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On what could be the final day of President Donald Trump‘s impeachment trial proceedings, the senate chaplain offered his solemn words of wisdom, a regular occurrence since the House delivered its articles of impeachment. What was not regular this time around, though, was how Senate Chaplain Barry Black on Friday afternoon seemed to throw a good amount of shade at the entire Senate during his prayer to open the debate over whether witnesses should be allowed to testify in the impeachment trial.
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It was truly a sight to behold as the country remained unsure whether the Republican-heavy Senate would vote with their hearts or with their political parties.
Chaplain Black, 71, seemed to hint directly at that dilemma during his opening words.
“Let us pray,” Black, who has served in that position for nearly 17 years, said before launching into what could be seen as a powerful rebuke in the name of God against Republican senators inching closer to this impeachment trial becoming the first in history to receive an article of impeachment without allowing a single witness or a single document of evidence to be admitted.
“Eternal lord god, you have summarized ethical behavior in a single sentence: Do for others what you would like them to do for you,” Black continued. “Remind our senators that they alone are accountable to you for their conduct. Lord help them to remember that they can’t ignore you and get away with it, for we always reap what we sow. Have your way, mighty God. You are the potter our senators … are the clay. Mold and make us after your will. Stand up, omnipotent God. Stretch yourself and let this nation and world know that you alone are sovereign. I pray in the name of Jesus, Amen.”
Black, a Seventh-day Adventist and retired Navy rear admiral, has been dropping these types of gems for the entire trial proceedings.
The Associated Press noted that Black has been the only person at the trial who “speaks to senators-turned-jurors about the values behind their actions,” something that was evident again on Friday.
Earlier this week, Black spoke about Kobe Bryant‘s tragic death in the context of the task senators have been charged with.
“As this impeachment process unfolds, give our senators the desire to make the most of their time on Earth,” Black said on Monday, one day after Bryant and eight other people, including his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, were killed in a helicopter crash in southern California.
The debate over allowing impeachment witnesses to testify and other evidence to be submitted on the record surrounds the willingness of Republican senators to vote in favor of or against doing so. But it was reported that key so-called moderate Republicans were expected to vote against allowing them into the trial, which seemed to indicate that Trump would be acquitted by a partisan group of politicians who have shown a blind loyalty to the president.
Trump stands impeached of an alleged quid pro quo that abused the power of the office of the presidency in an effort to recruit a foreign country to affect the outcome of a U.S. election, as well as subsequently obstructing a Congressional investigation into those allegations.
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