Making the case
The idea that U.S. President Donald Trump could be on the road to facing impeachment isn’t all that wild of a notion according to this author.
What happens if someone puts a bucket under the constant, toxic drip, drip, drip that follows the candidate into the presidency, then stirs the collected effluvium with the vigour of academic research?
The bucket overflows with enough crap to threaten, and possibly drown President Donald Trump, or alternatively, poison 230 years of constitutional law and convention that binds together a republic of mostly free people.
Heavy stuff. Distinguished professor of history at American University, Allan J. Lichtman, doesn’t make “The Case for Impeachment” in his so-titled book. He catalogues and anatomizes a litany of abuses and violations of the public trust, “setting the stage for a myriad of impeachable offenses.”
His faith in America is infinite, so his focus is on the demise of Trump, as opposed to the nation’s democratic institutions. Impeachment and conviction — two presidents were impeached, none convicted — removes a president, without harm to the presidency as an institution.
Lichtman’s thesis doesn’t rest on the Russian collusion controversy, alone or primarily.
The character of a 71-year-old president with a lifelong history of lying, disregard for the law, conflicts of interest, enriching himself at the expense of others — all painfully detailed by Lichtman — is unlikely to change, making impeachment almost inevitable.
The myth that impeachment is a legal process is debunked. White House spokespeople and lawyers will be unimpressed and, assured that Americans have no concept of the constitutional basis or historical underpinnings of impeachment, they will, as required, continue to press the case that the president and his acolytes “did nothing illegal.”
The framers of the American Constitution, fresh from freeing themselves of the tyranny they felt under British colonial rule, attempted to ensure no repeat, first through a separation of powers with checks and balances intended to place limits on the power of each of three branches of government.
Impeachment, “the rear guard of American democracy,” was added to keep a rogue president in check.
Proof of its extralegal character lies in the authority, which rests not in hands of the judiciary but with the legislative branch. When the House of Representatives passes articles of impeachment, the Senate acts as judge and jury. The Chief Justice presides in the Senate, but that is the entirety of judicial involvement.
If and when Congress can no longer stomach or politically survive President Trump’s behaviour, it will have a menu from which to choose his poison.
An abuse of power stemming from Trump’s disdain for constitutional constraint on the president; his record of mistreating women; a plethora of potential if not current conflicts of interest; his nodding acquaintance with the truth; collusion with Russia, and even his regressive environmental policy, are cited among the traps that could spring to end the Trump presidency.
Lichtman is no political lightweight. He has successfully predicted the outcome of the past eight presidential elections, including Trump’s win, which he called in September. He got a nice note from the Donald, who ignored the second part of the prediction, which was that Trump would be impeached.
The suggestion that Trump’s fossil fuel fed energy policy could result in impeachment is an unnecessary overreach. Half of the Republicans in Congress are climate change deniers or skeptics, so it’s almost inconceivable that the House of Representatives would pin an article of impeachment on that flimsy line.
Lichtman’s stretch does nothing but provide Trump apologists with the stick to beat on the otherwise credible arguments of another critic.
Some of the most compelling reading relates to the man himself, and his fitness to hold the office.
Trump’s judgment places both his presidency and the country at risk, and could lead to the only other constitutional mechanism available to remove a president. That’s the 25th Amendment – presidential incapacity, physical or mental.
Here the Harvard PhD turns it over to the MDs. A panel of leading U.S. psychiatrists has already written that Trump’s speech and actions prove him incapable of safely serving as president.
The gaggle of shrinks cites Trump’s “inability to tolerate views different from his own, leading to rage reactions (and) a profound inability to empathize. Individuals with these traits distort reality to suit their psychological state, attacking facts and those who convey them.” That does sound familiar. (The Case for Impeachment, Allan J. Lichtman, Harper Collins, 2017)