Senator Braun: Will You Insist on a Real Trial in the Senate?

To the Editor:

Senator Braun (R-IN), thank you for your Dec. 10, 2019, WTIU interview.

This interview indicates your intention to take your role seriously and listen to the evidence carefully if the Articles of Impeachment are passed and sent to the Senate.  You will be playing a historic role in serving as a juror in the trial of the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.

In this interview, you indicate having concerns in regard to President Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.  However, you state that his actions, while inappropriate, are not impeachable.

Because the  interview was so brief it left some questions unanswered and the need for clarifications and more detail. For example, you say this about President Donald Trump’s call with Ukrainian President:

"Some of that kind of approach does end up hurting the President—wouldn’t have done it myself, many others would feel the same way simply because it complicates things."

Please tell the people of Indiana in what ways, specifically, did this call “end up hurting the President”?  If the President is “hurt,” isn’t the nation hurt? Why do you say you wouldn’t “have done it” [made such a call]?

What do you mean when you say such a call makes you feel like it “simply . . . complicates things” ?  What “things”?  How did it “complicat(e) these “things”?

You say that you don’t expect any new information to be revealed should there be a trial in the Senate.  And, furthermore,  such a trial would, “certainly give the President his chance to tell his side of the story."

Senator Braun, from this it appears you do not yet know the President’s “side of the story.”  Is this the case?  If so, wouldn’t “his side of the story" constitute new information for the Senate jurors consideration?

Will you insist that the President’s “side of the story” be told?  Will you work to see that key witnesses to the President’s call, and the intentions behind it, will testify, under oath?

Will you and the citizens of the United States be allowed to hear from President Trump’s inner circle at the time of this call:  John Bolton, Mick Mulvaney, Rudy Giuliani? 

Senator Braun, with impeachment in the House and a trial in the Senate, you are about to become an important part of American history.  Act accordingly.  Rise above party and party leaders. Start now by responding to the questions posed above in an open letter to this newspaper in the near future.

Gary W. Daily