The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the
United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction
of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
You do not want to impeach a sitting president - unless you
have to! It can take weeks, months, or years. When it starts everything else
stops; government grinds to a halt, factions on each side of the question
coalesce, the nation divides. Alexander Hamilton told us this happens:
“The prosecution
… will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to
divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused….it
will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and
interest on one side or on the other; … there will always be the greatest
danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of
parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.”[i]
And, so it begins!
On June 17, 2015, Donald J. Trump, accompanied by his wife
Melania rode the long escalator to the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City
and announced that he was running for the Republican nomination for President;
he would make America great again. The pundits laughed.
During the Republican debates, he outwitted his opponents with
name-calling, innuendo, sarcasm, and bizarre comments and a lack of fact-checking. The talking heads guffawed. They were aghast. How long could this go on? It would all be over in a few weeks.
It wasn’t. Donald J. Trump held all the cards he needed. He
played them well. He had the money, he had a private jet, and he had the
audacity. He won the nomination. The coastal elites were perplexed and the
heartland ebullient.
Nominee Trump understood how to use the plight of those
left behind, those without jobs, the not-so-well educated folks of the fly-over
states to his advantage. They wanted change because the left-of-center pendulum
had swung too far and needed to be righted. He promised jobs, regulatory
erasure, conservative judges, fewer taxes, border security, and gun rights, pretty
much what had been bothering a lot of people for a long time.
Elections have consequences. The winners, most of them
anyway, promise a lot on the campaign trail but once elected, forget the reason
they ran for office. Not Trump. He promised to appoint highly conservative
judges, and he did it. He promised to deregulate environmental laws and
workplace laws, and he did it. I don’t like his judicial appointments, but he
won. I don’t like his efforts to deregulate environmental efforts to save the
planet, but my favorite candidate lost. I don’t like his general lack of
interest in the history of the presidency or the nation. He is not terribly well
educated or doesn’t care and neither does most of his base. Joblessness is at an all-time low, wages are up, and the markets at all-time highs. Why would a
nation impeach a leader with these accomplishments? Why now?
Impeachment is about behavior as much as it is about
crimes. High crimes and misdemeanors are about abuse of power more than
anything else. It’s using the office to profit oneself. It’s about not being
“presidential.” It’s also; let’s not forget, about politics.
Several committees in the House are conducting
investigations into the President’s behavior, his actions, his friends, and
other activities. They have the trying job of separating fact from “Trump being
Trump.” Each committee issues subpoenas for information from the executive
branch and they are stonewalled. Department heads refuse to answer phone calls.
So the Fourth Estate is forced to up their game to find the truth. They do it rather
well. After months of House investigations and public testimonies, smoking guns
were still in their holsters. Citizens were and are conflicted about
impeachment. Those who listen to Fox News or MSNBC heard two different views of
the news. Then one day a couple of weeks ago, the dam broke and everything
changed overnight. The White House released the transcript of the President’s
conversation with the President of Ukraine. Many saw what looked like the
President seeking a quid pro quo for the release of weapons needed to stave off Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Others saw no such thing.
Whistleblowers are expressing concerns about administration
behavior, Special Envoys are resigning, and Ambassadors are recalled. Personal
lawyers are in the fray and presidents of foreign governments are resisting
involvement in the process. Have we reached a breaking point? Recent polls say
maybe.[iii]
Impeachment is always the decision of the Speaker of the
House. Speaker Pelosi shied away from that decision for over two years,
pleading with her caucus not to push too far too quickly. Impeachment requires
not only proof positive of high crimes and misdemeanors but also the consent of
the people. She held off a formal impeachment investigation until she could not.
The pressure was too much.
The whistleblower had sent a strongly worded letter to the
Inspector General of the National Security Advisors office, which found it
credible and urgent. The Acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Joseph
Maguire delayed delivering the letter to Congress as required by law. It also
sent the charges to the FBI so that they could investigate the claims. The CIA also
announced that it also had sent credible evidence to the FBI for investigation.
The former Special Envoy to Ukraine was summoned for a closed-door nine-hour
hearing with Congressional committees. It seems we have reached a state
of statis est statis.
Some consider the transcript of the President’s call to the
President of Ukraine all that is needed to convict him. Others view the same
transcript and say there is no evidence of a quid pro quo. Similar evidence continues
to unfold daily, to be viewed differently by each party. It’s going to be a
news-filled few months. Buckle up!
[i] Alexander Hamilton - The
Federalist #65 – October 1887-April 1888
[iii] Steven Shepard -
Politico – October 2, 2019,
