Can I get a witness? Impeachment

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Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. It's been 10 years since an earthquake devastated Haiti. Our correspondent paid a visit on the anniversary, attended a voodoo ceremony commemorating the dead and found a country in the midst of a thorny constitutional crisis. And same sex marriages have been legal in Britain long enough that statistics are emerging on same sex divorces. We look into the surprising fact that gay women are far more likely to split up than gay men. But first, President Donald Trump's impeachment drama is about to enter its final chapter.

Today at 12:30pm The Senate reconvenes. And Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, will introduce a resolution after the Senate has gaveled in that lays out the rules for the impeachment trial.

John Fasman is our Washington correspondent.

And then the trial itself is set to begin on Wednesday.

It comes five months after revelations that Mr. Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine for what appeared to be purely political gain. For a brief period, Mr. Trump's future as president was thrown into question. Last month, he became the third American president in history to be impeached by the House of Representatives. But his trial in the Republican dominated Senate is very likely to be very different. The rules have been set by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. And there's no guarantee that the trial will include witnesses or that the findings from the House's inquiry will be admitted into evidence. Democrats such as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer were not on board with the plan.

A trial where there's no evidence, no.

Existing record and no new evidence, no.

Witnesses, no documents, that isn't a trial at all.

It's a cover up.

Senator McConnell's rules seem designed to ensure a quick trial. Each side, both the House and Mr. Trump's team, gets 24 hours total to make their arguments. But they're limited to two days. So that pretty much ensures that some of the trial will take place in the wee hours when fewer people are paying ATT. And then after that, the Senate gets 16 hours to question the two sides, followed by four hours of debate. And only after that will the Senate vote on whether to call for witnesses or new information. If there's not a majority in favor of either, they can proceed to the verdict. You know, Andrew Johnson's impeachment trial lasted almost three months, from March 5 to May 26, 1868, and Bill Clinton's lasted from January 7 to February 9. Donald Trump's trial may wrap up in about eight days.

And I don't suppose the outcome will be any surprise.

I doubt there'll be any surprises. You know, yesterday, CNN released a poll showing majority support 51% for removing the President from office. But even so, it's just not likely to happen. For that to happen, you would need 20 Republican senators to cross the aisle. You would also need every Democrat to back impeachment, including those from states where Donald Trump is popular, like Joe Manchin from West Virginia. And I just don't see that many senators crossing the aisle, especially if Senator McConnell keeps the trial short and doesn't call more witnesses.

Why, though, are so few senators likely to cross the aisle? Why does Mr. Trump's acquittal seem to be such a foregone conclusion?

Well, he's probably going to be acquitted because most Republican senators come from solidly Republican states, and they fear a primary election challenge from another Republican running to their right more than they fear a general election challenge from a Democrat. And of course, Donald Trump has made personal loyalty to him a real litmus test, and they don't want to be on the receiving end of a barrage of furious tweets and personal opprobrium. Now, that doesn't mean that Republican senators share the Trump base's love for President Trump. And many of them are perfectly happy to tell you so just off the record, but they know they'll lose without his base, so they stay in line because they don't want to lose.

So who are, who are the key players in this trial?

The key, key player in the senate is Mitch McConnell. He sets the rules and he has said that he is working in total coordination. That's a quote with the White House. The top Democrat in the Senate is Chuck Schumer, and he's fine, but he's really no Nancy Pelosi. He'll try to force votes on calling witnesses less because he thinks he has a chance of winning those votes than to force vulnerable Republican incumbents up for reelection this year to either defy Donald Trump, who wants a quick trial, or take an unpopular public position and say they don't want to hear from any witnesses. John Roberts, the Supreme Court chief justice, will preside over the trial. You can probably expect him to keep pretty quiet. He's an institutionalist and he really doesn't like getting too overtly political. President President Trump added a couple of lawyers for the trial, including Alan Dershowitz, who will present his theory on the Senate floor. He will argue that impeachment requires an actual serious crime, or what he calls criminal like conduct. And this is an extreme theory with really very little support among the House managers. The people who present the House's case are Adam Schiff, who is pretty formidable during the House proceedings, as well as Jerry Nadler, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, and Hakeem Jeffries, who some people think is Nancy Pelosi's heir apparent as speaker.

And what are the Democrats pushing for?

Well, I mean, most obviously they're pushing for removal or at least for a full and fair trial, and they want to call witnesses. Since the House proceedings ended, John Bolton, Donald Trump's former national security adviser, said he would be willing to testify and they want to hear from him. They also want to hear from Mick Mulvaney, Donald Trump's chief of staff, and Michael Duffy, who is at the Office of Management and Budget. And who's the person who told the Pentagon to hold the military aid to Ukraine. Mulvaney will almost certainly never testify. The White House will claim executive privilege, which in this case seems quite reasonable. And then there's Lev Parnas, the Ukrainian born real estate investor pal of Rudy Giuliani's. He's released a bunch of texts and documents and he's been making the media rounds. They'll probably want to hear from him, too.

And in order for it to be that full and fair trial, do you think these new witnesses and evidence should be heard? I mean, what's the usual practice here?

I mean, it's a bit of a red herring to talk about usual practice in impeachment trials. There have only been two, but they did both involve witnesses live in Andrew Johnson's trial and excerpted on videotape in Bill Clinton's. Personally, I have a hard time seeing how it could be a fair trial if you don't hear from all relevant witnesses, including those who may not have testified before the House. And, you know, one of President Trump's lawyer's complaints that they made in their brief is that impeachment is invalid because the House didn't have a single witness with firsthand knowledge. And that's because the White House blocked them. And that's an easy problem to solve. They could always just let Giuliani and Bolton testify.

If the senators are extremely likely to vote straight along partisan lines, does it really matter if the witnesses and evidence won't be heard? Will it really move the needle anyway?

Now, I think these are two separate questions, Jason. Doesn't matter. And will it move the needle? And, you know, I mean, Donald Trump stood on the White House lawn and urged China, based on no evidence at all, to investigate Joe Biden. And he urged Ukraine to investigate meddling in the 2016 election. And, of course, Ukraine didn't meddle in the election. Russia did. But the President seems unable to accept that. And these things both happened openly. And, you know, one of the ways that the House's inquiry last December differed from the inquiry of Bill Clinton or Richard Nixon is that there wasn't much to discover. Again, this conduct, the calling on foreign aid in American election, it happened in the open. Witness after witness told the House how the President subverted American foreign policy for his own personal political benefit. So I doubt there's a witness who can persuade 20 senators to flip sides if none of that did. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't matter. And to start thinking that it doesn't matter that senators of whatever party shouldn't press for as full an airing of facts as possible just because it won't produce a desired political end is really deeply cynical. And I would hope that the Senate's moderate Republicans like Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, the ones who express the desire to hear from witnesses, I would hope that they understand that there is a difference between a full and deliberate trial in which the jurors, the senators, consider all the evidence and then reach a verdict that is very different than a rushed process toward a pre cooked conclusion. And in a democracy, process matters, and the appearance of giving justice matters. And Republican senators need to be able to look at themselves in the mirror and figure out whether they're looking at someone who served honorably as a juror in a fair trial, or whether they're looking at someone who maybe behaved in a manner not quite as honorable. And that matters, too.

And whatever the outcome, how do you think this impeachment trial will impact the rest of Mr. Trump's presidency?

You know, Donald Trump is now just one of three presidents to have ever been impeached, and that will define his legacy. Even if he serves the rest of the term, even if, as seems totally possible, he serves a second term, he will always be an impeached president.

And as this story unfolds and we edge closer to the election, you've now got a podcast of your own, right?

Yes, I do. It's called Checks and Balance. It comes out every Friday. Starting this week, we will be taking a global view of America's election. And the idea is that we get past the horse race, politics and beltway commentary to pick out the big themes that will affect the outcome of the election and to get on the road and talk to people around the country, do six months of campaign trail reporting. I'm very excited about that. And in our first episode Friday, we're looking at whether President Trump really has restored American power in the world as he promised to do.

Got it. I'll go hunting for Checks and balance on the Economist radio feed or in my podcast app.

Thanks, John, Jason, always a pleasure.

As the sun set over the Haitian capital, Port au Prince last week, two priests and several priestesses gathered for a voodoo ceremony. They chanted and struck spade shaped fans against clay pots, while drummers beat polyrhythms with hands and sticks. This ceremony for the dead was conducted on the 10th anniversary of an earthquake that devastated Haiti. No one is sure how many people died, perhaps as many as 200,000. A cholera epidemic compounded the misery. These disasters spurred an outpouring of humanitarian relief worth some $9.5 billion in the first three years after the quake. But a decade on, Haiti is still far from being rebuilt. Millions are in poverty and criminal gangs roam unchecked. And now a deep constitutional crisis is pushing the country even further away from recovery.

The most immediate clue you get as to the state of Haiti ten years after the earthquake you can get just by looking around the streets of Port au Prince, which are still strewn with rubble and large bits of Stone piled up at the side of the road. There are very deep potholes even in the very center of the city. And life for ordinary Haitians is still fairly bad.

Andrew Knox writes for the Economist and was in Haiti for the anniversary.

More than half the population lives below the poverty line of $2.41 a day. The share of Haitians with access to clean drinking water has dropped to 52% in 2015 from 62% only a few decades before in 1990. And most instantly worrying is the fact that 3.7 million Haitians are currently classified as being in acute crisis level food insecurity according to the IPC metric. And this is forecast to rise to about 4.1 million later this year.

So why is Haiti still in such a mess?

Well, the reasons are complex and interact with one another in sort of quite dramatic ways, but a lot of the attention now is focused on the current state of political dysfunction in the country. So on Monday 13 January, the Haitian Parliament was supposed to open in a new sess. But due to the fact that there were no legislative elections in October 2019, no MPs will be returned to the parliament, leaving the president, Jovenel Moyes, to rule the country essentially by decree. And ever since Mr. Moyes has come to power, he's ruled with a rather dysfunctional parliament. So an 119 seat lower house is divided between over 20 parties, many of which represent the interests of local bigwigs and find it impossible to form any kind of working coalition in order to get the work of a legislature done. Mr. Moyes also has a fairly antagonistic relationship with much of that parliament and has had four prime ministers in the time he's been in power.

So how is it that Haiti can get past at least the political part of the impasse here?

So I sat down with Mr. Moise to discuss his intentions for the upcoming period. Thank you so much for agreeing to meet with me. I really appreciate it. He was sat in a very sort of loosely decorated stateroom in a gold chair with cream upholstery. And described to me how much in the same way that the Constitution of 1987 had come about. He hopes to speak to the various representatives of opposition groups and come to an agreement whereby a constituent assembly can be created. That constituent assembly will then look to redraft the constitution, making various changes, and once it's agreed on a new copy, will submit that to a referendum. And what Mr. Mouy said was that the people would then vote on that text, and if they reject it, so Be it. But if they don't, it will be the constitution of the people.

And so what do you make of that plan? Haiti has a history of despotic leaders, and now a president who can't quite make things work is reaching for constitutional change.

So I agree that the historical precedent gives us good reason to worry about what will happen in this attempt at constitutional reform. I think that really the first indication of whether this has any chance for success will be who the people involved are. It's not just the president who wants constitutional reform. There are broad calls for it across Haitian society.

And so what do the Haitian people make of this, both of the sort of the situation they find themselves in and what's being offered as a means of change?

So the Haitian people are arguably more up in arms now than they have been in a while. And bear in mind, this is a history where government actions are often met with protests. In fact, the current unrest dates all the way back to July 2018, when the government decided to end fuel subsidies at the suggestion of the imf, which caused the price of fuel, an essential staple for Haitian life, to jump by almost 50%. Basically overnight. The government quickly reversed its decision to cut fuel subsidies. But soon after, protesters returned to the streets in response to allegations that top politicians, including Mr. Moise, had misappropriated or squandered millions of dollars from a fund related to Petro Caribe, a Venezuelan oil scheme whereby certain countries could purchase Venezuelan oil on favorable terms. And Mr. Mois has denied wrongdoing on various occasions, but the protests have continued notwithstanding.

And so that kind of dissatisfied mood, that protest spirit, is still prevalent on the streets today.

Absolutely. And Mr. Moise's ability to potentially harness the spirit is going to be a big factor in whether or not he is able to successfully reform the constitution and get the country to free and fair elections. So currently, his public standing is incredibly low. It's not just the Pedro Carrillo scandal. The security situation in the country for ordinary Haitians is incredibly poor. In part, this relates directly to the protests. So police have fired live ammunition at demonstrators over the last few months, and more than 200 people, including about 44 police officers, have died during the protests. In addition, Haiti currently has a huge problem with banditry and with very well armed gangs essentially sort of terrorizing the country. So whether Mr. Moise is able to convince a population for whom life is so difficult and who are so ready to mobilize on the streets against any move he makes, and convince him that the process of constitutional reform that he is embarking on is both a legitimate one and that he is the legitimate person to head that effort is entirely unclear. Success, I think, will depend enormously on the degree to which he can get buy in from ordinary Haitians, especially young Haitians, many of whom have been involved in these protests. There is a new generation of young Haitians very enthusiastic to change the governance of the country. And Mr. Moes will have to work very hard in order to convince them of the legitimacy of this process.

Andrew, thank you very much for your time.

Thank you very much for having me.

In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country to legalize same sex marriage. Since then, more countries have followed suit.

Since same sex marriage was introduced In Britain in 2015, we now have a whole new category of people going down the aisle.

Tom Rowley is a Britain correspondent at the Economist.

This is obviously a great leap forward for equality. Sadly, we also now have the other leap forward for equality, which is we now have gay divorces.

And so is there equality then also in gay divorces?

Interestingly, there isn't. More lesbian women were getting married in the first place than gay men and therefore there are being more lesbian divorces. But the disparity is far wider in divorce rates than in marriage rates. Three quarters of same sex divorces so far have involved same sex female couples. This isn't just happening in Britain. The Netherlands, which was the first country to introduce same sex marriage, has seen exactly the same Trend over their 15 years or so. And also with civil partnerships in Britain, we're seeing the same trend crop up as well, with more female couples looking to dissolve those than male ones.

Are there any patterns in the sort of cited reasons for wanting to file for divorce?

Perhaps not surprisingly, it turns out same sex marriages are just the same as heterosexual ones. People grumble that their partners aren't pulling their weight, that they're not being listened to. More seriously, they're distressed about adultery or domestic violence. The lawyers I spoke to said that humans are humans. The reasons are much the same.

So around three quarters of same sex divorces in Britain involve lesbian couples. That's quite a lot. Why do you think that's so much higher than the rate among gay men?

It's a fascinating statistic. I was slightly baffled to begin with, so I went to speak to Lisa Power, who was one of the co founders of Stonewall, a gay rights organization.

When I first saw the statistics, I wanted to check them. I wanted to be sure because it seemed astounding. But when I really thought about it, I don't think it is that surprising. I mean, we're brought up expecting that love and marriage will go together automatically and that love is perfect and it will be forever. We're also brought up as girls to think that emotional fidelity and sexual fidelity are the same thing and both necessary for an ongoing relationship. Whereas I think gay men, in my experience are much more successful at separating them out. I know an awful lot of gay men who are civilly partnered or married who have lots of sex outside the relationship. Indeed, sometimes they have lots of sex together outside the relationship, but they still stick with each other as an ongoing partnership.

Lisa Power thinks one of the reasons is that lesbians are more likely to move quickly and therefore to get married in haste and repent at leisure. These and other speculative reasons have been suggested to me by a variety of people I talk to. In heterosexual marriage, women are far more likely to integrate divorce as well. That accounts for roughly two thirds of divorce proceedings in the last tenure in Britain. So the assumption, a few people told me, is that therefore if you have two women together, the likelihood of one of them bringing about divorce proceeding is much higher than if you have two men who are statistically less likely to. Lesbians are more likely than gay men to have previously been married. And all other things aside, second marriages are more likely than first marriage to fail.

Another trend that we see kind of across the board is that marriage rates are declining more generally. And I wonder how much of your reporting bears out the idea that perhaps the institution itself needs to change in addition to perhaps some of the laws around it.

Different people have very different views on this. Gay people just as much as straight people. Straight people won the right very recently in Britain to form civil partnerships as well as same sex couples because the argument was made that they didn't like the idea of marriage's associations with patriarchal forms of society. Some gay activists dispute the sort of heteronormativity of marriage as an institution.

I think that marriage equality is a double edged sword for queer people. I think that it's been incredibly useful in getting the rest of society to relate to us and to stop treating us as strange people out there somewhere. But at the same time it's made a headlong rush for, if you like, heterosexual respectability when that may or may not actually suit us. One of the things that I actually quite liked about being a big old dyke was that we got to choose how we had our relationships and we could still make families, but we didn't have to. And I think now there is a societal pressure on us to prove that we're just like straight people. Whereas in fact, I think both queer and straight people would perhaps benefit from a bit more consideration of our variabilities as human beings.

So marriage rates in general are in a long term decline, whereas same sex marriage rates are booming, largely because gay and lesbian couples are taking advantage of new laws. Though it seems unlikely that in the future, gay or lesbian people are any more likely than straight people to want to defend this particular institution, or indeed to stay together.

Tom, thanks very much for your time.

Thank you.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. If you like us, give us a rating on Apple podcasts and you can subscribe to the economist@economist.com Radioactive offer 12 issues for $12 or 12 pounds. See you back here tomorrow.