Horowitz: Romney Steps Up

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Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Rob Horowitz, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™

When President Bill Clinton addressed the nation from the White House after he was acquitted in his impeachment trial, more than 20 years ago, he struck the appropriate tone, acknowledging wrongdoing and seeking to bring the country together. “Now that the Senate has fulfilled its constitutional responsibility, bringing this process to a conclusion, I want to say again to the American people how profoundly sorry I am for what I said and did to trigger these events, and the great burden they have imposed on the Congress and on the American people,” remarked President Clinton.

On the other hand, when President Trump addressed the nation from the White House the day after his acquittal last week from far more serious wrongdoing that put our national security in jeopardy, he took no responsibility for his actions,  still claiming against a mountain of evidence that he did nothing wrong and spending most of his time smearing his perceived enemies.

“We had the witch hunt. It started from the day we came down the elevator,” President Trump began. “We’ve been going through this now for over three years. It was evil, it was corrupt, it was dirty cops, it was leakers and liars, and this should never, ever happen to another president, ever. I don’t know that other presidents would have been able to take it. Some people said, no, they wouldn’t have,” he continued.

President Trump continued his divisive approach the next day by firing Lt Colonel Alexander Vindman, who truthfully testified in front of the House Intelligence Committee, and his twin brother, Lt Colonel Yevgeny Vindman and having security escort them out of the White House. Lt. Alexander Vindman had already indicated he was planning to leave the White House by the end of February, so frog-marching him and his brother out in broad daylight was designed to humiliate him and to send a message that any dissent from the president will be punished.  Similarly, Ambassador Gordon Sondland, another Trump Administration official who also testified in the impeachment inquiry, was fired the same day even-though he was seeking to arrange his resignation. 

In case anyone missed the point, White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham previewed the president’ s vindictive actions by saying that he was looking for “payback.”

President Trump’s refusal to move to heal the nation after his acquittal and his insistence in the face of the well-established facts that his actions in Ukraine were blameless make Senator Mitt Romney’s (R-UT) courageous vote to remove the president from office all the more important. In an articulate and heartfelt speech on the Senate Floor explaining his decision, Romney said, “The President delayed funds for an American ally at war with Russian invaders. The President’s purpose was personal and political. Accordingly, the President is guilty of an appalling abuse of the public trust. What he did was not “perfect”— No, it was a flagrant assault on our electoral rights, our national security interests, 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 that I can imagine.”

Other Republican Senators, including Lamar Alexander, Susan Collins, Rob Portman and Lisa Murkowski, joined Romney in strongly criticizing President Trump’s actions in the Ukraine matter, but argued that they were not a sufficient reason to remove the president especially so close to an election. But Romney was the only Republican to take the next step and vote to convict him. He knew in doing so he would receive the vitriol from Trump and his allies that predictably unfolded. 

Mitt Romney’s courageous stand for American values and the rule of law was a needed rebuke of a president who respects neither. It denied President Trump the ability to claim the unanimous Republican support for acquittal in the US Senate he desperately wanted and undermined his baseless, dangerous and fact free argument that he did nothing wrong.  It will stand the test of time.

Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits, businesses, and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.
 

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