Hundreds protest Senate 'cover-up' in impeachment vote

Indivisible Chicago leads rally after Trump survives truncated trial

Ed Yohnka of ACLU Illinois speaks at Wednesday’s “Call Out the Cover-up” rally. (One Illinois/Ted Cox)

Ed Yohnka of ACLU Illinois speaks at Wednesday’s “Call Out the Cover-up” rally. (One Illinois/Ted Cox)

By Ted Cox

CHICAGO — Hundreds of people rallied in Chicago’s Federal Plaza in the Loop Wednesday night to protest what they called a “cover-up” by U.S. senators in their vote to acquit President Trump in his impeachment trial.

After the U.S. House impeached the president in December along party lines on grounds he abused his power by using military aid to extort Ukraine to investigate a 2020 political opponent, Joe Biden, and that he then obstructed Congress in its attempt to probe that abuse, the Senate voted on party lines to acquit Trump Wednesday, with only Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah crossing to vote to convict the president following a stirring speech on the Senate floor.

While impeachment was likely never going to get the two-thirds majority required in the Republican-controlled Senate, that wasn’t near good enough for the hundreds who turned out Wednesday evening in Chicago and thousands of others elsewhere across the nation to “Call Out the Cover-up.”

The Senate called no witnesses and subpoenaed no documents from the White House in a trial that saw House impeachment managers and Trump attorneys argue for over a week in opening and closing statements before it proceeded directly to a final vote on Wednesday. Former National Security Adviser John Bolton volunteered to testify on Trump’s quid pro quo, which he has reportedly written about in an upcoming book, but the Senate never called him.

“I think this president has always been a threat to civil liberties. I think that that threat has just been turned up,” said Ed Yohnka, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. “And the idea that he has a party that’s going to join with him now in that effort and become a wholly owned subsidiary I think is a real danger.”

Denise Poloyac of Indivisible Chicago, the grassroots group that organized Wednesday’s Chicago rally, said the evidence was clear that Trump had pressured Ukraine to declare an investigation into Biden, while withholding aid to that nation in its undeclared war with Russia. “Not only do we know that, but every senator who voted today to acquit knew it too,” she said. “The Senate Republicans, they know what he did was wrong. They know what he did is unconstitutional. The thing is, they don’t care. They only care about staying in power. They only care about protecting their own interests. They’re willing to undermine democracy. They’re willing to move toward authoritarianism. And they’re willing to do whatever they need to do to get reelected. They will destroy the Constitution, ignore facts, and disregard the very notion that there is such a thing as truth. That’s what they did today when they took the vote to acquit.

“We’re here today because we’re going to call out their cover-up,” she added, “and we reject their cover-up.”

The crowd chanted, “We reject the cover-up,” “We will remember come November,” and “Vote him out,” a reference to Trump’s bid for reelection in the upcoming general election in the fall.

“Now there’s a threat even to our courts,” Yohnka told the crowd, “because the same senators who voted to acquit this president today have voted through a slew of judges who do not seek justice, but seek some sort of notion of the world that never existed except in their own minds.

“This isn’t just about impeachment,” he added. “This is not just about a trial that never happened. This is not just about our courts. This is about our country and who we are.

“Today is just one more day for us to recommit ourselves to an agenda of civil rights and civil liberties in this country, to gather strength from one another, and to move forward. This president will not last, and this agenda must be defeated.”