I must confess that I have not been following the impeachment trial on television.  It is incredibly repetitious and boring, and I pray that it will be over soon.

I do not doubt the truth of some of the charges leveled against our President.  Trump wanted the Ukrainian government to investigate the Bidens, and he put some pressure on them to do so by delaying military assistance that had been approved by Congress.  I am convinced, however, that the President’s actions did not rise to the level of an impeachable offense.

My reasons are as follows:

• Trump has some discretion in how he carries out an act of Congress. The delay in aid was temporary, and it imposed no hardship or danger on the Ukrainian military.  Technically, Trump may have violated the rules, but his offense does not rise to level that would justify impeachment. 
• Trump’s concerns about Ukrainian corruption were justified based on our past experiences with that nation. We did not wish to pour our resources down a rathole.  Perhaps Trump should have left the Biden name out of it, but there was a definite appearance of impropriety on the part of Joe Biden and his son.  In all honesty, their actions should be investigated.

It is rather amusing to observe how concerned the Democrats appear to be about military assistance to the Ukraine.  During the Obama administration our government steadfastly refused to succor the Ukrainian military with actual military hardware.  Only under Trump’s leadership was this sort of aid approved, and now the Democrats are protesting the President’s brief delay in providing this assistance and wish to impeach him for it.

I now copy from a post by Bernard Goldberg, an astute observer of the political scene.  I believe his analysis is 100% correct.   

“As the Senate’s impeachment trial opened on Tuesday, Jay Sekulow, a member of the president’s legal team, stood before the 100 senators who will decide the president’s fate and asked a question everybody knew the answer to. “Why are we here?” Sekulow asked, rhetorically. ‘Are we here because of a phone call? Or, are we here before this great body because, since the president was sworn into office, there was a desire to see him removed?’

“First, Democrats were out to get the president for supposed violations of the Emoluments Clause to the U.S. Constitution. Then he had to go because he was a Russian asset. When that didn’t pan out, he had to be impeached because they said he obstructed justice in the Mueller investigation . . . Every presidential misstep, to the president’s partisan adversaries, was a threat to democracy; every gaffe put our national security at risk. If they could have gotten away with impeaching him because his neckties were too long, they would have tried.

“Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) got it right on the first day of the trial: ‘I think the Democrats make a mistake when they cry outrage time and time again. If everything is an outrage, then nothing is an outrage.’

“None of this is to suggest that the president has clean hands. If being mean-spirited were an impeachable offense, if being petty and vulgar and dishonest were considered ‘high crimes and misdemeanors,’ then he’d have to go.

“As for the chat with the president of Ukraine: It was not a ‘perfect’ phone call, as President Trump claims. It was a deeply flawed call – deeply flawed, like the impulsive man who made the call.

“President Trump was clearly strong-arming the young president of Ukraine, a man who desperately needed U.S. military help to ward off the Russian army. And if he didn’t investigate the Bidens, he might not get that aid.

“But was that an impeachable offense? That depends — not so much on the facts of the matter but on whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican. Virtually none of the jurors in the Senate entered the trial with an open mind, no matter what they’re telling their allies in the mainstream media. 

“I watched way too many hours on the first day of the trial. If I had to sit through one more debate over a mind-numbing amendment from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), I either would have slipped into a coma or water-boarded myself. 

“So let me spare you the torture of sitting through the rest of this charade. Here’s how the trial ends: Donald Trump will not be convicted, whether witnesses are called or not — and no matter what they say, if they are called. The verdict was ‘in’ before the trial began.  

“But so was the decision to impeach the president a forgone conclusion. The decision was made right about the time he was declared winner of the 2016 presidential election. Donald Trump’s real impeachable offense, as far as the anti-Trump ‘Resistance’ is concerned, was defeating Hillary Clinton.”

Yes, Bernard Goldberg is absolutely correct.  Democratic members of Congress, partisan holdovers in the various Governmental departments, never-Trumper Republicans, and the mainstream media are united in their hatred of Trump and desire to throw him out of office.  It has been that way from before his inauguration. And some of the President’s political enemies appear to have been guilty of serious malfeasance in their feverish attempt to overthrow him. No wonder Trump rages against his opponents with unseemly invective.  It is amazing that he has been able to accomplish as much as he has during these past three years.

The impeachment was an exercise in futility.  Pelosi and her cohorts knew they would never get a conviction in the Senate, but doubtless they hoped to condemn the President in the eyes of the electorate.  Or did they condemn themselves?  Time will tell. Whether or not Trump will be thrown out of office will be decided in the next election.  I cannot predict who will win in November 2020.  All I do know is that 50% of our citizenry will be ecstatic and the other 50% in a state of deep despair.