Unchecked The untold story behind Congress's botched impeachments of Donald Trump

Journalists Bade and Demirjian deliver a searing analysis of the "political calculations" made by Democrats and Republicans that led to Donald Trump's acquittal in two separate impeachment trials. Suggesting that the results were not as "preordained" as many believed, given Republicans' control of the Senate in 2019, the authors document internal disagreements among Democrats over the issuing and enforcement of subpoenas, the need for "high-profile" eyewitness testimony, the degree of due process to be afforded Trump, and whether it was better to expedite the proceedings or present the fullest case possible. Bolstering the authors' case that "Trump escaped accountability not simply because his own party wouldn't stand up to him, but because the opposing party was also afraid to flex the full force of its constitutional muscle to check him," Bade and Demirjian reveal that Republican congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler's expressed interest in testifying against Trump in the second impeachment trial wasn't immediately shared with Democratic manager Jamie Raskin. Throughout, the authors offer fly-on-the-wall accounts of Republican and Democratic strategy sessions and new details about Trump's pressure campaign on Ukraine, the January 6 Capitol riot, and other events. Though some of the political and legal headwinds faced by Democrats get short shrift, this is a thorough and often riveting account of why the efforts to impeach Trump failed. (Oct.)

A scorching exposé of the inner workings of the two impeachments of Donald Trump, driven less by constitutional principle than by political calculation. At every moment of the first Trump impeachment, write veteran political reporters Bade and Demirjian, the principal players in both parties gamed outcomes in an effort to inflict maximal damage on each other. "While Democrats said they wanted bipartisanship," they write, "when presented with ways to achieve it, they chose paths that guaranteed the opposite." GOP figures from Mitch McConnell on down forgot their scruples and closed ranks to defend the indefensible. Nancy Pelosi took dangerous procedural shortcuts and effectively hamstrung the House prosecutors' ability to present an airtight case--and never properly responded to Trump's refusal to hand over subpoenaed documents. Moderate Republicans such as Jaime Herrera Beutler, who might have voted to impeach, were pushed away by the determination of Democrats to go it alone, lending the proceedings an air of secrecy. If a moderate were rebuffed, then Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy had no problem steering the rest of the conference into opposition. The second impeachment, against the backdrop of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, was even less well managed. Most Republicans argued that Trump won the 2020 election, while ace Democratic prosecutor Adam Schiff pressed for recourse to the 25th amendment rather than a slower impeachment trial. "At the speaker's personal request," write the authors, "he'd been making the case…that if they went after the president in his waning days in office, it would look like they were just trying to keep him from running again." In the end, Bade and Demirjian argue in this comprehensive narrative, both sides of the aisle compromised and devalued the constitutional power of impeachment, opening the door to its future use as "an everyday vehicle to express the heights of partisan rage." A must-read for students of the Trump years and their dreary denouement. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.