For Jason Crow, it always comes back to the law.
When he was taking shelter during rocket attacks while serving in Afghanistan, he would pass the time by studying for his law school exams.
“It wasn’t that hard actually, taking the LSAT a couple of months later in a classroom,” he jokes.
Now, the freshman representative from Colorado’s 6th District says he’s hoping the law will guide him through a potential political morass — the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.
“I’ve taken an oath, I intend to fulfill it and to do so with diligence and with seriousness and with dignity,” Crow said.
One of seven impeachment managers who will present the House’s case beginning next week, Crow spoke with Colorado Matters shortly before the group read the articles of impeachment against Trump.
After the articles were read, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who will preside over the trial, was sworn in. Roberts then swore in the 100 Senators, who will act as jurors in the proceedings.
That includes Colorado Republican Cory Gardner, who some observers consider a possible key vote in whether the trial will allow witnesses in the trial. Crow said the idea of information being revealed “on a daily basis,” underscores the need “to actually have documents and evidence.”
“This cannot be the first impeachment trial in the history of the country where there aren’t any documents and there aren’t any witnesses,” he said.
But Crow added that he wasn’t sure if he would speak with Gardner. The senator, who faces a tough re-election campaign this year, says he’s focused on being an impartial juror and will listen to both sides.
“I’m going to approach this very holistically,” Crow said. “All hundred senators have to sit in judgment here. I think it’s important that as prosecutors, we look at the entire Senate and not individual senators.”
Crow’s role in pushing for the impeachment hearings in the House (he was part of an op-ed in the Washington Post that ran the day before Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House would move forward) landed him on a list of allegedly vulnerable Democrats that Republicans would target in upcoming elections.
Indeed, on Wednesday, Kristi Burton Brown, a vice-chairman of the Colorado GOP, tweeted that Crow “is siding with the extreme wing of his party by taking on the job of impeachment manager. The moderate voters in CD6 won’t look kindly on yet another distraction from the issues Crow should be focused on.”
Crow disagreed with the assessment.
“I spend a lot of my time back home in the district meeting with families, with children, with victims of gun violence, with our immigrants and refugees, with people who have been substantially impacted by this administration,” he said. “And that matters, people see that. And what matters, even more, is people in Colorado and throughout the country recognize when somebody puts politics aside and does the right thing.”
