Editorial: Impeachment trial needs better rules

So, what happens now?

Wednesday’s historic vote on the House floor has formalized the impeachment of Donald J. Trump, who is only the third president of the United States to be hit with that rebuke from members of Congress. The other two, Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1999, survived the trial mandated to follow in the U.S. Senate.

That is all but certain to be the outcome for President Trump, as well: Conviction would require 20 members of the 53-member GOP majority to break ranks and vote for the president’s removal from office. That is unlikely in the extreme.

But there seems to be a pause — justifiable, given the heated rhetoric — before the two articles of impeachment, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, are sent to the Senate and a trial can begin.

That’s because the person most clearly at the helm, Sen. Mitch McConnell, GOP majority leader, has been blunt about his intent. McConnell has said publicly that he is working closely with the White House on the strategy and that he favors a quick trial without additional witnesses.

He’s miles apart from setting rules the Democratic minority would like to see, which is to summon some of the fact witnesses on the president’s staff — all of whom Trump had barred from answering House subpoenas to testify.

There needs to be some kind of middle ground here, which is what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is clearly hoping to see before dispatching the articles to the Senate.

Some on the House side would rather the trial be postponed indefinitely, denying the president of the chance to secure acquittal. That would be unjust and merely cement the public perception that the whole thing is mere political theater.

It is not. Impeachment is warranted for the president, who essentially waylaid U.S. public policy to militarily back the Ukrainians in their border war with Russia. The defense funds were put on hold in a gambit to get Ukraine’s new president to announce an investigation of Trump’s most likely opponent in his race for re-election, former Vice President Joe Biden.

Again, opposition research is the stuff of every major political campaign, but that’s not what public funds and presidential power are meant to achieve.

The fact that Trump does not recognize the guardrails between public duties and private agendas is what landed him in this trouble. Impeachment repositions those guardrails, and elected members of Congress — in both houses — need to approach that seriously.

So some delay is needed to leverage a better set of ground rules. The Constitution requires that the chief justice preside at the trial. Although Chief Justice John Roberts will have a limited role, one hopes he can press for rules that are fair.

As for Hawaii’s delegation, voters should be watching for a well-considered approach. In the House, state Reps. Ed Case and Tulsi Gabbard split, the former voting for impeachment, while Gabbard put her position as “present.”

Impeachment has plainly deepened a political rift. In Hawaii, Shirlene Ostrov, state GOP chair, echoed fellow Republicans in calling the exercise a “partisan sham” by “impeachment crusaders.”

Gabbard maintains that she abstained as a symbolic gesture to heal that rift. In fact, it read more like grandstanding, and a cop-out.

Regarding Hawaii’s jurors in the Senate, Brian Schatz is on record calling that role “a solemn obligation to fully consider these allegations.” U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, asserted: “What I want to hear from the president is, what are his defenses? Does he have any explanation that exonerates him?”

Americans would all like to hear that. We are waiting.