Too many Republicans share Trump’s guilt to convict him now | READER COMMENTARY

I’m convinced a major reason why Republican members of Congress are hesitant to convict Donald Trump is because they realize they are accomplices (”In impeachment trial, GOP senators face a reckoning, too,” Feb. 10). The former president is not the only one who should be held accountable for poisoning peoples minds, or for encouraging a mob to ignore procedural due process. Or for rejecting the decisions of the judicial and legislative branches of a three-branched federal structure designed by the founders to separate and balance power in order to protect against tyrants. Or for not paying heed to the head of the Justice Department, a crucial part of the executive branch, when he declared “we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”

Those members of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate who encouraged the idea that the Constitution should be set aside, as demanded by one man, should all be held accountable, not just Donald Trump. But perhaps it’s too much to expect elected officials to find themselves guilty of aiding and abetting a crime. That would require enormous integrity and courage, more than most have.

Paul Totaro, Bel Air

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