Impeaching President Donald J. Trump 
now seems inevitable. On a party-line vote, the House of Representatives last week endorsed a resolution opening a formal impeachment inquiry. The vote never would have
now seems inevitable. On a party-line vote, the House of Representatives last week endorsed a resolution opening a formal impeachment inquiry. The vote never would have 
been taken if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wasn't confident she has the votes for impeachment. Soon public hearings will begin, followed by approval of at least one article of impeachment in the judiciary committee. If the full House supports
at least one article, action would shift to the Senate for a trial. There, conviction and removal from office require a two-thirds vote, admittedly an unlikely prospect now.
Mounting evidence Trump abused his office by withholding aid from a beleaguered ally while demanding help from that foreign government in digging up dirt on a political opponent has persuaded about half the country Congress should remove him. Though
 |
The story isn’t complicated. A White House summary of a call between Trump and the Ukrainian president
told most people all they needed to know. When House investigators began taking testimony from people involved in U.S. – Ukrainian relations the doubts about Trump’s constitutionally prohibited behavior fell away. A host of credible witnesses, like Ukraine Ambassador William Taylor and a decorated National Security Council official, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, have given the Ukraine scandal gravitas and staying power with the public. House leaders, like intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff, indicate Taylor, Lt. Col. Vindman, and perhaps even former National Security Advisor John Bolton may testify in the public hearing phase. History suggests increasing public support for impeachment would likely result from public hearings.
Our Say
We return to impeachment now because it’s real. In four previous posts we looked at it under abstract circumstances. This isn’t hypothetical anymore. This will happen.
We began writing about impeaching Trump in March 2017, just two months into his presidency. Early signs of corruption produced Woodson’s prediction that impeachment proceedings against the President would begin “in the next year.” It took a little longer, but even then the road pointed in the direction we’re now headed.
Three months later, in June 2017, Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey induced from us a piece on the history of the Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton impeachment proceedings. We speculated about what might happen politically if Trump were impeached and removed. As things move forward in 2019, we realize we’ll have to revisit the political calculus. It’s different now that we’re on the cusp of an election, but no less important in developing an understanding of what all this means for American politics.
In July 2018, we briefly revisited impeachment in the wake of Trump’s shameful performance in Helsinki alongside Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. With former State Secretary Madeleine Albright’s
book Fascism as a backdrop and organizing principle, we asked if impeachment “could reign in Trump’s behavior,” even if the Senate didn’t remove him from office.
Finally, in April 2019, evidence of Trump’s scandalous behavior became clearer and clearer. We learned of so many sins, we asked, “Impeachment Anyone?” We addressed the issue in terms of political reality versus the country’s need for a moral response, in the process revealing our own varied views on the issue.
Ukraine Changes the Game
Throughout the now nearly three years of the Trump presidency, as the specter of impeachment lurked beneath the surface and the bad acts piled up, there has always been the idea of relying on the 2020 election as the best way of ridding the nation of Trump disease. Wait, counseled people like Rob, who for most of that time, thought the political price of impeaching Trump wasn’t worth it. We could tough it out until the election in the belief limiting Trump to one term wouldn’t permanently damage the country. Trump’s behavior in connection with Ukraine calls the morality of that view into serious question.
Woodson and Henry now offer compelling
observations about why leaving it to the election isn’t a good idea. Woodson notes the possibility of tampering with the 2020 election. Mueller told Congress he was sure the Russians were, as he spoke, readying their next attack. Trump, by saying he’d welcome dirt on his opponent from foreign sources, invited just such interference. It happened in 2016. It could happen again.
Henry, a former federal magistrate judge who says perhaps the best part of his job was swearing in new citizens, reminds us morality commands we not betray the brave citizens like Ambassador Taylor, Lt. Col. Vindman, and the original
whistleblower who stepped forward and told what they knew, sometimes at great personal cost. Trump and his allies vilified these men and women for doing nothing more than honoring their duty under the constitution.
All three of us learned in law school the venerable principle that the law is entitled to every person’s evidence. People like
Ambassador Taylor and Lt. Col. Vindman followed that principle with their closed-door testimony and probably will again when the hearings go public. In the absence of impeaching Trump, we will have done those individuals and the principle they followed a great disservice. We cannot afford the price of doing that.
No comments:
Post a Comment