More than a hundred Marin residents turned out for a rally in downtown San Rafael Wednesday night to protest the Senate’s decision earlier in the day to acquit President Donald Trump on the two articles of impeachment he was charged with by the House.
“Hearing everything that has gone on the past couple of weeks has made me kind of depressed,” said Azella Metzger of Novato, a Democrat. “I want to be around people who are feeling the same way.”
Similar rallies, organized by Move On and Common Cause, took place in hundreds of cities across the nation. Indivisible Marin and Novato Stands United helped organize the Marin rally, which was staged at San Rafael City Plaza. Aides to Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, and State Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, read impassioned denunciations of the Senate’s decision.
“I’m so upset about all this, just the injustice of it all,” said Stacey Walker, another Novato Democrat. “I am in disbelief that the case was presented so well, and that only one of the Republicans voted to impeach.”
Utah Sen. Mitt Romney voted to oust Trump on the charge of abuse of power. He was the only one of 53 Republican senators to vote for Trump’s removal from office. All 47 Democrats found Trump guilty of both charges.
Two Marin Republicans, who did not attend Wednesday’s rally in San Rafael, however, said Trump’s acquittal was just.
“There are absolutely no facts to support any of those charges,” said Jack Wilkinson, chairman of the Marin Republican Party. “There are assertions, allegations, castigations but no facts.”
Donna Pfeiff of Novato, a Republican, said, “I do not think that Trump did anything wrong. Anyone who paid attention to the State of the Union speech last night and saw all of Trump’s accomplishments realizes that the whole impeachment scenario was a total waste of time and money.”
Marin Democrats attending the rally, however, said the trial in the Senate was a sham.
“ It really does reek of one gigantic cover-up, said Nancy Levine of Woodacre. “Anyone who is really innocent does not block witnesses and documents. They want to make evidence available. It’s very obvious that Trump is hiding the truth, that he is enabled by Republican senators.”
Andy Peri of Fairfax, a Democrat, said what bothered him most about the Senate trial was that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, and other Republicans made it clear before the hearing started that they had already decided that Trump was innocent.
Peri said the Republicans’ intransigence became clear when they refused to hear witnesses, particularly former national security adviser John Bolton.
In the middle of the Senate trial, the New York Times reported that in an unpublished manuscript Bolton recounted how Trump told him that he wanted to continue freezing security assistance to Ukraine until officials there committed to assisting with investigations of the Bidens.
“He has some very incriminating evidence that the Senate didn’t want to hear,” Peri said. “That’s not justice when you willfully chose to not hear information because it will go against your forgone conclusions.”
Walker said, “I believe the reason the senators didn’t vote for witnesses is because they will be implicated; as Gordon David Sondland said. Everybody was in the loop so everybody would include people like Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell.”
Wilkinson, however, said the reporting about the book is more hearsay.
“The fact of the matter is the Democrats failed to subpoena Bolton because they would have to go to court,” Wilkinson said. “They didn’t call the witnesses. They then went to the Senate and told the Senate to finish doing the House’s job.”
Walker said, “In hindsight, I wish they would have waited and subpoenaed the witnesses.”
Levine, however, “They would have gotten hung up in the courts forever. I think they did the right thing.”
During the trial, Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., issued a statement explaining his reason for not voting to call witnesses.
“There is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the United States Constitution’s high bar for an impeachable offense,” Alexander wrote.
Walker said, “His argument blew my mind.”
Several Marin Democrats said they were discouraged by the results of a Gallup poll released Tuesday that showed Trump’s job approval rating rising to 49%, his highest in Gallup polling since he took office.
Walker said, “I fear that impeachment may have benefited him. That’s my fear but still in my brain I don’t know how it possibly could.”
Metzger said the Senate’s rejection of the articles of impeachment “is going to make Trump bolder. It doesn’t seem like the people who are voting for him will hold him responsible no matter what he does.”