Letters

I’m writing as an independent voter who has no particular ax to grind about the election procedures used in the last presidential election, or President Trump’s legal challenges to the outcome.

What I am deeply concerned about, however, is how future leaders and citizens will view the actions leading up to the recent invasion of the Capitol, and the decisions of Congress in whether or not to hold the president responsible for his role in it.

Many Republican senators have indicated their intention to vote against impeachment on the basis that it is unconstitutional. Frankly, I don’t think that’s their job in all of this, and I don’t think it’s an appropriate response to the issues at hand.

President Trump’s legal team can pursue legal action to get the Supreme Court to rule on this issue before the case is heard and has chosen not to — and they certainly have that right to do it, and likely will, if they don’t like the outcome of the Senate vote.

The senators’ use of the constitutionality issue is a coward’s way out, as it was for Lee Zeldin in the House vote, for those who don’t want to have to be put in a position of choosing between Trump’s hardcore supporters and the merits of the case.

Their role in all of this should be to simply decide whether his actions warrant being barred from holding public office again, and let history and their descendants judge them as they certainly will.

Regardless of the motives of some others, I don’t consider this an exercise in bitterness or retribution, but rather one of justice and accountability that is setting a precedent for future generations and future presidents to remember when serious offenses are committed late in a presidential term.

Do these senators really want to repeat the action of Lee Zeldin and set the stage for some future demagogue to overturn a lost election or commit some other impeachable offense late in their presidential term?

History does indeed have its eyes on them in a way that few generations of senators have been subjected to. It will be recorded as a singular mark of integrity, courage and patriotism — or lack thereof. It is a time for them to be more concerned with their legacy and their duty, rather than their future ambitions.

Let us all pray that God grant them the courage they so desperately need and yet seem so apparent to lack.

Ron Schaefer

Hampton Bays