Here’s my fantasy: Moscow Mitch finally caves and agrees the Senate should have a trial with witnesses, evidence, and so on. He’s willing to gamble that few, if any, Republican Senators will vote to remove.
The trial ensues with John Roberts presiding. Overwhelming evidence exposes Trump’s crimes, and the case is made that letting the criminal go free pretty much wraps up the US’s 243-year run as a democracy.
Roberts having sat through all this with his stomach turning like a cement mixer, speaks before the final vote is taken, “Senators and my fellow Americans, consider carefully the consequences of your vote today. If you vote to acquit in the face of monumental evidence that Donald J. Trump is guilty of impeachable conduct, you will end our way of government under the law. You will replace an elected president with a monarch, unaccountable to anyone. Not to Congress, not to the Judiciary, not to the people.
“This is not a court of law, and therefore I cannot direct a verdict as I might in a civil case, nor can I direct an acquittal, as I could in a criminal case. However, please know this:
“If you vote to acquit, you will render not only the Senate and House impotent but you will enfeeble the Supreme Court as well. You won’t need me nor the Associate Justices. Decisions we might render could easily be ignored by an executive without limits.
“Therefore, if you vote to acquit, I will refuse to labor under those conditions. I will resign and encourage my fellow Justices to join me in protest.
“The fate of the nation is in your hands.”