“As a senator-juror, I swore an oath before God to exercise impartial justice. I am profoundly religious. My faith is at the heart of who I am. I take an oath before God as enormously consequential...
“Were I to ignore the evidence that has been presented and disregard what I believe my oath and the Constitution demands of me for the sake of a partisan end, it would, I fear, expose my character to history’s rebuke and the censure of my own conscience.” — US Sen. Mitt Romney, senator from Utah, who was the only Republican senator who voted Wednesday, Feb. 5 for the removal of President Trump from office.
IT WAS all because of the oath of Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah. Or so he said in explaining his vote of guilty against President Trump.
Oaths, whenever they are required for assumption of office or joining an organization, are often taken for granted, cheapened by the repetition and the absence of sanction to instill fear of its violation. But Romney’s oath as a juror was to God, he said, and to him, “a deeply religious” person, that made the difference.
Three oaths
Romney is a Republican who was required by party obligation and loyalty to defend and protect Trump, GOP leader, whom the House of Representatives impeached and the Senate tried for abuse of authority and obstruction of justice.
Romney took three oaths actually: one, when he joined the Republican Party, two, when he assumed office as senator, and three, when he, along with his colleagues in the Senate, began the work as senator-juror in the trial.
It was the oath that he used to defend his vote but he didn’t cite the Supreme Court justice who administered it to the senators. Romney cited God.
Invoking God
But doesn’t one invoke God when one joins a political party, a legislative body, or any other group and routinely takes the mandatory oath. Even the oath of civic clubs carries the line, “So help me God.”
The 98 senators took their oath as senator-jurors “to do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws.” At the same time, however, they were bound by oath and party discipline to uphold the interest of the Republican Party, to which their individual personal interest was also bound.
It wasn’t difficult for many Republican senators to make the choice that would assure their political survival. Some of them even had the gall to announce before any evidence was in that they were “ready to acquit.”
Did founders err?
Can it be said then that the US founding fathers erred in providing a mechanism of impeachment in which senator-jurors are bound to “to do impartial justice” but at the same time are prevented from doing “impartial justice” by their party and personal obligations?
Not helping is the popular view that impeachment is a political process. The reality check is that the party that controls the Senate decides the outcome of the trial. Just as the party that controls the House of Representatives decides the result of the impeachment inquiry.
Gall on strategies
The two previous US presidents who were impeached were not so brash in bending the rules and the reality before and during trial. Another president, Richard Nixon, escaped impeachment by resigning.
They didn’t have Trump’s gall. Trump did what no previous impeached president had done before. He and his surrogates kept repeating that the process was a sham, he was a victim of a coup on his 2016 election and he did nothing wrong in his alleged extortion. His defenders at the trial argued there was no abuse of power; if there was, it was not impeachable, a president could do anything to get reelected as it would be in the interest of the nation and the voters would be the judge of his guilt in the next election.
Broke away from herd
Was he not just using his oath for his own personal purpose: to be recognized as the only Republican who voted in an impeachment of his president according to his conscience, which his oath to God demanded? Cynics abound and they will ask that.
He wouldn’t be remembered as president; Barack Obama beat him in 2012. At least, he would be remembered for taking the path few politicians would take. His colleagues, seeing that Trump rated even higher among the Republicans and fearing reprisal if they’d break away, meekly joined the herd.
In the Philippine setting, where the impeachment process copies the US model, the same behavior of politicians can be expected. And display of a Romney-like fidelity to a juror-senator’s oath before God would be just as stunning.