Recusal Required

Senator Johnson Must Recuse in any Impeachment trial involving Ukraine

Wisconsin’s Republican U.S. Senator Ron Johnson has put himself in a box that is impossible to get out of when it comes to impeachment proceedings in the Senate involving President Trump’s call to the Ukrainian President. 

As Chairman of the Senate’s foreign relations sub-committee on Europe and a member of the Senate’s bipartisan Ukraine caucus Johnson was smack dab in the middle of the conversations and meetings being considered by the House of Representatives for an article of impeachment against President Trump that involve withholding of U.S. military aid in exchange for Ukrainian help with investigations of 2020 presidential candidate and former Vice-President Joe Biden and Biden’s son, Hunter. 

Johnson has been quoted in newspaper accounts as having learned of the withholding of the military aid to Ukraine and that it was done to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. He had direct communications with President Trump who assured him that there was no “quid -pro-quo” for the aid to flow and Ukraine going forward with the desired investigations. Johnson also met with Ukrainian officials who claim that Ukraine assisted Democrats in the 2016 election. Johnson attended the inauguration of the Ukrainian president who spoke with President Trump. Johnson also unsuccessfully lobbied Trump to let the Ukrainian military aid flow. He stated publicly that he was satisfied with Trump’s statements to him that there was no “quid pro quo” involved with the aid and a Ukrainian investigation of the Bidens. 

In order to understand the problem, it is important to understand the process of presidential impeachment. The U.S. House of Representatives is charged with bringing articles of impeachment forward. Think about articles of impeachment as similar to charges in a criminal complaint or indictment filed by a prosecutor. The articles then form the outline for a trial in the United States Senate where two-thirds of the Senators have to vote to convict in order for the president to be removed from office. In that trial, each Senator sits as a judge or member of a jury, and has to decide if the facts presented are first, true and second, sufficient to warrant impeachment and removal of the president from office. 

If you were facing a criminal trial, would you want one of the witnesses to the facts of your case to then turn around and act as the judge or member of the jury charged with determining if those facts are true?  Would you want that same person to then determine if those facts were sufficient to establish your guilt? I bet you would not.

The rules governing criminal and even civil trials in the United States strictly prohibit witnesses from serving as fact finders and judges in the same trials where they give testimony. The reasons are clear and obvious. We want our trials to be free from bias or even the appearance of bias by those charged with making credibility decisions and applying the law to facts determined to be true. If such a situation arose in our courts, the judge who had first-hand knowledge of the facts of a case before her or who actually gave evidence in the case would be required not to decide the case and to step aside from all decisions in the matter.

In this particular case, Senator Johnson was asked directly if he would step aside, or recuse himself, from his judicial role in any impeachment trial involving the Ukrainian allegations. On Tuesday, Johnson indicated that his close involvement would not cause him to recuse himself from an impeachment trial of President Trump. He claimed that he would “listen to the case very respectfully” and “not prejudge anything.”

Senator Johnson, that just is not good enough. If you want the trial to be fair, you must step aside and not vote on any allegations involving Ukrainian matters or the solicitation of foreign governments to interfere in the 2020 presidential election. Wisconsin voters expect fair and unbiased proceedings, regardless of party loyalty.