The impeachment proceedings of US President Donald Trump commenced seriously after the transcript of his phone call with V Zelensky, the newly elected president of Ukraine, became public. He was heard asking for the investigation of former US vice-president Joe Biden and his son Hunter, on board of a controversial Ukrainian company.
Biden senior is the leading Democratic contender against President Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
Combined with other public information, it had become clear that military aid to the former Soviet state was withheld by President Trump and linked by his interlocutors, talking to Ukrainian presidential aides, to launch a 'public commitment enquiry' into Biden family’s affairs and Ukrainian government’s alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential election. The second issue was a bogey to distract from charges of Trump benefiting from Russian interference in the 2016 election.
After depositions by many serving and former officials of the State Department before the Congressional Intelligence committee, recounting goings-on between Trump’s lawyer and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and US officials and diplomats, the panel findings reached the Congress before it impeached Trump on Wednesday.
(US president’s impeachment and removal from office occurs after a Congressional enquiry and framing of charges and its recommendation of trial by the upper house, the Senate. After that trial, if found guilty, by two-thirds vote of members present and voting, the president can be removed.)
On Dec 18 the lower house Congress voted, Democrats having majority, to approve articles of impeachment and impeachment trial by the Senate. The Chief Justice is constitutionally mandated to preside over the Senate proceedings. Rules of procedure are as framed by the Senate. It is still unclear how the chief justice, a Republican nominee, conducts the process. Republicans have a 53 to 45 majority in the 100-member senate, with two independent members aligned to Democrats. They may try to vote and reject the trial at the initial stage, though that did not happen the last two times presidents were tried i.e., Andrew Johnson in 1868, which fell one vote short of passing, and Bill Clinton in 1998, which also failed to muster two-thirds majority.
President Trump has chosen confrontation and social media bluster to negate a constitutional process. Thus, while the first charge is the “high crime” of abuse of power, the second is obstruction of justice as he refused to provide documents and ordered high officials to ignore subpoenas from the house. His strategy appeared to be to tie the process down in a court fight and thus insulate it from the 2020 election.
Republican party’s nominees now outnumber the rest by 5 to 4 judges in the nine-member Supreme Court. President Trump is in court refusing to make public his income-tax records, reminiscent of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stalling universities from replying to queries about his education certificates. White House paints the impeachment hearing as a vendetta against a virtuous president hated by political rivals. Similarly, in India, on social media, any criticism of Modi is dubbed as hatred of Modi. White House, in keeping with this narrative, called the impeachment process as “one of the most shameful episodes” in history.
Interestingly, contemporaneously the Indian government has rammed through the highly controversial Citizenship Amendment Act, introducing for the first time religion-based relief to illegal immigrants on the pretext they faced religious persecution in three neighbouring nations i.e., Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Combined with a threatened all-India National Register of Citizens, the process appears rigged against Muslims, turning those who cannot prove their citizenship, as per as yet indeterminate criteria, into stateless persons or worse.
US State Department has been voicing concern about religious discrimination and abuse of fundamental rights since the August 5 abrogation of Article 370 that mandated special status to Jammu and Kashmir. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, on the eve of 2+2 meeting between the foreign and defence ministers of two nations, opined that US cared “deeply and always about protecting minorities and religious rights everywhere". However, they have not upped the ante yet, considering Trump administration’s own politics and US interest in trade and defence deals. Thus, India has got a temporary reprieve. However, the flare-up of public protests particularly by students and government’s ham-handed response leaves the question open. Supreme Court, reluctant in recent past to blow the whistle, may yet act to restore constitutionality. Next few weeks, including result of Jharkhand election, would show the path.
(KC Singh, a former Indian diplomat, was the Indian ambassador to Iran and the UAE.)
