TRUMP IMPEACHMENT IS A FOOL'S ERRAND
DESPITE MANY OFFENSES, IT'S A POLITICAL LOSER
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Donald Trump is guilty of multiple impeachable charges: using his office to enrich himself, peddling presidential pardons, abuse of power by deploying the Justice Department and FBI as political weapons, arguably committing war crimes, among others.
It would be crazy, however, for Democrats to pursue or even threaten actions to remove him from office.
Any effort would lose even if Democrats win control of Congress in the midterms. It’s worse. Talk about impeachment is seized on by Trump as one of the few things that might energize the despondent Republican base. It also plays into the canard that his Justice Department is just making amends for what the Biden Administration did.
Yet already dozens of Democrats are raising the specter of impeachment or invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. That will be further fueled by the New York Times prized White House correspondent Peter Baker’s piece on how Trump’s actions and rhetoric -- threatening to end Iran’s civilization, blasting the Pope and putting out an AI generated picture of himself as Jesus tending the sick -- raise anew questions about his mental sstability.
I have no access to any of his doctors nor any medical expertise; just watching Trump am convinced he has real cognitive problems.
But the 25th Amendment requires the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to find the President unable to discharge his duties. JD Vance, Pete Hegseth, Howard Lutnick & co. moving to dump Trump? Dream on.
The impeachment brigade predictably includes left wing members of Congress, like Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. It also includes more mainstream Democrats like Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut.
There’s an intense Senate primary in Massachusetts between incumbent Ed Markey and Congressman Seth Moulton. When one came out for impeachment the other had to. That plays well in a primary with liberal Bay State Democrats. It won’t in most red or purple state general elections.
These threats are a gift to Trump. “He’s saying ‘They want to impeach me,’” notes Bill Cohen. “Send me money and get prepared,” Cohen, later Secretary of Defense, was a key player as a freshman Republican Representative from Maine in the one accomplished impeachment proceeding in 1974.
Looking at this and the other three modern presidential impeachments should be instructive. In 1973 the table was set by a special Senate committee, headed by conservative Democrat Sam Ervin with bombshell testimony from former White House counsel John Dean and top Nixon aide Alexander Butterfield, who disclosed there was a taping system at the White House.
The next year the House Judiciary Committee, controlled by Democrats, took over methodically building the case guided by a great lawyer, John Doar, working with his Republican counterpart, Albert Jenner. By the summer a half dozen Republicans with key Democrats, working around the clock, perfected bills of impeachment.
The President, realizing his fate, resigned before any House or Senate votes were cast.
None of the next three impeachments came close to those standards. President Clinton was impeached for lying about sex with Republican political leaders forcing it upon a reluctant House Judiciary chairman.
There was merit in the case against Trump in his first term, as he tried to link aid to Ukraine to that country dishing out dirt against Joe Biden. The House Intelligence Committee did a good job laying out the case; the Judiciary Committee did not.
The move against Trump for inciting the deadly January 6 attack on the Capitol to try to overturn the election was, out of necessity, quick and didn’t come up until after he had left office. Conviction fell short even with some Republican support.
Most of today’s Republicans are cowardly when it comes to Trump so any bipartisan action is not in the cards. The main effect of Democrats elevating impeachment then would be to distract from Trump’s governing failures.
The Justice Department is a wholly owned subsidiary of the President and the Supreme Court has basically given Trump carte blanche.
That doesn’t mean there’s no recourse.
When Democrats take the House, they will have the power of subpoena to investigate Trump’s abuses. They would need to set priorities: the enrichment of Trump and his family, the politicalization of the Justice Department, selling pardons.
And the statutes of limitations on most of these crimes, high or not, won’t expire until after 2029.
Tempertantrump is well-known for being the first of many presidential abuses. Will he be the first president executed for treason and being a traitor? He has profited from the sale of U.S. Government to Foreign adversaries. High crimes.
I agree 100%, although I wish what you said wasn’t so spot on. Trump won’t last until 2029. He’s on hells doorstep. The Democrats if they are smart, need to focus on voter turnout, stick with affordability, no healthcare for people who can’t afford it, the economy, the war that was thought out by a bunch of baboons, the complete reversals ( lies) Trump told his supporters about wars, lowering prices, not touching Medicare or Medicaid, and to tell the people, if we get in , we will put in guardrails, term limits on everyone including the Supreme Court, and take big , corrupt, dark money out of the equation. Tax billionaires appropriately to pay down the deficit so that our kids and grandkids will have some sort of future. This isn’t rocket science. It’s about doing what is right for the people who elected you to office to do what you swore to do by the constitution. Get out there and talk to your constituents and stop taking 3/4 of the year off and do your jobs. Pretty simple stuff that you can do if you want to do the right thing. My 2 cents.