Michael Gerson, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, on Thursday warned of the “further danger” to come if the GOP-controlled Senate votes to acquit President Donald Trump over his Ukraine misconduct.

“The president never views a near-miss as an opportunity for reflection and reformation. He sees it as permission to indulge his every urge,” Gerson wrote in a new column for The Washington Post.

“And his most consistent urge has been to seek unfair advantage in the upcoming presidential election,” he continued. “The months between Senate acquittal and the November vote will be fertile ground for further cheating.”

Gerson also called out the “barefaced bad faith” of Republican senators in the impeachment trial who have complained there’s “nothing new” in the case Democrats are making against Trump, while simultaneously “actively opposing the introduction of new evidence and new testimony.”

“In this matter, elected Republicans are mainly serving, not the president, and certainly not the republic, but themselves,” Gerson wrote. “Having decided that no amount of evidence would be sufficient for conviction, they realize that the presentation of a full and compelling case would convict them of servility and institutional surrender. So a quick and dirty Senate trial is the best way to limit the exposure of their malpractice.”