If you’ve read the back cover, you’re no doubt wondering where all these “new facts” come from to plug the holes in the prosecution’s case. It’s easiest to show by example:
A discussion later will be made of the President’s claim to have “absolute authority to conduct foreign affairs as granted by the Constitution.” This may be the custom now, but it’s not the law. The Constitution grants Congress the authority to manage all foreign aid. The Constitution grants the Senate to approve treaties and ambassadors. The Constitution doesn’t specifically grant the President any power at all. It’s all by inference, subtext, and outright thievery over the ages.
So, what if you rip away all of the lagniappes and apply only the law? Both sides repeatedly cited evidence from the Founding Fathers. Their best evidence is the Constitution itself, not modern practices that over time have usurped all power from Congress to conduct foreign policy and given it to the chief executive.
Likewise, with many other aspects of the president’s defense. Once you strip all the veneer off – to include things that neither side wants to refer to (e.g., Presidents don’t want to lose the power to remove ambassadors when they’re elected, even though the Constitution – in requiring majority vote to approve ambassadors – tacitly requires the same vote to remove them.)
I’m an engineer. My father was an engineer. All I ever wanted to be was an engineer. You’ll never hear any of these arguments from any lawyer because doing so would automatically lose at least half of the firm’s potential clients. Nobody dares court bankruptcy in that manner. Nobody but a righteous, indignant engineer like me.
Prosecuting attorneys love to have engineers on their juries. If the facts are on their side, of course. They know an engineer will render impartial judgment or do their level best. But it goes beyond the engineer’s practiced ability to weed out distractions to get the gist of the matter. People respect engineers, and other jurors will listen to the engineer’s deliberations when everybody retires to the jury room after both sides close their arguments.
I’m not just a licensed Professional Engineer, but I also spent many years as a consulting engineer. I not only dealt with the public and non-engineer decision-making clients on a regular basis but worked very hard to publish articles on best engineering practice (most notably on energy conservation methods) for the general public. I also published two textbooks with McGraw-Hill, Retrofitting for Energy Conservation and Electrical Design Guide for Commercial Buildings.
This book is designed to study the particulars of the Trump impeachment trial and to present arguments and criticisms in no-nonsense terms for the consideration of John T. and Jane Q. Public. I took an oath as a Midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy, “to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.” I take that oath seriously.
The Golden Rule for Professional Engineers is to “protect the public health.” Personally, I see the long-term consequences of United States vs. Donald R. Trump as a very real danger to the public’s (mental) health because it has the possibility of limiting freedoms, legal rights, and our cherished freedom of speech. At least, that’s my belief today, as the trial ends; I reserve the right to change that position as I build out this investigation.
Just for the record, I’m not an evangelical Christian. I’m not a “new age” Catholic or any other kind of Christian, either. I do, however, have a strong moral inner sanctum. I call myself an “Old Testament Christian.” Which means I believe in all of the Old Testament wisdom but, in my lifelong struggle to become a better person, often make terrible mistakes that necessitate resorting to throwing down Jesus’ get-out-of-the-guilt-jail free card.
I’m not a card-carrying liberal, either. Quite the contrary. Until the first day of the trial, January 16th, I got all my current events information from Foxnews.com. Last fall, I read their coverage of the House hearings and felt the same outrage as other conservatives, supporting the President when the White House issued its blanket refusal to respond to all subpoenas from the House investigations. I’ve never liked Donald Trump as a person but, like most Republicans, put up with him because I supported his policies – stacking the judiciary with constitutional judges, fighting for intellectual rights against China, and supporting a strong military.
January 16th was an epiphany for me, my “Saul on the road to Damascus” moment. (Although it didn’t turn me into a Trump disciple but into a Trump skeptic.) I tuned into the opening arguments as kind of an uncomfortable civic duty, much like jury duty. I’d long since made up my mind that Trump was totally innocent, but my personal dislike of the man’s uncouth manners pushed me unconsciously to tune in to the Senate hearings, hoping deep down inside to see the man get his comeuppance from his moral betters.
I was wrong on both counts. The President’s lawyers seemed to be just as rude and disrespectful as he was, which set my teeth on edge every time they talked. (Likewise, for Trump’s alter egos in the Senate gallery.) Worse still, the House managers said in no uncertain terms that all of the diatribes on Fox News about the President being denied his rights in the House proceedings were completely wrong. Suddenly, Fox News was shown to not only be a serial liar on all things Trump but an active participant in his whole propaganda campaign.
I’ve kept up with the news all my life, ever since my first year at Annapolis (1974), when all us plebes had to memorize three articles off the front page and three off the sports page every morning, to be able to discuss them at the dinner table for the upperclassmen. I’m well aware that there’s a lot more editorial commentary in the headline news these days, but I thought I was reasonably expert in sorting out the truth from the invective.
The Fox News coverage of the House hearings truly shocked me. It offended me. How dare they print only half of the truth. I don’t much care if some second-tier publication does so, but the leading news source in America?
I won’t say I became a Democrat on the spot, but I did come to appreciate the House manager’s efforts and especially, as the days went on, their diligent preparation and dedication to their important roles as the prosecution. I paid a lot more attention now, trying to learn all of the facts in the case, facts that had been conscientiously misrepresented by the conservative media. Facts!
So, that’s who I am. I’m at heart a conservative person, but not at all a Trump Republican or an Evangelical Republican. You might call me a Mitt Romney Republican. But as regards the Senate impeachment proceedings, I’m not a political person at all. I’m an impartial juror, trying to divine the truth of what happened and to figure out the consequences.
Like almost everybody else in America, I would have liked to hear from more witnesses. (Engineers live and die for data. There’s literally never a situation when we don’t want more data, so please don’t assume my saying so is a political statement.) However, there are many things that happened in that trial – things that all the media missed, all the pundits, and all the legal commentators. I will explain all these “holes” in the arguments, so that you can then reach a better understanding of the situation and how well both parties executed their sworn duties.
I have shared with you my political feelings in this opening section so that, if I err in my judgment in the following pages, you’ll be able to see through my crass duplicity and shade your evaluation of my statements to then arrive at a reasonable clarity all your own.