“Integrity,” from the Latin integer, means “whole” or “complete.” The term has come to relate to a person’s inner sense of wholeness or completeness regarding consistency and high standards of character related to beliefs, values, honesty, truth, morality, and ethics. Institutions are also assessed in terms of their overarching integrity based on similar qualities as on the individual personal level.
In the U.S. House of Representatives’ impeachment hearings and subsequent Senate trial, the concept and demonstration of this precious notion of integrity must function as our lens of perception in assessing the validity and reliability of the process.
Validity and reliability serve as the two foundational standards on which quality research and coming to the truth rests. Validity regards the accuracy of what the research is constructed to measure, and reliability is about the consistency of the research methods or techniques when used in additional or similar contexts or by other researchers.
We must apply “integrity” as our lens of perception when assessing multiple and simultaneous levels: individual “players” within the Executive and Legislative branches, prosecutorial and defense teams each with of their principal members, witnesses, and potential witnesses and documents, and the Congress as a larger body. We also must not forget to include the press.
The jury has already ruled on the integrity of the primary defendant in the case, Donald John Trump. Even his defense team has failed to champion this man’s character or deflect accusations of his broken “wholeness.”
For example, The Washington Post found Trump has told a documented 16,241 false or misleading statements in his first three years of office. His personal attacks on people with which he disagrees are legendary, as are numerous indications pointing in the direction that his primary and unrelenting concerns for self supersede concerns for the country.
Critical questions remain; questions we must refract through our lens of perception:
How valid and reliable were the responses from the witnesses in the House impeachment hearings?
From which vantage points did the U.S. Representatives, who functioned collectively as a virtual “grand jury,” ask their questions and make their statements as people searching for the truth and maintaining their integrity within this process, partisans more interested in taking a side and sticking with it, people concerned only with getting reelected, or as people somewhere between these points of connection?
What are the overt and covert reasonings behind Senators, House Managers, and the President’s legal team in either requesting or denying key documents and witnesses, many having first-hand knowledge about the case and the President’s alleged actions?
At each step along the way as the trial proceeds, each Senator must be held accountable for the questions they ask and statements they make, votes they take on the admission of specific witnesses and documents, to their eventual decision to either convict or acquit this President on the double counts of impeachment forwarded by the House.
Their actions will have effects on each or us within the United States, and on the functioning of future presidents and Congresses, on the U.S. standing in the world, and on the future of our very democracy?
In the final analysis, the players in the drama and each of us must work out our own way of maintaining our wholeness — our integrity. If, however, within this process we fall into the psychic traps of self-deception, rationalization, justification, or simply not caring, we will ultimately lose entire pieces of ourselves.
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