Tag Archives: Impeachment

Materials In Support of Impeaching Donald John Trump For High Crimes and Misdemeanors

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This is the introduction to the document issued today by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee in support of impeaching the president:

The Constitution grants the House of Representatives the “sole Power of Impeachment,” not merely as a safeguard for the nation between elections, but also in cases where the removal of the President is urgent and necessary to preserve the security of the constitutional order. The House must invoke this power now to impeach President Txxxx for inciting an insurrection on January 6, 2021. President Txxxx engaged in high Crimes and Misdemeanors when he urged his supporters to storm the United States Capitol Building and then failed to stop the ensuing violence. His actions marked the culmination of an extensive and unprecedented effort to overturn the results of the presidential election.

As alleged in the Article of Impeachment and described in this report, President Txxxx has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law. His continued hold on the Office of the Presidency, even for only a few more days, represents a clear and present danger to the United States.

President Txxxx has engaged in a prolonged effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and maintain his grip on power. He has spent months spreading disinformation about the results—falsely claiming that he “won by a landslide,” that the election was being “stolen,” and that the reported results are somehow fraudulent. He has stated that it would be illegitimate to accept the results of the election as certified by state officials and upheld by state and federal courts, and he has implied that accepting those results would pose an existential threat to the country, its democracy, and the freedoms of his political supporters. He has directly threatened government officials to “find” lost votes or face criminal penalties, encouraged his own Vice President to unlawfully overturn the election results and, ultimately, incited his supporters to take violent action and prevent the counting of the election results.

President Txxxx invited his political supporters to Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021, the day fixed by law for the counting of electoral votes. The crowd that gathered in the Ellipse that morning was large, angry, and widely reported to be preparing for violent action. At that rally, the President delivered an incendiary speech to his supporters. Among other statements, President Txxxx reiterated false claims that “we won this election, and we won it by a landslide.” He stated that “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” And then he exhorted his supporters to “walk down Pennsylvania Avenue” to prevent the Congress from confirming the election of “an illegitimate President.”

These comments directly incited a violent attack on the Capitol that threatened the safety and lives of the Vice President, the Speaker of the House, and the President pro tempore of the Senate, the first three individuals in the line of succession to the presidency. The rioters attacked law enforcement officers, unleashed chaos and terror among Members and staffers and their families, occupied the Senate Chamber and Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, ransacked other offices, vandalized government property, and succeeded in interfering with Congress’s performance of its constitutional duty to count the electoral votes. Five people were killed, including a U.S. Capitol police officer, and more than fifty police officers were seriously injured.

It is indisputable that the President encouraged—and that his actions foreseeably resulted in—the terrorist attack that occurred. This alone would constitute grounds for impeachment. There is no place in our government for any officer, much less a President, who incites armed insurrection to overturn the results of our democratic elections. Even after it became clear that a mob of his supporters had breached the Capitol perimeter and was violently attacking those inside, President Txxxx failed to take steps to stop the insurrection. While violent insurrectionists occupied parts of the Capitol, President Txxxx ignored or rejected repeated real-time entreaties from Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to appeal to his followers to exit the Capitol. Instead, he continued to encourage his supporters and excoriated the Vice President for not “hav[ing] the courage to do what should have been done.” He called at least one Republican Senator, not to check on his safety, but to ask for additional delay to the certification of the election when the Congress reconvened.

When he finally issued a public statement addressing the violence hours after it began, President Txxxx persisted in falsely asserting that “we had an election that was stolen from us,” and he told the rioters, “[w]e love you, you’re very special.” And at the end of the day—when the extent of the insurrection and the damage to our nation was clear—he declared that “[t]hese are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away.” President Txxxx concluded: “Remember this day forever!” Most recently, the President publicly denied responsibility for the attack, claiming his words were “totally appropriate.”

The threat that manifested in the Capitol on January 6, 2021 is ongoing. The emergency is still with us. Reports suggest that the President’s supporters are threatening additional violence in Washington, D.C. and in state capitals across the nation. The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits an officer of the United States who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from “hold[ing] any office . . . under the United States.” Yet, despite widespread and bipartisan calls for his immediate resignation, the President has refused to leave office. The Vice President has thus far failed to invoke the Twenty-fifth Amendment to remove the President from office. The House has taken every step short of impeachment to contain the danger. Now it is time to consider this last, grave, necessary step.

Impeachment is not a punishment of prior wrongs, but a protection against future evils. It is true that the President’s remaining term is limited—but a President capable of fomenting a violent insurrection in the Capitol is capable of greater dangers still. He must be removed from office as swiftly as the Constitution allows. He must also be disqualified to prevent the recurrence of the extraordinary threat he presents. For these reasons, the House must impeach President Donald J. Trump.

How To Begin Healing and Moving On

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Republicans claim to be the party of morality and personal responsibility, yet Republican members of Congress are already insisting that Democrats let bygones be bygones. They say that holding our criminal president accountable for the insurrection by removing him from office would only antagonize the rabid, radical right, i.e. millions of Republican voters, which would lead to more violence. Fortunately, a few Congressional Republicans have announced they support impeachment, not appeasement.

Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post argues that there are several ways to unify the nation and begin healing:

The furniture the seditionists smashed in the Capitol has not yet been repaired. The trauma inflicted on those who experienced the event will not vanish for months or years. . . . And neither President Txxxx nor a single Republican lawmaker who held aloft the sedition banner in Congress by objecting to electoral votes has apologized. Nevertheless, Republicans are calling for unity and demanding healing, which entails “moving on” and forgetting about impeachment. . . .

Sorry, it does not work that way. Healing requires accountability and remorse from those who attacked our democracy, stormed the Capitol (or incited, funded or supported the mob) and set out to overthrow our democracy. The culprits do not get to set the timeline for reconciliation before they can be held responsible for their participation in an attempted coup.

Lots of things would be unifying or provide healing. Let’s start with these:

  • The House and Senate could unanimously affirm there was no irregularity or fraud in the election that would have changed the outcome of the presidential vote one iota.

  • The House could impeach Trump, and the Senate could come back in session to hold a trial and remove him swiftly.

  • House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who pulled his caucus over the cliff in the desperate hope to maintain the Big Lie and cater to Trump, could resign.

  • A combination of Democrats and all Republicans who voted to certify the electoral college results in the House and Senate could expel or censure members who objected to certification. As my colleague Michael Scherer writes, “The central question now hovering over America’s political landscape is whether one of its two major parties will allow itself to function as an extension of QAnon and other online conspiracy theory movements that have taken hold with a vocal segment of the GOP, or if it can emerge from the Txxxx era as a potential governing coalition built around ideas and some shared agreement on facts.” This action would help settle that question.

  • Corporate donors could permanently cut off support for anyone who objected to the electoral votes, an attack on our democracy.

  • Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms could volunteer to make entirely transparent how they “curate content” and how their “algorithms decide what speech to amplify,” as YaĂ«l Eisenstat, a former Facebook executive, suggests. We should find out how they “nudge users towards the content that will keep them engaged … [and] connect users to hate groups, who recommend conspiracy theorists.” The companies could also agree to follow the guidelines recommended by the Stop Hate for Profit campaign headed by the Anti-Defamation League and major corporate advertisers.

  • A nonpartisan commission could determine the extent to which state and federal law enforcement has been infiltrated by adherents of violent extremist groups. (The Post reports, “At least two U.S. Capitol Police officers have been suspended and more than a dozen others are under investigation for suspected involvement with or inappropriate support for the Wednesday demonstration that turned into a deadly riot at the Capitol, according to two congressional officials briefed on the developments.”)

  • Right-wing media outlets, pundits, talk-show personalities and TV hosts who perpetrated the lie that there was widespread election fraud could retract their statements and affirm there is no factual basis for these assertions.

  • The voters in the 18 states whose attorneys general filed a brief to throw out other states’ electoral votes could recall or vote out these officials.

That should be enough to get us started. Beyond that, there are many good ideas for enhancing civics education, media literacy and access to voting on a permanent basis (e.g., pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act; make available universal, secure voting by mail). You can never have too much healing.

Unquote.

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee today released a 70-page document, “Materials in Support of H. Res. 24, Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for High Crimes and Misdemeanors”. It says “Impeachment is not a punishment of prior wrongs, but a protection against future evils” (which would include Donnie being president again).

The third-ranking House Republican, the ultra-conservative Liz Cheney, released a statement:

Much more will become clear in coming days and weeks, but what we know now is enough. The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President. The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.

I will vote to impeach the President.

Also today:

The acting US attorney for the District of Columbia, Michael Sherwin, has indicated that many amid the hundreds of pro-Txxxx rioters who violently invaded the US Capitol  . . .  are suspected in a “mind-blowing” range of crimes, including felony murder and sedition and conspiracy.

There are at least 160 federal criminal cases open. [He said the FBI and other agencies] are ready to track down individuals all across the country, apprehend them wherever possible and arrest hundreds if not thousands of people.

“The range of criminal conduct was unmatched,” Sherwin said. He warned lawbreakers “You will be charged and you will be found.”

Yes, let the healing begin!

It’s Time To Be Divisive

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Deutsche Bank announced it will no longer do business with our criminal president. It’s a divisive decision, creating a division between their business and one of their customers. A number of big corporations have decided to divide themselves from Republican lawmakers who rejected the presidential election. They’re no longer giving them money for their political campaigns. Sometimes we need to draw clear lines between us and them. From Jamelle Bouie of The New York Times:

The Republican Party has devised its response to the push to impeach the president over his role in the attack on the Capitol last week, and it is so cynical as to shock the conscience.

“Now the Democrats are going to try to remove the president from office just seven days before he is set to leave anyway,” said Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, who voted with 146 other Republicans in Congress not to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election. “I do not see how this unifies the country.”

The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, also said that impeaching the president “will only divide our country more.”

“As leaders, we must call on our better angels and refocus our efforts on working directly for the American people,” McCarthy said in a statement given two days after he also voted not to accept the results of a free and fair election in which his favored candidate lost. . . .

I’m reminded, here, of one particular passage from Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 address at Cooper Union in Manhattan, in which he criticized the political brinkmanship of Southern elites who blamed their Northern opponents for their own threats to break the union over slavery.

But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, “Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!”

There are a handful of Senate Republicans, like Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, who are open to impeachment. But much of the Republican response is exactly this kind of threat: If you hold President Trump accountable for his actions, then we won’t help you unify the country.

Or, as another Republican, Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, said on Twitter,

Those calling for impeachment or invoking the 25th Amendment in response to President Trump’s rhetoric this week are themselves engaging in intemperate and inflammatory language and calling for action that is equally irresponsible and could well incite further violence.

These cries of divisiveness aren’t just the crocodile tears of bad-faith actors. They serve a purpose, which is to pre-emptively blame Democrats for the Republican partisan rancor that will follow after Joe Biden is inaugurated next week. It is another way of saying that they, meaning Democrats, shot first, so we, meaning Republicans, are absolved of any responsibility for our actions. If Democrats want some semblance of normalcy — if they want to be able to govern — then the price for Republicans is impunity for Trump.

House Democrats have already introduced their resolution to impeach the president, formally charging President Trump with “incitement of insurrection” for his role in the attack on the Capitol. There is still a ways to go in this process, but it is a stronger start than I expected. But there may still be some hesitation about taking the most aggressive stance, as evidenced by Majority Whip James Clyburn’s proposal to hold off on a trial until after the first 100 days of the Biden administration.

This would be a mistake.

There is no way past this crisis — and yes, we are living through a crisis — except through it. The best way to push forward is as aggressively as possible. Anything less sends the signal that this moment isn’t as urgent as it actually is. And as we move closer to consequences for those responsible, we should continue to ignore the cries that accountability is “divisive.” Not because they’re false, but because they’re true.

Accountability is divisive. That’s the point. If there is a faction of the Republican Party that sees democracy itself as a threat to its power and influence, then it has to be cut off from the body politic. It needs to be divided from the rest of us, lest it threaten the integrity of the American republic more than it already has. Marginalizing that faction — casting Txxxx and Txxxxism into the ash heap of history — will be divisive, but it is the only choice we have.

This does not mean we must cast out the 74 million Americans who voted for the president, but it does mean we must repudiate the lies, cruelty and cult of personality on which Txxxx built his movement. It means Republicans have to acknowledge the truth — that Joe Biden won in a free and fair election — and apologize to their voters and to the country for helping to stoke the madness that struck at the Capitol.

The alternative is a false unity that leaves the wound of last Wednesday to fester until the infection gets even worse than it already is.

Why Try to Get Rid of Him Now?

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He is scheduled to be removed from office 13 days from now. Any attempt to strip him of his powers would require a number of Republican officeholders to agree. Given the nature of almost all Republican officeholders, it’s unlikely they would cooperate. But there are reasons to make the effort anyway.

First, it’s the right thing to do. Heinous actions should have consequences, either as retribution or as a way to limit future bad behavior.

Second, it reminds everyone that the federal government has procedures in place to deal with presidents who are unfit. Following those procedures when appropriate emphasizes their reality. It gives them weight.

Third, a failed attempt would show the public which Republican officeholders refused to do the right thing. Most of us already know who is likely to resist removing this particular unfit president, but it’s worth making their refusal public knowledge, making it clear to even more of us that they shouldn’t be given the benefit of the doubt or entrusted with responsibility in the future.

Finally, it’s possible that the attempt to punish this president would succeed. Since the president incited a riot that endangered Vice President Pence and members of his family, in addition to all the other people who were put at risk, and furthermore called Pence disloyal and weak when he failed to engineer a coup, the vice president might conceivably get a majority of the president’s cabinet members to approve the use of the 25th Amendment, making Pence the acting president until January 20th. If Democrats in the House of Representatives impeach the president again, as they seem likely to, roughly 17 of the 50 or so Republican senators, including Majority Leader McConnell, might conceivably agree to convict him and bar him from ever being president again.

This is why it’s encouraging that leading Democrats. a few Republicans and other observers have called for action against this incredibly unfit president, unlikely as it may be.

Get Rid of Him Now and Stop Him from Coming Back

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Two law professors explain why it’s necessary to sideline the president, impeach him, convict him and prevent his return: 

After a mob incited by President Txxxx stormed and occupied the Capitol, American democracy needs protecting now — and not just now but in the coming weeks and years as well.

There are reports of preliminary discussions within the administration about invoking the 25th Amendment, a provision in the Constitution that provides a process to declare a sitting president no longer capable of fulfilling his duties. Another call is coming from a surprising source: The National Association of Manufacturers, not normally an organization known for this kind of political activism, said that Vice President Mike Pence “should seriously consider working with the cabinet” to invoke the amendment to remove President Txxxx and “preserve democracy.” People are invoking the 25th Amendment on the grounds that Mr. Txxxx is not fit to hold office and incited the chaos that unfolded on Capitol Hill — and may unfold again.

There are also calls from a number of Democratic representatives to impeach and remove the president . . .

The magnitude of the current crisis calls for both of these measures. The threat the president poses to our democracy is not short-lived and must be cut off urgently and decisively — before it leads to even greater degradation to American democratic processes and traditions. It will need to happen quickly, even with other demands pressing on our country’s leadership . . .

To do this, the cabinet and Congress must deploy the 25th Amendment and impeachment in sequence.

First, Vice President Pence and a majority of the cabinet should invoke Section 4 of the 25th Amendment in order to make a declaration that Mr. Txxxx is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” This would immediately suspend, but not remove, Mr. Txxxx from the exercise of his presidential duties and appoint Mr. Pence as acting president. The 25th Amendment would not and should not be used as a lasting solution in a case of this kind, but rather as a temporary measure to sideline a demonstrably unfit and dangerous actor who is fueling anti-democratic action.

Second, the House should quickly draw up and pass articles of impeachment. And then the Senate should hold a fair — but immediate and efficient — trial both to remove President Txxxx from office and, as important, to disqualify him from serving in public office in the future. Precedent suggests that the Senate would likely need to hold two separate votes on removal and disqualification, although the disqualification vote may require only a simple majority to be approved, as opposed to the two-thirds vote necessary for removal from office.

Disqualification is necessary given Mr. Txxxx’s anti-democratic response to the 2020 election and the continuing danger that he will pose to constitutional norms if allowed to flirt with a return to power in 2024. Indeed, the importance of disqualification in this case is such that the Congress should proceed with impeachment even if Mr. Txxxx’s term in office has already concluded.

A public vote and rapid trial in the Senate would give much-needed legitimacy to actions to remove Mr. Txxxx from office. By forcing Republicans to stand up for democracy and against the president’s actions, it would also reaffirm bipartisan support for the fundamental principles of American democracy. Further, while the 25th Amendment is intended mainly for illness or other objective incapacities, impeachment offers an appropriate moral response to the president’s conduct, including incitement to violence and attacks on basic democratic norms.

Why do this with only about two weeks left in President Txxxx’s term? Because we must defend our democracy for all Americans, now. And we must preserve our democracy for future Americans. . . . And we must reassure the world, and especially would-be authoritarian regimes, about what United States policy will be on questions of freedom and self-rule now and in the future.

The Constitution does not protect against every threat currently facing our democracy. But it contains a range of useful safeguards. And it is high time to deploy them — with urgency.

Unquote.

Unfortunately, “some [Democratic] members fear that impeachment might trigger another violent episode”. The Republicans have the Sedition Caucus; Democrats have the Fear Caucus.