Impeach Trump Now
Tags: Politics, Defense, Trump, Covid 19, Impeachment

Photo by Jose M. on Unsplash

[January 7, 2021 update. This article is now obsolete. I try to make observations that readers may not have seen elsewhere (although experience tells me that those observations do appear somewhere else on the ‘Net). By now, talk of impeaching Trump ASAP is everywhere. I support efforts to impeach Trump, before or after he leaves office, but I do not believe I have anything to add to the case being made publicly by those actually seeking to do it. I will say, though, that I do not like the idea of using the 25th Amendment, if only because it does not result in disqualification for future office. If that Amendment is invoked, Trump should be impeached, too.]

[January 4, 2021 update. What a difference a week makes. This article was written before President Trump called Georgia Sec. of State Raffensperger on January 2. When I wrote the article, I saw the quid-pro-quo pardons/commutations of his cronies as the basis for impeachment. Now, we have a new phone call, one that makes the Ukraine call look like a note passed in study hall. Actual pols and pundits have seen the light. And even though the legislative logjam has been broken, impeachment for the purpose of disqualification is very much in order. And it needn’t be done before the sonofabitch leaves office.

The downside, and it is significant, is that Pres. Biden does not need anything related to Trump taking the wind out of his sails. Perhaps that gives Mr. Biden and the Democrats an opportunity: so long as Congress is functioning properly, they are too busy to deal with Trump. But if Mitch obstructs (and I’m a day or two early to say in what capacity), the Dems can fill the idle hours raking their guy over the coals and making Republicans go on the record again defending his horrible behavior.

In light of further developments, what follows is a bit out of date, but the conclusion stands.]

Congress has a real problem. They passed a CoVID relief/Omnibus bill, with the participation of the Secretary of the Treasury, but the president refuses to sign it. If he doesn’t sign the bill or veto it, it will die. That would be an unacceptable end to the months of negotiation that led to the bill’s passage. Trump is, of course, right that the CoVID relief package is woefully inadequate, but that’s his fault. He could have provided political cover for more relief, but he didn’t. Instead, he let Mitch McConnell and the Grinchly Old Party screw ordinary Americans and create double-dip tax breaks for the donors who lunch.

There’s no need to rehearse the suffering that Americans will endure without CoVID relief or to itemize the consequences of a government shut-down. Suffice it to say that these are extreme times that call for extreme (but legal) measures. The only way to fit this legislative camel through the eye of the constitutional needle is to get Trump out of office. The two legal means to that end are the Twenty-fifth amendment, which I believe should be used for incapacity and not for incompetence or venality, and impeachment. The recent spate of pardons amount to witness tampering and obstruction of justice, acts certainly bad enough to support impeachment. Congress will be reconvening next week to over-ride the Defense Authorization Act veto — that’s the one with the pay raise for troops and cybersecurity money — so they won’t even have to make a special trip to vote on an article or two of impeachment. As the orange menace himself says, what the hell do they have to lose?

Are there are enough Republican senators to convict Trump now? I don’t know. But it’s worth a try. If the Senate convicts him, he cannot run again, which should please all of the Republican senators who have ambitions of their own. More important, as a lawyer I know likes to say, bombs are for showing not throwing. If enough senators say they would vote to convict, Trump would have no choice but to sign the bill. And, if there aren’t enough votes to make that threat credible, the Dems can impeach Trump and let the Republicans in Congress — and in Georgia — defend him yet again as he burns the country down.

For Trump, everything is a negotiation. He undoubtedly believes he can get something for not blocking this bill. What he should get is impeached.