Guy Farmer: Trump impeached twice, but why?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hates lame duck President Donald Trump so much that she made sure the House impeached him again last Wednesday exactly one week before he abandons Washington, D.C., for his Florida golf resort as a disgraced loser, his worst nightmare.

I understand Pelosi's anger after the president ginned-up an insurrection on Capitol Hill, but while impeaching the outgoing president twice, she's made an orderly transition much more difficult for President-elect Joe Biden, who has promised to bring us together after he takes office next Wednesday. With the Capitol swarming with military and police officers and an impeachment trial pending in the Senate, Biden's peace and love message will be a tough sell.

Let me be clear. I think Biden is a much better person than Trump, and I hope Biden will be able to heal the painful wounds that divide us after a Trump-inspired mob stormed the Capitol, resulting in total chaos and at least five deaths in or near one of the most sacred buildings in our nation's capital. I wish Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris well even though I disagree with many of their "progressive" policies, starting with immigration and the Green New Deal.

Trump, who said his incendiary words were "totally appropriate," was impeached again on a 232 to 197 vote for "incitement of insurrection." Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, was one of 10 Republicans who voted for impeachment. Trump "summoned this mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack," she said. "Everything that followed was his doing." I admire Ms. Cheney for upholding her oath of office.

Meanwhile, The New York Times reported that outgoing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell "has told associates that he believes President Trump has committed impeachable offenses, making it easier to purge him from the Republican Party." If true, I congratulate McConnell for exercising good judgment.

But again, I question whether impeachment was the right course of action just a week before Trump leaves office. I thought House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, had a better idea. "Personally, I continue to believe that an impeachment at this time would have the opposite effect of bringing us together when we need to get America back on a path toward unity and civility," he said in a letter to fellow Republicans. He added the House could have censured the president for inciting the deadly riot on Capitol Hill. I think that would have been a better, less divisive course of action.

The conservative Wall Street Journal had urged Biden to head-off the second impeachment. Biden could "help the country by calling off the House," a Journal editorial opined. "On the eve of a transfer of power and going into a new presidency, (impeachment) is needlessly divisive." Well, Biden didn't call off the House, setting the stage for a needlessly divisive Senate impeachment trial.

So when the Senate should be focused on confirming Biden's Cabinet and other top-level nominees, it will be required to conduct an impeachment trial of a disgraced former president who's no longer in office. This raises a number of constitutional and legal issues that will have to be decided before the trial can proceed. Can you imagine turning high-powered, rabble-rousing defense attorneys Alan Dershowitz and Rudy Giuliani loose on a deeply divided 50-50 Senate just as Biden takes office? That's a nightmare scenario for sure.

• A word to the wise: Don't go near downtown Carson on Wednesday… just in case.

Guy W. Farmer is the Appeal's senior political columnist.