Rage by Bob Woodward

Author:Bob Woodward
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2020-09-14T23:00:00+00:00

I. See prologue.

THIRTY-TWO

Trump’s State of the Union address, February 4, was a rousing, self-confident one-hour, 18 minutes that will likely be remembered most for its theatrical tribute to Rush Limbaugh. The conservative and controversial radio host had revealed the day before he had been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. Trump announced he was awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to a visibly stunned Limbaugh. Just as theatrically, Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped up a copy of Trump’s speech on camera.

The next day, February 5, 2020, the Senate acquitted Trump on the two articles of impeachment, with a vote of 52 to 48 on abuse of power and 53 to 47 on obstruction of Congress. Senator Mitt Romney of Utah was the sole Republican who voted to convict the president along with all the Democrats, and did so only on the abuse of power count.

“What he did was not perfect,” Romney said in an impassioned speech before the vote. “No, it was a flagrant assault on our electoral rights, our national security and our fundamental values. Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one’s oath of office I can imagine.”

Just eight years earlier, Romney had been the Republican party’s presidential nominee—a split he spoke of in near-biblical terms.

“I’m sure to hear abuse from the president and his supporters,” he said. “Does anyone seriously believe that I would consent to these consequences other than from an inescapable conviction that my oath before God demanded it of me?”

Even for many of the GOP senators who voted to acquit Trump on both charges, it was hardly a day of celebration.

Senator Lamar Alexander—at age 79, an old-school establishment Republican and two-time presidential candidate who was not running for reelection to the Senate—acted, for many, as the conscience of the Senate majority. While he said Trump’s behavior did not meet “the Constitution’s high bar for an impeachable offense,” he conceded Trump had acted improperly. Questions about whether Trump deserved to remain in the presidency, he said, should be left to voters in the 2020 election, now only nine months away.

“It was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent and to withhold United States aid to encourage that investigation,” Alexander said. “When elected officials inappropriately interfere with such investigations, it undermines the principle of equal justice under the law.”

In total, 10 Republican senators who voted to acquit said in statements or interviews Trump’s actions were wrong, improper or inappropriate. “Let me be clear, Lamar speaks for lots and lots of us,” Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, said. “I believe that delaying the aid was inappropriate and wrong.”

The president had won the votes of these Republicans, but not their approval.

Former DNI and senator Dan Coats, out of the administration for five months, watched Trump’s impeachment with few illusions. He felt he understood the Senate far better than the intelligence world or the White House. He was sure every senator up there, including the Republicans, knew what had transpired.

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