Opening round in impeachment battle is fired
▶ Congressman says effort to kick Trump out of office will be part of long process
A Democratic congressman has filed articles of impeachment against Donald Trump, the formal start of an attempt to remove the embattled US president from office.
Brad Sherman’s move came amid the fallout from Russian efforts to swing last year’s presidential election as pressure grew for Mr Trump’s White House aides to explain how much they knew.
However, the attempt faces a number of stiff challenges. The House of Representatives and the Senate are in Republican hands, making it unlikely that Mr Trump will be impeached or removed.
Mr Sherman, a representative from California, admitted his chances were slim but said he hoped his initiative might provoke a White House “intervention” to rein-in an outof-control president.
“Perhaps uncontrollable impulses will be controlled. And perhaps the danger our nation faces will be ameliorated,” he said.
“Second, and more likely, filing articles of impeachment is the first step on a very long road. But if the impulsive incompetency continues, then eventually Republicans will join the impeachment effort.”
This week’s events have heightened a sense of crisis at the White House.
Mr Trump’s eldest son has been forced to admit he met a Russian lawyer last year in the expectation of her supplying damaging information about Hillary Clinton, his father’s opponent in the election.
Donald Trump Jr released emails showing he jumped at the offer despite being informed it was part of a Kremlin-sponsored effort to help his father.
The revelations provoked accusations of treason, while Democrats are demanding that Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, should lose his security clearances after it emerged he was also at the meeting.
Mr Sherman said he was bringing the action in response to Mr Trump’s decision to fire James Comey as FBI director in May when he was investigating the Russia connection. Mr Comey later said he felt he had been dismissed to thwart his inquiry.
That amounted to obstruction of justice, Mr Sherman said, which was grounds for impeachment.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a spokeswoman for the president, dismissed the idea. “I think that is utterly and completely ridiculous and a political game at its worst,” she said.
The move received little support among Democrats, who fear it will only divide opposition to an embattled president, embolden his supporters and end in failure.
The process exists as a means of removing a public official guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanours”, a sufficiently broad definition to allow a wide range of indiscretions to be taken into account.
The next step for Mr Sherman’s articles of impeachment will be to persuade the House judiciary committee to allow them to go forward for a full vote in the House of Representatives. Even if it makes it to a vote, Republicans will be confident they can prevent impeachment. They hold 240 of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives.
Were the articles to be passed, however, Mr Trump would at that point be impeached and the charges passed on to the Senate, where a trial would be held with the chief justice of the supreme court presiding.
There the barrier to success is higher. A two-thirds majority is needed to convict the president and remove him from office. And again, Republicans have control with a majority of two seats.
Analysts said that the Trump movement remained the strongest grassroots part of the Republican party, giving congress members little incentive to abandon the president as they prepare for midterm elections next year.
Two presidents have been impeached – Bill Clinton in 1998 and Andrew Johnson in 1868. Each faced a hostile Congress but, ultimately, neither was convicted or removed from office.
Richard Nixon escaped impeachment by resigning in 1974 before the House could vote on his role in the Watergate bugging scandal.
The barriers to success mean Mr Trump’s allies are confident their man will not be ousted.
A member of the administration said: “The only way he leaves office is if one day he wakes up and just decides he has had enough.”