 Okay, we're back. We're live with history lens and John David and and we're gonna talk about a subject that is I can't say it's Dear to my heart because it's not but it is near to my heart It is what is going on in the impeachment trial and John John has a whole raft of context for us Hi, John David and mr. History lens. How are you? Hey, I'm good. How are you doing? I'm not so good Whatever I see or hear about this impeachment makes me ill. I mean, I'm losing meals over what's happening in Washington. How do you feel? well, look, I'm not throwing up if that's what you mean, but you know, it's it's as a Look as a liberal Democrat. I'm frustrated by the process and by the prospect that That you know, the Senate will acquit Trump that they will not They will vote against any motion to remove so yeah, that's frustrating, but When I'm put on my historian's hat and I look at the history of this process It is inherently political and the other thing is it's inherent J I'm gonna say this now because I think you expect this to work out in a kind of rational way and it's not it's never been rational and It's even been worse Than this believe it or not. I know that's tough to take but okay Well, let's break it up into two parts one is how rational or irrational have previous impeachment attempts been That's the first part and to let's talk about context context in those days and context now So that we can figure out if we can speculate a little bit I know historians hate to speculate, but if we can we can speculate a little bit John about what's gonna happen after Donald Trump is Isn't is I can't even say it is acquitted sticks at my throat What's gonna happen afterwards because we need to discuss that sort of on its own merits Yeah, yeah, so okay, let's do that at the end But first of all we have to go back and look at the the previous impeachments and their Previous impeachment trials the removal trials in the Senate and there were two there was one in 1868 and then again in 1998 and going into 1999 and of course the first was President Andrew Johnson was impeached by the Republican controlled House of Representatives in 1868 and then it moved to the Senate for a trial. So let's take that first now This is a to me. This is a really interesting story because what what happens is the whole of Reconstruction gets gets kind of enveloped into Republicans contempt for Johnson and then eventually their Their decision to impeach him. So let me lay the groundwork. So okay The end of the Civil War has ended Lincoln is assassinated Andrew Johnson a Southern Democrat takes the presidency No, Andrew Johnson takes the presidency because he was in fact an Anti-Confederate he was a pro-union Southern Democrat and so Lincoln thought hey for for the unity of the country choose a Southern Democrat to be my vice President then Lincoln is assassinated and this guy gets to be president now Johnson is definitely pro-union. He's a he's an American nationalist, but he is also Out and out racist. He's a white supremacist and he makes this very clear actually during his administration and so he allows the South to reconstruct itself very rapidly without any change and And you know, there's there's no punishment for the South and no punishment for slaveholders And what you get in the South is a situation that is very similar to that under slavery for the for the former slaves They have to sign these long-term contracts. So you've got all this going on and but you have a Congress which is Republican majority and they don't they're not sure they could they're not sure what to think about this guy first But it very quickly they sour on him by the end of 1865 really just like four months after Lincoln's assassination The the Republican Congress has said this is he's a bad guy. We're gonna have to do something about so what they do is they They're able to achieve soup a supermajority in the left in the election of 1866 and then they go about the business of Reconstructing the South themselves without Johnson because they have a supermajority they pass laws Johnson vetoes them and then they pass them over his veto Okay, that's differentiation point number one That they can override him, you know after the after the Now what happens is so you have leftover administrators from Lincoln Edwin Stanton very important Your war under Lincoln and he stays in that position in the Johnson administration Okay Johnson doesn't like him this guy is a radical Republican He's an abolitionist he's very much in the camp of the left wing of the Republican Party So so he wants to remove him. It's 1867 and and the Republicans the way they're doing reconstruction in the South is through the military This is really kind of strange But so Stanton is following the orders of the Congress not the president who is also the commander in chief Very interesting Congress has really taken control of reconstruction And there's really nothing that Johnson can do about it except get rid of stanton Put his own guy in there and then you know, then he can maybe stop Congress from running reconstruction withdraw troops from the south and what he sees is this terrible reconstruction Which is in franchising african-americans and offering new civil rights. He's he's appalled by this And and so so he so he tries so so what happens is Congress knows that they're that he wants to get rid of stanton. So they pass a law Called the tenure of office act Yeah, you're following me so far. Yep. Go ahead Tenure of office act allows congress makes actually it makes it against the law for the president to remove anybody that congress has Approved or his captain So so he cannot now under the law remove stanton Except that there's a clause that says you can remove a cabinet officer during a recess of congress is on recess Johnson moves to To fire stanton stanton actually refuses and locks himself in his office for several days really It's a real mess And very was a very um willful guy and during the civil war. I remember he was a very tough War secretary during the war. Yeah, absolutely. He's so he's so he's a strong guy You have these other strong very willful congressmen who are who are running essentially running the country They're running reconstruction right now And uh, so so that's a mess and then congress says wait a minute this guy this president has violated the law Let's impeach him and so they begin impeachment. It passes through the house Now one difference big difference between now and then is that they pass 11 impeachment articles Some of them very detailed articles and this probably was a mistake on their part To try to kind of sell impeachment they they thought broad and big I think the The the democrats this time around thought small and focused In the end it might not matter quite frankly, but uh, so So, uh, so they so the the trial moves to the senate and the senate convenes a trial And now it it's unbelievable. Anyway, uh, there's all kinds of horse trading going on jay. It's it's astounding The level of corruption that accompanies this trial okay, so questions Yeah, well, are you suggesting are you suggesting that um that his acquittal um gave him More power That he went back to the way the very things that uh, that they were complaining about Yeah, we'll get to that in a second. So no actually what i'm suggesting is that the process was deeply flawed It was highly political deeply flawed and it was accompanied by a tremendous amount of corruption So for one thing you have the the the speaker of the house benjamin wade Is in line to become president if johnson is impeached He gets to vote articles of impeachment that would put himself into the presidency Okay, there's you know, some people call him out on this and said hey, you should you should recuse yourself from this vote He didn't So you have that situation because at that point there was no provision for appointing a vice president So the speaker of the house immediately becomes president So then you also have in the senate, uh, you have several senators that are being bribed William fessenden who is a senator. He's he's on the you know, he's kind of in the middle Should I vote to convict or not? He's a he's a republican from main. He's still an abolitionist but a moderate He gets offered the Ambassadorship to the united kingdom to the great britain in return for a vote to convict Now he in the end. He does not convict. He votes to a quit Uh, another senator, uh, samuel palmeroy from kansas Goes to so he's a republican It looks like he might vote to convict he goes to the johnson people and says if you pay me 40 000 dollars I will vote to a quit now there's corruption for you So, yeah, so It's it's very interesting stuff the way this the harsh trading was going on. So in the end What what most Senators decided and these are republicans because the republicans hold a super majority. They could have easily convicted him Uh, in the end what most republicans come down on is is Is the breaking of the office of the the tenure of office act? Is that actually an impeachable events because? Offense because the problem is the tenure of office act It looked like it might be an unconstitutional infringement on the powers of the president So and eventually that's what happens congress actually repeals the tenure of office act interesting What about the other what about the other? 10 articles Right. So so they didn't even get to most of them. They voted two of them They were both voted down then they recessed and the last vote It was it it was voted down by one vote And a guy named ross edmund ross from kansas was the deciding vote in both of those articles They take a 10 day recess. There's edmund ross right there. Thank you for that Eric and so they take a 10 day recess and in the 10 days they begin an investigation of ross It with questions about bribery whether or not he was bribed to to vote to a quit So so this he's got a lot of pressure on him to vote yes on the third article But he doesn't he votes no and and so then the republicans give up and and johnson is quitted But johnson is really uh, he's he's destroyed by the process. Now, how do you mean that was his power diminished by Right, so he had already lost a great deal of power to congress because congress had taken reconstruction out of his hands Uh, but at this point then he loses any sort of credibility Of democrats disown him. He tries to run again In fact, he does serve in in the senate for a short time, but without any, you know official democratic support and so He's he's considered at the end of this. He's considered persona non grata And so I would say there's two distinguishing points that you've mentioned really one is You know that this was not lockstep that yes, there was corruption. You could buy a vote And the strange bizarre corrupt things were happening under the hood But it was not unanimous and and that there was a certain dynamic going on a certain Unpredictability going on as opposed to now when there is no unpredictability at all Lockstep completely that is really different. The other thing is that when when it was all over back in andrew johnson Uh, he was he was damaged. He was d he was De-credibilized so to speak And he didn't have the power anymore Right, so that's that's quite different than what would happen. What will happen when trump is acquitted. Don't you think? Right. Well, you know the takeaway is that this is an intensely political process It's a constitutional remedy but the founders Built it as a as an intensely political process. It's done in the senate It's not done by the supreme court They could have easily said well the supreme court decides on whether to remove a president They didn't they the founders recognized that politics was built into The process and there was no way to get it out of the process and the idea was to Um, I think quite frankly make the bar pretty high For actual removal at least that's the way that the senators interpreted Impeachment in that first go-round Well, let me ask you this john from all that you know from all that happened with andrew johnson We'll get to bill clinton in a minute Um, or the founders right did they call it right or was this some kind of monumental mistake? Where they really failed to appreciate human nature and the way and the way the government really worked internally Could they have done better? Yeah, I mean, I I think uh one could make an argument that the process is flawed that it's too political that you know, it's it's uh Maybe it should be done by a judiciary. Maybe it should be done by a combination of senators and and uh and supreme court justices I'm not sure but yeah, I think I think this go-around seems this this go-around with trump seems to suggest that it is flawed Uh that that we need to revise this the articles on impeachment To that by the way footnote to that so the way we way we see roberts conducting himself as the The moderator the judge Right. There is a president in the 1868 process. So salman p chase is the presiding Supreme court justice. He is an abolitionist He was a part of the founding of the republican party He's a he's a very prominent, you know, uh left uh left republican but Salmon actually argues that uh johnson should get a fair trial He's really arguing for this and he wants evidence introduced He he uh he proposes a motion to allow johnson to introduce evidence that the tenure of office at Act was actually unconstitutional Uh in the republican congress votes him down So the republican congress they did not want a fair trial in this case They want they want it, you know in majority they wanted a conviction. That's quite similar to uh to the republicans this time around Who do not want a fair trial. They actually want an acquittal. Yeah, uh, so so it's you know, the thing is party and power right the republicans were in power and so they actually A few republicans acted quite selflessly j here's a point All seven of those who voted against removal Never served as never were elected again to an elected office They lost they could have never stood for election again And they understood this that they were sacrificing their their political careers at least as elected officials. Oh, that is such a distinction between now Seems to me the senate They They vote on the basis of how they can save their jobs perpetuate their office That's what that's what motivates them and that's what the people who would corrupt them use as a weapon Right, so so the precedent is a pretty good precedent actually a precedent that that you should vote your conscience Not your politics and vote, you know the evidence And not uh, you know not you grind your axe against someone else. So yeah, this is a problem This is definitely a problem with this but but mostly this is what has happened. Okay, so Uh, in this case the vote was not completely on party lines Otherwise, johnson's would have been impeached in the clinton case The vote was very close to party lines in the senate. So Um, so, uh, you know, it's the politics is built into it, you know It's uh, there's nothing new in that there's nothing new in the the republicans using politics to try to to get trump off and Uh, it's anyway uh, should we move on with me john to say this that politics of course politics and poker but um Bottom line is that the politics of the time of johnson and for that matter The politics some 20 years ago with clinton are different than the politics today We have a different country. We have different, um, you know, different divisions if you will and different politics And when you change the context, you are changing the process that relies on a certain a certain jeunesse qua In the politics we we don't have those politics anymore. We have politics that make people completely irrational things Yeah, so the thing is, uh, the divisions, uh In the johnson That were actually more severe than they are now Um, I mean the nation had just gone through a civil war. I mean they were there four five Pardon me three years removed from a civil war. So tremendous divisions and tensions There's violence in the south against african americans and against whites who are allied with african americans So so it's actually, you know, the tensions are much greater at that point But you did have these senators who considered themselves to be selfless Kind of guarantors of the constitution and it is a constitutional process I really think if if republican senators are thinking about evidence and thinking about Uh, uh, calling witnesses that they need to think about this as a constitutional process It's not it shouldn't it's it's not designed to be a political remedy. It's designed to be a constitutional remedy So there's in other words, there's no There's nothing that says that trump if he was removed would not run again It's not a political remedy and it's not a legal remedy trump does not get thrown into jail because but it's a constitutional remedy This is where I think the republicans today have have really fallen down is there's very few republicans There might be three or four in the senate who say hey, we should have witnesses There's certainly not enough republicans to convict trump and it's very clear evidence is continuing to come out That trump actually did this that that it was a quid pro quo that he was abusing the powers of the office to try to get Uh, you know this this dirt on joe viden and his family. So yeah yeah, well, um, I just uh You know, I wonder about the moral aspect of it, you know, you have the constitutional you have the political You have the legal I suppose, you know, because you could I mean if I were the chief justice Someday, maybe if I were the chief justice and I was presiding over this I would be acting like a trial judge and you know, I don't think they could stop me Uh, because I have the judge and and I would be doing much more than roberts is doing Uh, and I would be imposing basic legal principles of fairness and impartiality But we don't have that here. We do not have that here. We do not have morality here either Yeah, right. Okay. Let's take the the uh, the the uh, supreme court justice, you know roberts Okay, the precedent is that that the supreme court justice can be overruled And and that's the precedent that was set in the johnson Impeachment quite frankly and that is not changed. So it's a political It's a it's a political process. So Uh, you know, there's no way that roberts on his own is going to do this. I don't think No, no, he's not gonna do this. Yeah, and maybe you should be in there Thank you. Thank you, john Right, right Okay, so let's let's look at today. We have five minutes left. Let's look at today Let's look at um, you know, how this differs from both of those two impeachments You know, you've mentioned that in the case of johnson, he was like d He fell from grace. He fell from political grace and he fell from influence and it ruined him in the case of trump He has not fallen from grace among his constituents among his base. It's so far. It hasn't ruined him In fact, arguably it's made him more popular because he drills down and and doubles down all the time and never and never I just never apologize More popular what we've seen is that polling on impeachment If support for impeachment has steadily ramped up since the mauler port report was released Uh, and it's that it's a 51 maybe 52 of americans who think he should be removed from office So this is you know, the the majority of americans actually think the guy did what he did and they think it's an impeachable offense So in that way the politics of this I can't see how this improves trump's position. You know, it's it's not It's it's it's not a good thing for him Now bill clinton, of course when he was impeached and almost removed, um, the the votes were really party line in the senate But uh, but so, uh, you know, so he was not removed Uh, but there were you know in one case the majority of there and there's clinton. Yeah, there's clinton and the The headlines from new york times another other, uh newspapers, but so so in clinton's case, um Many senators felt like he was kind of entrapped into this He did a really really stupid thing like one of the most stupid things that the president has ever done Uh, but he you know, the truth is that the the impeachers Henry Hyde and these other prosecutors they were all having affairs themselves So Right, you know, so Anyway, so what what he did is he lied he shouldn't have lied and he tried to hide the facts Which is obstruction of justice. So that was dumb, but clinton, of course could not run again Johnson could have run again if he had had political support, but he didn't you know the party abandoned him Trump has put himself at the center of the republican party. So he is going to I mean his reelection campaign is going forward Um, I think the real so I think it damages him quite frankly I mean his polling has declined a little bit since the start of the trial in the senate But just factor this john factor this, you know friday or soon enough we will have an acquittal I'm sorry to say And then he will be able to say that he was exonerated He'll twist that like he twisted the result in the Mueller report same thing And he'll say that the the democrats are just trying to reverse the Is god given mandate mandate from the election in 2016 Um, and it was all a hoax and a fraud and uh, so forth And he's good. He's he'll he'll have a benefit of that He'll he will be campaigning on that basis for now until november And and I I suggested that He will make some make some hay with it. Don't you think? I don't think so. No, I think it damages him the thing is When again the polling has shown a steady increase among americans who want who see that he did something wrong and should be removed So I don't see how you can win if 51 of americans say look this guy should have been removed from office I mean there have been questions about his fitness for office from the beginning Yes, right And and so I think the majority of americans are going I'm not sure we would want four years of this four more years of this guy. He really he scares me makes me nervous He's looks to me like he broke the law looks to me like he's abusing his power You know, there are americans, you know, a lot of americans see him as having Abused the constitution, you know the announcement about the wall which was which, you know Went through a congressional vote no funding and then he decided on his own to take funding That's that's that's an abuse. That's a violation of the constitution very clearly and I think the supreme court will come to that but I don't think I don't think it helps him at all. I think he's in very deep political trouble He's going to be the republican standard holder, but he's going to go down I think I don't think he can be reelected and I think the republicans are going to have a surprise I think I mean there there'll be some places that hold but look we elected a democratic Governor in Kentucky last time around The party loyalty is slipping. It's it's breaking apart what should be happening happening in the republican party Is an all out no holds a fist fight between You know metaphorically between republicans because their party they've lost their way I mean they they were once a party that stood that had principles and now they stand only for trump. It's very strange Yeah, well, I think what's really interesting is Is that the public really hasn't spoken on this and the polls don't really tell us But if if I'm an ordinary Republican Even a committed to trump republican and I see the senate doing what they are doing in lockstep and rejecting all the evidence Making lying when they argue and so forth and doing that 53 47 and issue after issue after issue I can't possibly have confidence and faith in them to run run the country And I have to be dismayed about that at some level of my consciousness and therefore I think what's going to happen is the the republican senate is going to is going to lose big time in november And the last question I put to you and you only have a minute to answer it Is you know going back to andrew johnson and the super majority that the uh, you know, I guess the republicans had at that time um, you know, what what happens if public public opinion switches a miscalculation By mcconnell it switches against his lockstep senate. What happens then to trump one minute? Well, I think trump's not elected and then as I said I think an all-off brawl takes place in the republican party because I think that a number of senators have been chafing I mean, it's it's clear actually that a number of republicans have been chafing under trump's rule If he's if he's rejected by the voters, this is big trouble. He will not give in he will not Stop being involved in politics and what I what again, it's it's going to cause this terrible terrible division this this cracking up Of the republican party a great schism in the republican republican party, which should have happened. Yeah 2016 but it didn't happen. Well, you know, it's a funny we live in a funny intersection historically john On the one hand, you know, we have the corona virus from china and it spreads out and it makes It it's terrifying for so many people. It's changing the economy Changing so many things and it will continue to to make a dramatic effect on humanity at the same time We have this thing this process this dynamic going on in washington and in the red states And you know what there's a comparison It's it's a it's a sort of a political virus we have here And that's a subject for our discussion next time john david and This is history lens. I've been talking about the history of impeachment in this country. Thank you so much john Okay, take care jade. Aloha