Why are Republicans who voted to impeach Clinton so unmoved by Trump’s actions?

Washington Post logoClarification: An earlier version of this column said that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) failed “to deal with the Ukraine conduct” of President Trump. Rubio staff note that he has called allegations that Trump improperly pressured Ukraine’s president “very serious” and said of Trump’s request for a Ukrainian probe into former vice president Joe Biden and his son: “I don’t think he should have done that.” This version has been updated.

This is a column about two impeachments and the boundless human capacity for rationalization and self-delusion.

The first time I wrote about the prospect of a president being impeached was on Jan. 21, 1998. The Monica Lewinsky story had broken that morning, and, as a reporter on the national staff of The Post, I was asked to write an analysis of the potential legal risks to President Bill Clinton. My editors were reluctant to have a reference to impeachment in the lead of the article. They thought it sounded far-fetched. Continue reading “Why are Republicans who voted to impeach Clinton so unmoved by Trump’s actions?”