, to my knowledge.  At the least, such a thing would lead to being charged with contempt by the judge; at the worst, jurors or counsels for either side might be charged with obstruction of justice.

Unfortunately, in this case such reprehensible behavior is not illegal or even unethical because the law of the land does not apply to the senate, which makes up its own rules pretty much as it goes along.  You may recall there was a vote the other day, largely but not entirely bipartisan, to approve the “organization” of the senate for the purposes of the impeachment trial.  There was a similar vote last year before the first senate trial of Trump when he was impeached for the phone call with the president of Ukraine. 

The senate (and the house) largely operate by rules (in effect, laws) separate from those of the country at large.  This means, for example, that no member of congress can be sued for libel for anything said on the floor of the house or senate.  They exempt themselves from libel laws for the ostensible purpose of “open and free debate,” which is of course bullshit, but there you have it.

Recently, we have learned that the senate didn’t have any rules against senators trading on their own personal stock accounts based on knowledge they glean as a result of their position as senators.  For example, if a senator sits on the health and human services committee and learns about a new drug that is coming to market and will soon be approved by the FDA, and this knowledge is not public, they could buy stock in that company based on their “insider” knowledge as senators.  Last year after the Loeffler/Perdue/Burr stock selling scandals, the senate wrote a new rule forbidding such insider trades.  But for the last 240 years or so, the senate and the house exempted themselves from laws that would have put regular citizens behind bars.

The same sort of thing applies in the cases of Cruz, Graham, and Lee.  When the senate voted its rules to “organize” itself for the impeachment trial of Trump, it did not specifically ban collaboration between jurors (senators) and the Trump defense team…or the House managers for that matter.  So the Three Stooges are free to collaborate with Trump’s Two Stooges all they want.

It’s probable that Majority Leader Schumer, who was in charge of writing the rules for the impeachment trial of Trump, failed to include a rule banning collaboration between senators and counsels for the house and the defendant (Trump) because he assumed that no senator would be so lacking in basic ethical standards that they would do such a thing.  Well, as we learned when Trump took office and immediately began throwing every ethical standard which had governed previous presidents straight out the window, we can’t depend on people’s decency and good will. In the future, it would be a good idea if the senate (and the house, for that matter) made rules for themselves keeping in mind that their members are unlikely to adhere to broadly accepted norms and ethical standards and make strict rules accordingly.

By the same token, it would be equally advisable for the congress to pass a whole new set of laws governing what newly elected presidents should do concerning releasing their taxes, divesting themselves of privately owned businesses, and putting their stock portfolio in a blind trust – not to mention such otherwise newly-necessary stuff as making it specifically illegal for a president to incite a mob to riot and commit murder.

The days of expecting politicians, especially those of the Republican stripe, to behave like reasonable, law-abiding human beings are over.