This impeachment lacked a star from North Carolina

This is the first presidential impeachment that hasn’t had a North Carolinian in a starring role.

Congressman Mark Meadows got air time defending President Trump last year, but then announced his retirement. No other N.C. House member had a big role. Senators Richard Burr and Thom Tillis were safe votes against witnesses and for President Trump.

It wasn’t always thus.

The first Presidential impeachment was of Raleigh’s own Andrew Johnson in 1868. Johnson came within one vote of being removed from office by the Senate. He may have been saved by well-placed bribes.

" src="blob:https://cms.ncspin.com/0410f913-b865-4b22-ba47-80c6ed01b2f4" alt="image001.png" border="0" class="Apple-web-attachment Singleton" style="width: 3.8in; height: 2.125in;">

More than a century later, North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin chaired the Watergate hearings that led to Richard Nixon resigning before being run out of town.

Ervin said of Nixon’s crowd, “What they were seeking to steal was not the jewels, money or other precious property of American citizens, but something much more valuable – their most precious heritage: the right to vote in a free election.”

He added, “The Founding Fathers, having participated in the struggle against arbitrary power, comprehended some eternal truths respecting men and government. They knew that those who are entrusted with power are susceptible to the disease of tyrants, which George Washington rightly described as ‘love of power and the proneness to abuse it’.”

At the hearings, Rufus Edmisten launched his political career by placing his chair – and his face – between Ervin and co-chair Howard Baker of Tennessee and on national TV for weeks. Rufus is still regaling us with those stories.

Bill Clinton’s 1998 impeachment starred three – count ‘em, three – Senators from North Carolina.

Republicans Jesse Helms and Lauch Faircloth are credited with, or blamed for, engineering the appointment of Kenneth Starr to investigate Clinton. They allegedly urged a federal judge to replace the prior independent counsel with Starr. Starr is now defending President Trump and warning, “impeachment is hell.”

That November, Faircloth lost his seat to political newcomer John Edwards. Edwards had never served a day in public office. He was a trial lawyer. So what’s the first thing the Senate did after he was sworn in? A trial. Bill Clinton’s trial.

Democrats put Edwards on the team that deposed Monica Lewinsky about her affair with the President. During the Senate’s closed-door debate, Edwards was credited with giving a persuasive speech against conviction. He called Clinton’s conduct “reprehensible,” but argued that it didn’t justify removal from office.

It was a strong start for a freshman. A decade later, Edwards’ career and presidential campaign ended after his affair and lying about it became public.

In the Trump trial, Burr got some notice for not wearing socks and for passing out fidget-spinners and stress balls to his Republican colleagues. Tillis got a mention when he left the floor and listened from the visitors’ gallery.

But Tillis may yet be in the spotlight. Both he and Trump will be on the ballot in November. No President has ever run for reelection after being impeached. No one knows how impeachment – and the Senate’s verdict – will affect the election.

After Nixon resigned in 1974, Republicans suffered historic election losses across the country and in North Carolina.

In 1998, Faircloth and Republicans nationally tried to make the election a referendum against Clinton. It didn’t work. The GOP lost a number of Senate seats. Newt Gingrich, architect of the strategy, lost his Speakership.

This year, the Senate’s verdict is a foregone conclusion. The voters’ verdict in November is anything but. The trial will be on trial. So will the jurors.