Impeachment: Let's Hope for the "Nuclear Option"

Impeachment proceedings begin today in the U.S. Senate. Majority leader Mitch McConnell, assuming he can hold his Republican caucus together, plans for the impeachment trial to take place over a week or two. According to the AP:

After the four days of opening arguments — two days per side — senators will be allowed up to 16 hours for questions to the prosecution and defense, followed by four hours of debate. Only then will there be votes on calling other witnesses. 

At the end of deliberations, the Senate would then vote on each impeachment article.

The only news that seems to have struggled free from the morass of impeachment reporting  is whether there will be enough GOP senators to break with their caucus to approve the Democrats' call for witnesses. Even if that occurs, and I'm skeptical that it will, Republicans are threatening a nuclear option, which includes calling witnesses who Democrats don't want to see testify, like Joe and Hunter Biden.

The two articles of impeachment are abuse of power and obstruction of justice. Trump's novel, if ludicrous, defense is that impeachment can only occur if the president commits an ordinary crime. Since Trump is not accused of committing an ordinary crime (though the Government Accountability Office found the Trump administration guilty of illegal impoundment of funds, there are no criminal penalties for violating that law), he never should have been impeached in the first place.

The Democrats made a calculation at the start of the impeachment process that it was best to limit proceedings to the discussion of Ukraine and the transfer of funds to the Ukrainian military to help with the battle against "Russian aggression"; that way, Democrats could obliquely rehabilitate their discredited Russiagate fixation without reanimating the left populist energy that followed Trump's surprise election in 2016. (Whither the Women's March? Indivisible? #Resist?)

The strategy failed to rehabilitate Russiagate but it was successful in reducing popular enthusiasm for impeachment. The problem with reducing popular engagement in impeachment is that it allows McConnell to run the show as he sees fit, confident that there will be no voter blowback for creating a show trial designed to exonerate Trump.

That's why I'll be very surprised if witnesses are allowed to appear. There is a chance that Schumer and McConnell will get together and decide on a few mutually-agreed-upon witnesses. No incendiary testimony. No bombshells. Much the way Trent Lott and Tom Daschle got together and agreed upon video testimony from a few key witnesses during the Clinton impeachment trial.

My hope, as it has been from the beginning, is for the "nuclear option" --- a runaway-train situation where McConnell loses control and the GOP calls the Bidens and the Dems call Pompeo, Bolton, et al. and both institutional parties burn to the ground.