0:01

So, we went out to dinner with

0:03

an old friend last night at a

0:05

fantastic restaurant, Tosca in Washington. Which is,

0:07

by the way, a total, like, bipartisan,

0:09

interestingly, power restaurant. And a place I

0:11

never go. Yeah, no. I

0:13

haven't been there for dinner in so long. But

0:15

there we were because our friend wanted to go

0:17

there. And there, and like the next table over,

0:19

practically, is Mayorkas, the

0:21

cabinet secretary who's the target of

0:23

an impeachment hearing. Did he look

0:26

worried? No. No. He's

0:28

sort of accepting hellos from everyone

0:30

around the restaurant. And you know,

0:32

so this is life in Washington.

0:34

It seems to me these impeachments

0:36

are not exactly rattling people. Well,

0:38

of course, there is also the element

0:41

of, you know, let's go out

0:43

to a very, you know, CNBC in

0:45

place and go table to table

0:47

and say hello to people. He's

0:50

a very jovial man by, you

0:52

know, inclination. We did notice that

0:54

there was the former Trump White

0:56

House counsel sitting a few tables

0:58

over. Pat Cipollone. Yeah. Oh

1:01

my God. I mean, you know, Washington is a village.

1:03

I have to say, this sounds awfully swampy, doesn't it? I mean,

1:05

this really is. Welcome

1:12

to the political scene from The New Yorker,

1:14

a weekly discussion about the big questions in

1:16

American politics. I'm Evan Osnos, and I'm joined

1:19

as ever by my colleagues, Jane Mayer and

1:21

Susan Glasser. And good morning to you both.

1:23

Hey, Evan. Hey there. The

1:31

last few weeks have been a

1:33

busy time in what we might

1:35

call Washington's impeachment industrial complex. Last

1:39

week, in their second swing

1:41

at the plate, House Republicans

1:43

impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro

1:45

Mayorkas over the Biden administration's

1:47

handling of the U.S.-Mexico

1:49

border. Impeaching a cabinet officer for

1:52

the first time, I should point out, in

1:54

a century and a half. Meanwhile,

1:56

the House's other impeachment investigation

1:58

against President Joe Biden is

2:00

on the verge of collapse this

2:02

week because their star witness has

2:04

been arrested and charged with fabricating

2:07

the allegation at the heart of

2:09

the case, a $5 million bribe

2:11

to the Biden family that never

2:13

happened. And it seems that former

2:15

star witness may also have ties

2:17

to Russian intelligence. Together,

2:19

these cases give us a pretty remarkable

2:21

sense of a change in our politics,

2:24

which is the defining down of impeachment.

2:26

What was once a pretty rare and

2:28

solemn instrument of accountability now looks more

2:31

and more like just another partisan tool.

2:34

So this week, we wanted to take a

2:36

look at impeachment in our politics, how it's

2:38

used, and what it means for our ability

2:40

to hold leaders accountable. So let's

2:42

start with this week's impeachment news.

2:45

Jane, the indictment of the

2:47

GOP's star witness, the man's name

2:50

is Alexander Smirnoff, not a name

2:52

known to many Americans until right

2:55

now. Give us a sense of

2:57

how he became the center of

2:59

this GOP process, this

3:01

now imperiled investigation against the

3:03

Biden family. Okay, Alexander Smirnoff,

3:06

he is, we have to say, still a

3:08

bit of a man of mystery. There's much

3:10

that's not known about him. We

3:12

have not even seen his face because he covered

3:14

it up when he was being arrested. We

3:16

did see he was wearing orange

3:19

shoes and a maroon sweater,

3:21

which maybe is enough for an arrest right there.

3:23

But at any rate, he was, he is someone who

3:28

has dual citizenship in Israel. And in

3:30

the United States, he lives in Las

3:32

Vegas. And he has

3:34

been evidently for the last 10 years,

3:37

a secret source of raw

3:39

intelligence to the FBI. And

3:42

it appears that the intelligence

3:44

that he has provided starting

3:47

especially since 2020

3:49

has been fabricated and may have been

3:52

connected to sources where close to Russian

3:54

intelligence. And what has he been saying?

3:56

He's been saying that the Biden family

3:59

is taking illicit gigantic

4:02

multi-million dollar bribes from

4:04

Ukrainians in order to

4:06

sort of protect Burisma,

4:08

that company we've heard so much about.

4:11

And he's claimed that that money's

4:13

gone to both Hunter Biden and

4:15

to President Biden. And apparently, it's

4:18

all made up. Marc Thiessen

4:20

Susan, how important has that storyline,

4:23

that narrative, which now has turned

4:25

out to be nonsense, how important

4:27

has that been to the

4:30

Republican investigation of the Biden family?

4:32

Danielle Pletka I mean, it literally

4:34

is the Republican investigation of the

4:36

Biden family. It is at the

4:38

core of this impeachment inquiry. Republicans

4:41

took back the House in 2022. They

4:44

were determined as payback, revenge for

4:46

Donald Trump, as a political

4:49

tool against Joe Biden. To impeach

4:51

him is a classic example where

4:53

they knew the punishment that they

4:55

needed to find a crime. Well,

4:57

this Alexander Smirnoff's unproven,

5:00

unvetted, as it now turns out,

5:02

allegation made to the FBI in

5:05

2020 was

5:07

the thing that they found. In all

5:10

the combing through everything else, it

5:13

was only this specific alleged $5

5:15

million bribe that they

5:17

found of actual possible criminality. Marc

5:19

Thiessen I mean, it raises so many

5:21

questions, right? First of

5:24

all, about the FBI's professionalism. I

5:26

mean, how could they rely on someone who

5:28

is so completely dubious? Danielle Pletka And they

5:30

only investigated this change. So in the summer

5:32

of 2020, he

5:35

made this allegation. They

5:37

checked it out in a cursory manner. The

5:40

Trump-appointed US attorney who

5:43

was supervising the agents, he

5:46

determined that there was somehow

5:48

enough indication of substance

5:50

to this charge that it was passed

5:52

on to David Weiss, the

5:54

special counsel investigating Hunter Biden. So

5:57

that's how it lives through the

5:59

bureaucracy. Republicans on Capitol Hill,

6:01

they get an inkling of it.

6:03

They demand this unvetted form. Again,

6:05

nobody checked this guy out. Nobody

6:07

did anything until last September. So

6:09

that's three years that this allegation

6:11

is just sitting in the files

6:13

like a malignant virus ready to

6:15

pop. And then meanwhile, you've got

6:18

Jim Jordan, Congressman from Ohio, who said

6:20

last month that

6:22

this Smirnoff allegation,

6:24

this Smirnoff lie, was in his

6:27

words, the most corroborating evidence we

6:29

have. The most corroborating evidence we

6:32

have is that 1023 form

6:34

from this highly credible, confidential

6:36

human source, according to US

6:38

Attorney Scott Braden. Jane,

6:40

I'm curious how the relationship between what

6:42

the politicians were saying and what the

6:45

right wing media has been saying, how

6:47

those two pieces fit together. Because the

6:49

right wing media has been a pretty

6:51

important amplifier of this

6:54

canard. That's an understatement. How would you describe

6:56

it? It's amazing

6:58

how many times, there have been a

7:00

number of different counts of how often

7:03

this lie has been spread

7:06

across the right wing media

7:08

sphere. But I think

7:10

Sean Hannity alone, is it Susan, you

7:13

had it in your column. How many

7:15

times was it? Well, shoutouts and media

7:17

matters here. They did a definitive scrub

7:19

of every time that Sean Hannity mentioned

7:22

the Biden crime family last

7:24

year. And it turned

7:26

out that this particular lie alone,

7:28

the $5 million alleged bribe was

7:31

mentioned 85 times

7:33

last year in 2023 alone by Sean Hannity. Friday

7:36

news breaking edition of Hannity.

7:39

Now the Joe Biden bribery,

7:41

money laundering allegations, allegations of

7:43

bribery from a trusted FBI

7:45

confidential human source. 2015

7:48

barista executives met with the

7:50

CEO of barista and chronicled

7:52

that conversation and gave that

7:54

information to the FBI. What's

7:57

really incredible is that that's 85. Overall,

8:01

he made more than

8:03

300 segments discussing

8:06

the Biden family. That's

8:09

an average of more than one per

8:11

show, more than one per show. I

8:13

mean, you've also seen, I mean, Jim

8:15

Jordan was asked directly, well, what

8:17

do you say now? This

8:19

was your, the single most important source

8:22

and corroborator of your allegations. And

8:24

it turns out he's a liar. And he

8:26

said it doesn't change any of the facts. Those

8:29

facts, they don't change what, regardless of what

8:31

this, this confidential human source has said. Which

8:34

is actually, when you step back, kind of

8:36

true, because the fact was there was nothing

8:38

there in the beginning and there's nothing there

8:40

now. So now it's just that we can

8:42

all see it. But I actually wanted to

8:44

say, I think it's really good that you're

8:47

asking about how the media sphere sort of

8:49

amplifies this. But there's a piece in this

8:51

that I think is also very

8:53

important, which is how the Senate

8:55

and the House got into this.

8:57

Because they forced the FBI to

9:00

disclose this raw intelligence, which is

9:02

in itself an incredibly irresponsible thing

9:04

to do. We all know that raw

9:07

intelligence is uncorroborated, unverified.

9:09

It's just basically hearsay.

9:12

And so those, the

9:15

same, Senator Grassley, who

9:17

really pushed to put this

9:19

out in public without any

9:22

verification. And then if senators

9:24

could be held responsible for libel, which

9:26

is the way reporters can, he would

9:28

be charged with libel for what he did,

9:30

but they can't be. So they took not,

9:33

it was just incredibly irresponsible what he did.

9:35

Yeah, I think Jane is making actually a really

9:37

important point here because it goes to what the

9:42

Republicans on Capitol Hill are doing

9:44

to this tool of impeachment, how

9:46

they're using the power and the

9:48

platform that they have in Congress.

9:51

And it is the height of

9:54

irresponsible in the sense that the

9:56

underlying Facts of

9:58

the accusations don't matter because. It's all

10:00

about having an accusation to wield.

10:02

Everyone knows that political mass that

10:04

we're dealing with. and even if

10:07

they were to go ahead with

10:09

a vote of the full house

10:11

to impeach Joe Biden, no one

10:13

expects that he would be convicted

10:15

in a senate trial. There aren't

10:17

the votes for that. So it's

10:19

essentially the same cycle of lies

10:21

and irresponsibility as it's Classic conversation

10:23

with our congressmen Jamie Raskin, who's

10:25

been the lead democrats on the

10:27

committee kind of trying to fight

10:29

against. Ah yes. Impeachment investigation for

10:31

the last year and I said to

10:34

him yesterday wealth okay car since now

10:36

that is this allegation has collapsed now

10:38

that we have the Smirnoff affair and

10:40

tried to bread that the smeared on

10:43

a fair us you know. Will.

10:45

They finally give up this conspiracy

10:47

theory. And he

10:49

said well look, we know how this

10:52

works In their mind of the most

10:54

extreme conspiracy theorists, the collapse of it

10:56

and a rest of the informant actually

10:59

becomes further proof of the conspiracy nut.

11:01

They're trying to silence him and he

11:03

summoned this this image that is really

11:06

stuck in my head. He said, you

11:08

know season there will be some people

11:10

like Confederate soldiers as wandering around and

11:12

the woods in eighteen Sixty Six still

11:15

fighting. The. War for yeah. I figure there's

11:17

a great term in the study of

11:19

conspiracy theories which is that they say

11:21

that they are self sealing that when

11:23

there's a problem pressures that they actually

11:25

have a way of arm out the

11:27

conjuring some solution to the Prado. Have. Enough

11:29

so so good. I mean I I

11:32

mean to me was a what was

11:34

her looking at if users and Berkus

11:36

you know that we've gone into hundred

11:38

and fifty years in this country. For

11:40

John who was trying to create a

11:42

just society we're n n the founders

11:45

of this constitution are trying to have

11:47

all these checks and balances to make

11:49

sure that we have fair process. He

11:51

since and Wisconsin much to Lewis Carroll's

11:53

know where it was hurtful or you've

11:55

got some. We've gone through the looking

11:58

glass and we are now. at

12:00

sentence first, verdict

12:02

later, impeachment first, then

12:04

find the evidence. It's worth

12:07

reminding people that by the way, the first

12:10

suggestion, the first member

12:12

of Congress to actually file for

12:14

an impeachment against Joe Biden was

12:16

Marjorie Taylor Greene on January 21st,

12:18

the day after he was inaugurated.

12:22

Oh my God. Just giving you a feel for how

12:25

empty this process has become. Very briefly, Susan, before

12:27

we go, we're going to take a break, but

12:29

do you think this is the end of the

12:31

impeachment process against Biden? Well,

12:33

I do, not because the FBI

12:36

informant was arrested, but because they don't seem

12:39

to have the votes. And I

12:41

think it would be very hard to

12:43

put the votes together. Right now, Republicans

12:45

have the narrowest House majority anyone can

12:47

remember. They can only lose two votes

12:49

until a special election later this spring.

12:51

And I don't think they're going to

12:53

do it. But what do you think,

12:55

Evan? Is the White House worried about

12:57

this? Well, I will tell you,

12:59

it's just not something that they are worried

13:01

about because I think they recognize that this

13:04

process was in

13:06

a sense rotten from within. So they have other

13:08

issues to think about. That is so amazing though,

13:10

right? I know, right? Here we are in

13:12

Washington, and if you told me 10 years ago, well,

13:14

they're going to be investigating the

13:17

president in an impeachment inquiry and we're

13:19

all kind of short of

13:21

our shoulders. All right. We're

13:23

going to take a break. The House's relatively

13:26

more successful impeachment of

13:29

Department of Homeland Security Secretary

13:31

Alejandro Mayorkas. If

13:41

you've been enjoying the show, please leave us a

13:43

rating and a review on the podcast platform of

13:45

your choice. And while you're there, don't forget to

13:47

hit the follow button so you never miss an

13:49

episode. Thank you very much for listening. So

13:54

on February 13th, Secretary Mayorkas

13:56

became the first cabinet officer

13:58

to be impeached in almost 150 years.

14:02

The impeachment passed by one

14:04

vote, with three Republicans joining

14:06

Democrats in opposition. Susan, what

14:09

was Alejandro Mayorkas charged with? Well,

14:12

essentially, he was charged with doing his job in

14:15

a way that Republicans don't like. And

14:18

that's the reason, basically, why no one has

14:20

attempted this since 1876. So Mayorkas has

14:25

become kind of the poster child,

14:27

the face of the border wars,

14:29

if you will. And there's a

14:32

variety of ways in

14:34

which Republicans are accusing him of

14:36

not enforcing immigration laws that

14:39

are on the books to

14:41

shut down the flow of

14:43

immigrants on the border. But Jane, have

14:45

we ever seen a case like this

14:47

where you've got somebody essentially being impeached

14:49

not for their individual contact, not for

14:52

what we think of as high crimes and misdemeanors, but

14:54

in fact, for what seems to be a

14:56

pretty routine, even if

14:58

intense, policy dispute? No,

15:01

I mean, this really is a good example of how

15:03

impeachment is being defined down in

15:06

Washington. Impeachment and censure, expulsion

15:08

also. These are the death

15:10

penalties for people serving in

15:13

office in Washington. And they're

15:15

being used and thrown around

15:17

like they're nothing,

15:19

or very minor. So yeah, I

15:21

think we're crossing a Rubicon here.

15:26

But is there any, in a sense, accountability for

15:29

the people who are pretending to hold them accountable?

15:31

Meaning, do you think the public cares? Well, there

15:33

has been in the past, I mean, okay, if

15:35

we go back and take a look, I mean,

15:37

I think you really... The place

15:40

where this began, at least

15:42

in the modern period, to be

15:44

defined down, was maybe Bill Clinton's

15:47

impeachment. And, you know, Gingrich

15:49

era Republicans, where they really started playing

15:51

kind of fast and loose and dirty.

15:53

And so you had, you know, Newt

15:55

Gingrich kind of Leading the

15:57

way, and you had Tom. The

16:00

Way and several the others.

16:02

Who were sort of leading this

16:04

impeachment effort against Clinton and. When.

16:07

The dust settled. It hurt the Republicans,

16:09

partly because they were so hypocritical. It

16:11

turned out they were to since Bill

16:13

Clinton of having an extramarital affair and

16:15

a good number of them for having

16:17

extramarital. Affairs Awesome. So it was it.

16:19

You know, an? Embarrassment and boomeranged for

16:22

them. Gingrich thought it was gonna.

16:25

Gain. Them house seats and it did

16:27

exactly the opposite. It. Lost them. The

16:29

house I'm in It also really hurt

16:32

thinkers, so I think there's a sense

16:34

that if the public doesn't see it

16:36

is fair. It seems Boomerang know in

16:38

this case, I think there probably are

16:41

some. There's probably some political damage. Not.

16:44

So much for the Republicans more for

16:46

for Biden speakers. Put the may Orcas

16:48

impeachment does is it shine some light

16:50

on the immigration and border issue and

16:52

it's economy know when issue for biden

16:55

right now. So I mean to the

16:57

extent that it. Brings attention to that.

16:59

I don't think it's purchase we could provide

17:01

a I think he. Again, it's worth remembering

17:04

to that. At the very moment that Republicans

17:06

are trying to draw attention to border issues,

17:08

they did just to give Biden a pretty

17:11

big political gift recently. So they did worth

17:13

remembering out for almost a foot to. You

17:15

want to explain that to get of? This

17:17

is true that they were. Setting this

17:20

up to be a total when

17:22

for themselves and they. They screwed

17:24

it up. The up in the middle

17:26

of January you had Republicans say one after

17:28

another we simply cannot go another day as

17:30

a country without having serious policy change on

17:33

the border. I remember Mike Johnson kissing on

17:35

Cnn and saying that and January seventeenth. the

17:37

reason is not for politics. This is beyond

17:40

Republican vs. Democrats. This is about a serious

17:42

catastrophes it almost nine added Ten Americans understand

17:44

is that an emergency level is something that

17:46

must be addressed as of the Poland says

17:49

and then what happened Of course Donald Trump

17:51

comes in and says absolutely not. This is.

17:53

going to deprive me of my central campaign

17:56

issue and lo and behold then you have

17:58

people saying exactly the honest thing out loud.

18:00

There was a congressman from Texas who came

18:02

out and said, I'm not going to help

18:05

Joe Biden. So Susan, then

18:07

the question becomes, if what we're

18:09

seeing is in a sense a kind of cynicism

18:12

Olympics where you've got what

18:14

the Republicans trying to outperform

18:17

one another for an impeachment

18:20

process that has proved to be

18:23

thin on the Mayorkas front and

18:25

non-existent really on the Biden front,

18:28

do you think that voters as

18:30

Jane described will hold

18:33

this to the feet of Republicans or

18:35

did they just go along with the sense that this is a

18:38

Epochs on everyone's house. Well, look

18:40

that I think is the political

18:42

calculation here, Evan. It's

18:44

do how much are people paying

18:47

attention to the internal maneuvers in

18:49

Congress or even the hypocrisy of

18:52

Republicans who say they want to deal and then reject

18:54

the deal when they don't get it? You

18:57

know, I take the point

18:59

that it's really bad timing for

19:01

Republicans to be impeaching Mayorkas

19:04

for not doing enough on the border the same

19:07

basically two-week period that they refuse to do

19:09

anything more on the border. At the same time

19:11

I also find it hard to

19:13

imagine in our election this year that people

19:15

are really going to be like people who

19:17

are motivated to vote because they're worried about

19:20

a crisis at the southern border that they're

19:22

really going to be like, oh,

19:24

well actually I don't want Donald Trump

19:26

anymore and

19:28

his signature issue and I'm gonna go for Joe

19:30

Biden. I don't find that compelling. But what about Jane's

19:32

point that it really did blow back on Republicans

19:35

in the 90s? Do you find a

19:37

parallel there? Right. Well, I think it

19:40

blew back by the way on Democrats

19:42

as well in Trump's first impeachment. In

19:44

fact, when Donald Trump finished his impeachment

19:48

trial in the 2019 early

19:50

2020 charges against him stemming

19:52

from Ukraine and

19:54

his effort to demand that

19:57

Zelensky investigate Joe Biden

20:00

Actually, Trump's approval rating rose at the end

20:02

of the Senate trial to the highest level

20:04

of the presidency. He never cracked 50% in

20:07

the Gallup poll. He's the only president in American

20:09

history, by the way, since polling began, never to

20:12

have been supported by a majority of

20:15

the country. But he was up to

20:17

his highest level that he ever recorded

20:19

in his presidency at the end of

20:21

that impeachment trial. So, you know, there's

20:23

an argument that Americans, the message that

20:25

they tend to send around these is

20:27

they want Congress to work on Congress's

20:29

business, which is legislation, passing bills.

20:31

And this Congress has a terrible

20:33

record of getting its actual work

20:35

done. But Americans are not that

20:38

big, I think, on impeachment in

20:40

general, on what they perceive to

20:42

be Washington's political wars. And I

20:44

do think that's the cynical game

20:46

that you talked about, Evan. Republicans

20:49

in using impeachment right now, they

20:52

are essentially contributing to

20:54

driving down Americans' faith

20:56

in politicians, in the

20:59

institutions in Washington, in

21:02

the consistency of

21:04

our politicians. I think that's part

21:06

of what this game is all about, is

21:08

to say, OK, you accuse Donald Trump. Well,

21:11

we accuse Joe Biden. We accuse Alejandro

21:13

Meorkas. All these politicians are

21:15

dirty. It is. It's true. I mean,

21:18

it's an effort to try to create

21:20

sort of whataboutism and parity between the

21:22

two parties on

21:24

behalf of the Trump camp wants to make

21:26

it look like, oh, you say our guys

21:28

corrupt? Your guys corrupt. I

21:30

mean, it's very, very schoolyardish. I

21:33

don't think, though, you can get away from the fact that

21:35

if you look at what's happened in the last 10 days,

21:38

it's a gigantic embarrassment for

21:41

the Republicans. I mean, the

21:43

Meorkas impeachment is a blip. There's

21:45

been a lot of

21:47

time, effort, media attention

21:50

on the Republican side to making

21:52

this claim against Joe Biden

21:54

and his son. And the whole thing

21:56

just burst in their face. I mean,

21:58

that's the bottom line. All right,

22:00

we're gonna take one more break when we come back we're

22:02

gonna look at what brought us really to this point in

22:05

the defining down of Impeachment and

22:08

what it means for our ability to hold

22:10

leaders accountable going forward I

22:23

remember this moment Jane when Mitch McConnell

22:25

got up at the end

22:27

of the second impeachment of Donald Trump and

22:30

it was this decisive moment when he could

22:32

have Run

22:34

his lance through his sometime nemesis

22:36

sometime partner Donald Trump and instead of

22:39

saying yeah I'm gonna vote for impeachment

22:41

what he said was we have a

22:43

criminal justice system designed for this purpose

22:46

President Trump is still liable for everything he did

22:48

while he was in office As

22:52

an ordinary citizen Unless

22:54

the statute limitations is run still

22:56

liable for everything he did While

22:59

it is an office meaning let's leave

23:01

it to the prosecutors to go after

23:03

Donald Trump for his role in the

23:05

insurrection of January 6th And

23:08

Mitch McConnell after all was the guy who

23:11

considers himself an institutionalist You know, that's the

23:13

classic language that he uses about his

23:15

his view of political systems. What

23:17

happened? Why was it was it

23:20

something about Trump that made them?

23:22

Incapable of using impeachment in the way that they

23:25

should have or was it something? I

23:27

mean basically what happened was Mitch

23:29

McConnell lost his nerve. He passed

23:31

the buck He could

23:33

have tried to lead an impeachment

23:36

conviction in the Senate But

23:38

when he realized that within his caucus,

23:40

he didn't have the votes He

23:42

did not want to be exposed as

23:45

failing Because he's always afraid

23:47

of losing the support of his

23:49

caucus and losing his position as

23:51

the leader of his caucus So

23:53

he basically he panicked

23:56

and backed off because he couldn't

23:58

bring them along. He knew you You could

24:00

tell from his speeches he absolutely knew that

24:02

Trump should have been convicted of

24:04

impeachment. I mean, he said out

24:06

loud, he is guilty and he

24:09

is the person who brought about

24:11

the January 6th insurrection. So he

24:13

knew that he should

24:15

have been convicted, but he couldn't bring

24:17

his caucus along and that's where Trump

24:19

comes in. You said, is it about

24:21

Trump? Yes, because Trump had so much

24:24

control over the members of the Republican

24:26

caucus, even in the Senate. What's striking,

24:28

Susan, is that in fact, over

24:31

the last couple of years, we've seen

24:33

the emergence of a new and powerful

24:35

tool of accountability, which was the January

24:38

6th committee, which used this very sophisticated

24:40

form of really sort of a form

24:43

of prosecution. They were much better about

24:45

framing this for viewers. It was much

24:47

more concise. It was punchier than a

24:50

lot of typical committee hearings. And

24:53

it had a way of breaking through to the public.

24:55

It will acknowledge not everybody. But

24:58

do you see a way in which the

25:00

impeachment process, which is becoming now debased, is

25:03

going to create room? You talked about Jamie Raskin

25:06

before. Is there a generation of

25:08

lawmakers who see a way of still figuring

25:10

out how to reach people when it matters?

25:13

Yeah, I mean, I have a different view of that,

25:15

which is to say that the January 6th committee was

25:17

useful for putting on

25:19

the record a certain amount of

25:22

testimony for pushing it forward, for pressuring, in

25:24

effect, the Justice Department to get its act

25:26

together and move. But in many ways, the

25:28

January 6th committee represents the failure, in

25:31

my view, of accountability. It represents the

25:33

failure, first of all, of impeachment, as

25:36

we changed so correctly, put it. You

25:38

know, the problem was political mass. McConnell and

25:41

even with the number of

25:43

Republicans he could bring with him, plus

25:45

the Democrats, they didn't quite have enough

25:47

to get over that very high threshold

25:49

that the Constitution sets for conviction in

25:51

the Senate. And more importantly,

25:54

even the traditional methods that

25:56

Congress has short of impeachment

25:58

for investigating wrong doing by an

26:00

executive branch in the past, that has

26:02

been done in a bipartisan, bicameral

26:05

way. And so you went from,

26:07

say, the Iran-Contra Committee in

26:09

the 1980s, which was both the House

26:12

and the Senate. It was Democrats

26:15

and Republicans. Even in

26:17

the immediate aftermath of January

26:19

6th, the shock was still very

26:21

palpable. There was still a sense that Donald

26:23

Trump had disgraced himself, that he couldn't come

26:25

back. He failed even

26:27

to set up a bipartisan

26:29

committee. They refused to do

26:32

that, both McConnell and then in the House,

26:34

the Republican leader at the time, Kevin McCarthy.

26:37

This was a terrible precedent that they

26:39

set. These people had been the

26:42

victims of an aggressive,

26:44

violent mob that stormed the

26:46

United States Capitol, the

26:48

first armed, hostile

26:51

force to take over the U.S.

26:53

Capitol since the British invaded in

26:55

1814. And

26:57

yet, Kevin McCarthy and Mitch

26:59

McConnell wouldn't even agree

27:01

to a bipartisan commission

27:03

that would have established

27:06

what exactly happened there. So I think it

27:08

was important and very good that Nancy Pelosi

27:10

went ahead and set up the January 6th

27:13

committee. If our

27:15

subject today is accountability, I find

27:17

that that is one of the kind of

27:19

lessons that has been learned and

27:22

I hope that will be learned for we

27:24

need tools of accountability. Impeachment

27:26

has broken down in recent years because the

27:29

two impeachments of Trump proved, if nothing else,

27:31

that it's a practical impossibility to

27:33

obtain a conviction in our deeply

27:35

polarized and almost evenly divided society.

27:37

Since the Constitution requires you to

27:39

have such a large majority in

27:41

the Senate to vote for conviction

27:43

as a practical matter, that means

27:45

nobody's ever going to get convicted.

27:47

I mean, it shouldn't mean that

27:49

because, as you say in the

27:51

past, there have been times when

27:53

lawmakers have put the public interest

27:55

ahead of their partisan interests. And

27:58

that is a course. Well, but nobody's ever. been convicted, no

28:00

president has ever been convicted. No, but they

28:03

have managed to, in all kinds of

28:05

investigations, work together less and

28:07

less in recent years. Now, I mean, I

28:09

think you could say that Mitch McConnell, he

28:12

failed to put the public interest

28:14

ahead of his own personal interest,

28:16

which was to stay majority leader.

28:19

And because of that, he enabled

28:21

Trump to go on to run for

28:23

another time. I mean, part of

28:25

what people forget about impeachment is

28:27

not only if someone is convicted,

28:30

it's not only that they're convicted

28:32

of those specific acts, but it

28:34

bars them from running again.

28:36

And that's- That's

28:39

so important, Jane. Right, right. You know,

28:41

I mean, and so- So what I

28:43

hear you saying is that in the end,

28:45

the system, the process itself is only as

28:47

strong as the individuals who are holding the

28:50

levers. Yes, exactly right. And what we're looking

28:52

at are very weak and

28:54

somewhat craven leaders. Wow.

28:57

On that note- Silence that

29:00

fills multitudes. Well,

29:02

it is worth reminding folks where

29:04

we started this conversation, which is

29:06

that the central plank of the

29:09

Republican investigation, the impeachment investigation of

29:11

Joe Biden has collapsed. And

29:13

we will see whether that means that

29:16

the process itself is falling apart or

29:18

whether it will continue on like a

29:20

zombie inquiry for a while. Self-sealing. Self-sealing.

29:22

The Confederate soldiers are riding in the

29:25

woods right now, shooting away. The lost

29:27

cause of the Smirnoff affair has already

29:29

begun. Thank you. This

29:38

has been the Political Scene from The

29:40

New Yorker. I'm Evan Osnos. We had

29:42

production assistants today from Alex Delia, Dan

29:45

Richards, and Stephanie Karauki. Stephen

29:47

Valentino is our executive producer. Conde

29:49

Nast, head of global audio, is Chris Bana.

29:52

Our theme music is by Alison Leighton-Brown. We'll

29:55

be back next week, and thank you very much. from

30:00

PRX for life stories. We

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