Some stuff jumped out at me, just contextual information.
It would be historic... if a sitting President would be not only impeached, but removed from office and "banned forever from running for office again" for what essentially amounts for a policy dispute...there is not historic or lawful/legal precedent for this. Zip, zero, zilch, nada... none.
Historic, yes. It's never happened. And yes, no lawful/legal precedent - but useful to context that this is because (a) it's never happened, and (b) impeachment trials are not "trials" (in a rule-of-law sense), and to be 'convicted'
only means to be impeached. Constitutional law is not the same as rule of law. It's checks-and-balances, not prosecution. But people don't tend to remember that, and we're in such partisan times, it's hard to imagine people being able to see it as anything
other than a criminal prosecution, a trial in a court of law - which, it isn't.
It is being tried in a court. The chief Supreme Court justice is the judge, the senate the jury.
Worth remembering, it's not a criminal trial. Not a criminal proceeding. Governance trial, not court-of-law trial. The senate isn't a jury - though that's an analogy that many people often make. The senate isn't bound by any code of conduct that a jury would be bound by, and they don't do what juries do. They are just hearing, considering, and voting - which is what they do all the time. I think the difference is, it's very funhouse-mirror-like, because it's the government voting on itself. But that's what leads us to want to simplify the equation into chief justice=judge, senate=jury, and president=on trial. That's just not what's actually happening.
It irks me that the word 'jury' is being used in this process at all. The concept of an independent jury of your peers couldn't be further from what the senate actually is - they're about as prejudiced as it gets when it comes to finding for or against the President.
Correct - because the analogy to a jury is literally comparing apples to oranges. There is no jury in a senate impeachment proceeding. There is a vote, and the 2/3 majority will "win". It's also not a bench trial, the "judge" is overseeing and enforcing whatever set of procedural elements the senate has adopted, but that's it -the judge has no other enforceable powers. Those would kick in, theoretically, were a president to "appeal" the impeachment. Then there would be a big debate about this, but it would most likely go to the supreme court to decide. But that's two big hypotheticals, the US has never ever had to do that.
No surprise to say - impeachment proceedings being infrequent means, there's not a lot of precedent, period. Constitution just leaves us with "it's the Senate's job to try (test and weigh) the evidence, and vote. They can decide to go about that however they see fit." That's a slight oversimplification, because there have been some precedents that have developed over time - but really, not many at all. I think there's four. I'd need to look.
People might appreciate this:
a fairly readable overview of the four main schools of thought, re: interpretation of the Constitution (concerning impeachment, specifically).
Putting on the 'show' of a trial, with a foregone conclusion, where the facts and the law have become almost completely irrelevant, does an incredible amount of damage to the notion of democracy.
Yeah...again, though, "law" is a tricky thing to apply, since it's not a criminal trial. More like, "ethics", or "commonly held beliefs about right and wrong" - and those are somewhat codified into law(s), which then may or may not inform constitutional interpretation....depending on one's beliefs about the fallibility or rightness of the US Constitution.
Many legal scholars would agree 100% with you on the inherent problems with the impeachment system. Back when the framers "framed" shit, there was a lot they did not anticipate. The inflexibility inherent in a a two-party system is a big piece of that puzzle, but not the only piece.
