Chief Justice Roberts is paving the way for Trump to claim his trial is unconstitutional
By Gregory Mark, opinion contributor — 02/09/21 10:45 AM EST
During my second year of law school at the University of Chicago, the constitutional law final included a question dealing with the hypothetical impeachment and trial of a president — where the chief justice did not preside over the trial. After the exam, I told a classmate the situation seemed so absurd and implausible that it would never happen.
I was wrong. More than 30 years later, the Senate is set to try former President Trump and Chief Justice John Roberts will not preside over the trial. Instead, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), president pro tempore of the Senate, an elected official and a member of the judiciary, oversees the hearing. This is deeply troubling.
The Constitution calls for the chief justice to preside over an impeachment trial. By stepping aside, Roberts not only is failing to meet his duty, but his actions bring an air of illegitimacy to the trial. Impeachments are designed to bring the entire government together for a nonpartisan affair. If Trump is convicted, he would be ineligible to hold federal office. Without the presence of the chief justice, and if there is a conviction, Trump can argue the ruling was unconstitutional because the rules according to the Constitution were not followed.
For Roberts to recuse himself flies in the face of the past two-and-a-half centuries of the evolution of the presidency itself because it allows someone who otherwise might be ineligible to become president to try again. As the nation’s chief magistrate, Roberts is doing our republic a disservice.
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https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/537955-chief-justice-roberts-is-paving-the-way-for-trump-to-claim-his-trial-is
