View on Impeachment
A reader offers this interesting but fairly cynical viewpoint on the impeachment proceedings currently taking place in the U.S.I certainly think it’s good that proceedings have begun. I’m not highly hopeful of success, but I would be so very gladly to be proven wrong!
This guy’s an effective stooge for so many powerful interests, but his behavior and decision-making capacity have been so glaringly erratic and embarrassing to the country. So, I can see it going one of two ways, for the following reasons…
He is impeached, because he is recognized to be just too toxic to the interests of entrenched powers (evangelicals, foreign trade, old money traditionalists, the GOP), and the cold and wooden but shrewd Pence is a preferable option for them.
He is acquitted, either because there aren’t sufficient votes owing to the perception that Trump is judged to be too popular with the base (the above reasons notwithstanding), or because our Congress is too dysfunctional to make the decision reasoned upon their self interest.
I think the best thing for the country is impeachment, if only to avoid rewarding an occupant of our White House for such an abysmal performance and to permit blatant criminality on an ever-increasing scale. We’ll see how it plays out.
I respond:
Indeed we will. Maybe it’s just my general optimism, but I think impeachment and conviction are likely, partially because of some of your reasoning, i.e., toxicity. It’s been perfectly clear to most of us for a long while that Trump’s only mode of thinking is his own enrichment and aggrandizement, that everything we see from him is a marketing tactic for him and his businesses, and that, accordingly, our entire country has become the laughingstock of the planet. If Congress can move fast enough, he will be removed; if he manages to drag this out, which is possible, he’ll get destroyed in the next election.
In either case, the volume of criminal charges that is about to rain down on him is going to be unbelievable. The very worst thing that ever happened to him was getting elected President of the United States.
Craig,
I’m sorry, I must have missed the full text of your your reader’s comment, I can’t seem to find it anywhere.
What both you and your reader seem to be proposing, is you believe the US Constitution allows for impeachment on the grounds some people in Congress don’t like him!
Unfortunately for you, the President hasn’t broken any laws. You may not like his behaviour, you may not like his personality or manners, but that is a matter for the judgement of the American people at the ballot box.
Since 2016 election the Democrat-left have been determined to remove this President by fair means or foul, because they refuse to accept the will of the American voter.
In their arrogance, they believe they know better than the will of the people and have done everything to disrupt, vilify and destroy the President’s mandate.
So far, volume of criminal charges alleged against the President is indeed “unbelievable’ ! So unbelievable in fact, that after endless “investigations” and the hugely expensive and drawn out “Mueller inquiry” , it’s evident the President’s accusers are more likely to be facing charges than the President.
Despite the howls of those who hate the President, he is lifting the lid on the cronyism and corruption of the Obama years and the rats are now running for cover.
It’s a war of the left’s own making. Did they really imagine the President wouldn’t retaliate? Did they imagine he wouldn’t seek to uncover those politicians and government officials who sort to besmirch him, would in turn be investigated for their own corrupt acts?
In 2020, no one will be shocked by President Trump, but as more and more corruption and misbehavior by desperate democrats becomes public knowledge, the US people are growing increasingly disgusted by corrupt Democrat candidates and dishonest media pundits.
Those calling for Impeachment are hypocrites.
20 years ago, President Bill Clinton was being impeached for lying to a grand jury. At that time many of those demanding impeachment today, held very different views on what constituted ground for impeachment.
This is what they said then:
Nancy Pelosi;
“We are here today because the Republicans in the House are paralyzed with hatred of President Clinton. Until the Republicans free themselves of this hatred, our country will suffer.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden (then a U.S. senator):
“It would have been wrong for Richard Nixon to have been removed from office based upon a purely partisan vote. No president should be removed from office merely because one party enjoys a commanding lead in either house of the Congress . It is our constitutional duty to give the president the benefit of the doubt on the facts”.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York:
“Benjamin Franklin called impeachment, ‘a substitute for assassination’ …
“The effect of impeachment is to overturn the popular will of the voters as expressed in a national election. We must not overturn an election and remove a president from office except to defend our very system of government or our constitutional liberties against a dire threat. And we must not do so without an overwhelming consensus of the American people and of their representatives in Congress of the absolute necessity …
“There must never be a narrowly voted impeachment or an impeachment substantially supported by one of our major political parties and largely opposed by the other. Such an impeachment would lack legitimacy, would produce divisiveness and bitterness in our politics for years to come. And will call into question the very legitimacy of our political institutions … We have no right to overturn the considered judgment of the American people ”
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel of New York:
“An impeachment inquiry which will turn into an open-ended fishing expedition … The American people are smarter. They want this politically motivated witch hunt to end … Let’s stop the politics. Let’s really talk about bipartisanship.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York (then a member of the House):
“Whether you cite The Federalist Papers or legal scholars like Justice [Joseph] Story, the president’s actions, while wrong and inappropriate and possibly illegal, are clearly not impeachable…
“I’d support a motion of censure or a motion to rebuke, as President Ford suggested yesterday, not because it is politically expedient to do but because the president’s actions cry out for punishment and because censure or rebuke, not impeachment, is the right punishment.
Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois:
“In 1798, Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison: ‘History shows that in England, impeachment has been an engine more of passion than justice.’
“Jefferson feared that even our process for impeachment could be a formidable partisan weapon. He feared that a determined faction in Congress would use it ‘… for getting rid of any man whom they consider as dangerous to their views, and I do not know that we could count on one-third in an emergency.’”
House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters of California:
“Democracy is threatened when a fair legal process is sacrificed to appease the passions of a few … The power to impeach a president should not be casually used to remove a president, overturn an election, simply because we don’t like him or his policies.”
Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas:
“The Framers of the Constitution never intended the availability of impeachment as a license for a fishing expedition.”
The list goes on and on,…..
20 years ago, I agreed with their viewpoints. An Impeachment motion should never have been moved against President Clinton.
What’s changed ?