OPINION:
President Trump took great pleasure in his recent takedown of Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy (“Trump claims revenge over impeachment vote after Cassidy loses primary,” Web, May 16).
His exultation was graceless, but he had legitimate grounds for striking back at Mr. Cassidy for the latter’s vote against him in the 2021 impeachment proceedings.
The sole article of impeachment alleged incitement to riot, but there’s no basis for that article. The president urged the Jan. 6 crowd to march to the Capitol, but he told them to be peaceful, and there is no evidence that he conspired with anyone to breach the Capitol.
Even special counsel Jack Smith, who threw every book he could find at the president, did not charge Mr. Trump with incitement.
Moreover, the sole function of the Senate in presidential impeachments is to remove a president who has been impeached by the House, and by the time the matter got to the Senate there was no president to remove because Mr. Trump had left office.
With no basis for the impeachment proceedings in either fact or law, it’s easy to see why the Republican senators who voted against the president might have inspired thoughts of Brutus on the ides of March.
JIM DUEHOLM
Washington
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