肯塔基州的米奇·麦康奈尔在假期的大部分时间里都被拖得焦头烂额。在即将到来的参议院对唐纳德·特朗普的审判中，他说自己不是“公正的陪审员”，这引起了那些确信总统有罪的人的愤怒。

他们声称，他们的担忧与麦康奈尔和其他人没有履行宪法赋予的公正审判职责有关。除了宪法没有要求参议员要公正。基于我们对美国法学体系的理解，我想我们应该假设他们是。公平和迅速审判的权利是那些从佩里·梅森、马特洛克、法律与秩序和波士顿法律学会法律的人所熟知的基本宪法保护之一。但是一旦审判开始，麦康奈尔只是100个参与审判的人中的一个。如果他有一个公正的标准，那么其他人也有，对吗？然而，不能保证其他人会达到反特朗普的党派现在对肯塔基州高级参议员的要求。

参议院司法委员会主席南卡罗来纳州的林赛·格雷厄姆已经表示，对他来说，这个问题是一纸空文。为此，他也受到了广泛的批评。但是如果你看看，找到预先判断总统的民主党人同样容易，也许比找到下定决心的共和党人更容易。在众议院投票后的几天里，他们的言辞可能已经软化，但他们也没有放弃他们所说的话。

在线快速搜索会产生大量的资料。让我们检查一下记录。

• 新泽西参议员科里·布克希望成为2020年民主党总统候选人，并将对特朗普进行审判，说:“2016年，特朗普为了自己的利益欢迎外国对手干涉我们的民主。现在，他似乎在用同样的剧本继续掌权。我赞赏佩洛西议长宣布弹劾调查——这是我们确保正义得到伸张的最后一条途径。”听起来他不准备以开放的心态权衡证据，是吗？

• 这些呢评论马萨诸塞州参议员伊丽莎白·沃伦？“五个月前，穆勒报告发表的第二天，我呼吁弹劾。特朗普继续犯罪，因为他认为自己凌驾于法律之上。”和* "这种不当行为的严重性要求两党当选官员抛开政治考虑，履行宪法义务。这意味着众议院应该对美国总统发起弹劾程序。”

• 加州参议员卡马拉·哈里斯不再竞选总统，但是，尽管如此，她还是明确表达了自己在这个问题上的观点。拿这条推特:“唐纳德·特朗普滥用权力，阻挠司法公正，违反了他的就职誓言。他把他的政治利益置于我们的国家利益之上。我同意“朗读者”的说法——没有人能凌驾于法律之上。他必须被弹劾。”她还在参议院，所以她也是陪审团成员，

• 佛蒙特州参议员伯尼·桑德斯称特朗普为“这个国家历史上最腐败的总统”说“就最近乌克兰事件而言，我们有一位美国总统，他准备把国家安全资金扣留给我们的一个盟友，以获取总统候选人的丑闻，这种想法令人难以理解。”对我来说听起来不太开放。

• 明尼苏达州的艾米·克洛布查尔，另一位将在陪审团中审判特朗普的人，已经宣布特朗普有罪说，“当他打电话给乌克兰首脑时，他是在挖掘对手的把柄。那是非法行为。这就是他在做的事。”

很明显，急于做出判断不仅仅是在过道的一边。许多掌握总统命运的人已经预先判断了总统。这并不奇怪。从第一天起，这就是一个党派的过程。没有一个共和党人和民主党人一起投票支持弹劾条款。

共和党内有很多人批评了总统的判断，对他在办公室的表现一点也不满意——但显然，他们没有发现任何一个人已经上升到需要他下台的程度。

特朗普无疑是我有生以来见过的不同类型的总统。他是分裂的。他很好斗。他甚至可能是一个糟糕的人——尽管经济实力、创纪录的低失业率和其他因素反对这一提议——但我们不会因为总统不擅长这项工作而弹劾他们。如果我们这样做了，至少有六个人早在选民们尽快解雇他们之前就已经被免职了。这是关于政治的，而且一直如此。

《新闻周刊》特约编辑彼得·罗夫为《美国新闻与世界报道》、《联合新闻国际》和其他出版物撰写了大量关于政治和美国经验的文章。他可以通过电子邮件联系到RoffColumns@GMAIL.com。在推特上关注他。

IF MITCH MCCONNELL IS BIASED ON IMPEACHMENT, THEN SO IS ALMOST EVERY DEMOCRATIC SENATOR | OPINION

Kentucky's Mitch McConnell spent much of the holiday season being dragged over the coals. His comment about not being an "impartial juror" in the upcoming Senate trial of Donald J. Trump produced howls of outrage from those who are certain the president is guilty.

They claim their concerns have to do with McConnell and others not fulfilling their Constitutional duty to judge impartially. Except there's no requirement in the Constitution that senators be impartial. I suppose we presume they should be, based on what we understand about the American system of jurisprudence. The right to a fair and speedy trial is one of those basic constitutional protections well known to those who learned their law from Perry Mason, Matlock, Law & Order, and Boston Legal. But McConnell is only one of one hundred who will sit in judgment once the trial begins. If an impartiality standard exists for him, then it exists for the others too, right? Yet there is no guarantee any of the others will rise to what anti-Trump partisans now demand of Kentucky's senior senator.

South Carolina's Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has already said that as far as he is concerned the issue is a dead letter. For that, he too has been widely criticized. But if you look, it's just as easy to find Democrats who've prejudged the president, perhaps even easier than it is to find Republicans whose minds are made up. Their rhetoric may have softened in the days following the House vote, but they also haven't renounced what they said.

A quick search online yields plenty of material. Let's check the record.

• New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who wants to be the Democratic nominee for president in 2020 and who will be sitting in judgment of Trump, said: "In 2016, Trump welcomed foreign adversaries to meddle in our democracy for his own gain. Now he appears to be using the same playbook to remain in power. I applaud Speaker Pelosi's announcement of an impeachment inquiry—it's our one remaining path to ensuring justice is served." Doesn't sound like he's prepared to weigh the evidence with an open mind, does it?

• What about these comments from Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren? "I called for impeachment five months ago, the day after the Mueller report came out. Trump continues to commit crimes because he believes he's above the law." And: "The severity of this misconduct demands that elected officials in both parties set aside political considerations and do their constitutional duty. That means the House should initiate impeachment proceedings against the President of the United States."

• California Sen. Kamala Harris isn't running for president anymore but, while she was, she certainly made her views on the issue clear. Take this tweet: "Donald Trump has abused his power, obstructed justice, and violated his oath of office. He puts his political interests over our national interest. I agree with @SpeakerPelosi— no one is above the law. He must be impeached." She's still in the Senate so she too is on the jury,

• Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has called Trump "most corrupt president in the history of this country" and said that "in terms of the recent Ukrainian incident, the idea that we have a President of the United States who is prepared to hold back national security money to one of our allies in order to get dirt on a presidential candidate is beyond comprehension." Doesn't sound very open-minded to me.

• Minnesota's Amy Klobuchar, another who'll serve on the jury judging Trump already pronounced him guilty when she said, "When he made that call to the head of Ukraine, he's digging up dirt on an opponent. That's illegal conduct. That's what he was doing."

The rush to judgment, it's clear, is not just on one side of the aisle. The president's been prejudged by plenty of the people who hold his fate in their hands. This is no surprise. This has been a partisan process from day one. Not a single Republican joined the Democrats in voting for either article of impeachment.

There have been plenty in the GOP who've criticized the president's judgment and are not at all happy with the way he's conducted himself in office—but they don't, apparently, find any of it to have risen to a level requiring his removal from office.

Trump is certainly a different kind of president than any we've seen in my lifetime. He's divisive. He's combative. He may even be a bad one—although the strength of the economy, the record-low unemployment numbers and other factors argue against that proposition—but we don't impeach presidents because they're not good at the job. If we did, there are at least a half dozen who would have been removed from office long before the voters gave them the heave-ho as soon as was possible. This is about politics and always has been.

Newsweek contributing editor Peter Roff has written extensively about politics and the American experience for U.S. News and World Report, United Press International, and other publications. He can be reached by email at RoffColumns@GMAIL.com. Follow him on Twitter @PeterRoff.