To wait on impeachment endangers nation
We must preserve, protect and defend Constitution
As the din of drumbeats along the Potomac calling for impeachment grows louder and the evidence of President Trump’s “high crimes and misdemeanors” piles higher, it is time for the U.S. House of Representatives to do its constitutional duty to draft and send articles of impeachment to the U.S. Senate and for the Senate to vote to remove President Trump from office. To wait any longer puts the republic in grave danger.
Those who stay their hand justify their inaction on the grounds that overturning an election is at bottom a political act that should be used sparingly. They are right. Of course, impeachment is a political act, for as Alexander Hamilton noted in Federalist No. 65, acts for which impeachment is proper are “offenses which proceed from misconduct of public men or in other words from the abuse of some public trust,” which “may be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.” [emphasis in the original]
Of course, impeachment should be used sparingly, but it must be used when a president has in numerous ways violated his oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” – and particularly where that president presents a danger that he will do so again and again.
As I learned when I served as coprosecutor in the impeachment of Arizona Governor Evan Mecham three decades ago and as I remind my Constitutional Law students at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University each spring, the history of impeachments – both in Great Britain and in the United States – makes clear that the term “high crimes and misdemeanors” is both less and more than criminal conduct.
It is less because a crime need not have been committed by the impeached officer. It is more because to be impeachable, an act of omission must be an “abuse of some public trust.” Impeachment is provided for in our Constitution to protect society from public officers who by past acts of abuse of power, obstruction of justice, corruption or neglect of duty that bring discredit on the office, violate the public trust and seriously impair the officeholder’s ability to carry out constitutional and statutory duties.
What is telling a foreign government that delivery of aid appropriated by Congress is conditioned on that government delivering dirt on a political opponent of the president if not an abuse of power? What is getting witnesses to lie and fail to comply with valid subpoenas if not obstruction of justice? What is violation of the emoluments clause if not corruption? And what is failure to take action against our adversaries who interfere in our elections if not neglect of duty?
These acts and omissions violate the public trust and seriously impair the ability of the current occupant of the White House and those who will follow to carry out the president’s constitutional and statutory duties.
Failure of the House of Representatives to adopt articles of impeachment promptly will give license to all who follow President Trump to abuse power, obstruct justice, engage in corrupt actions and neglect their duty in ways we cannot imagine. Failure of the Senate to convict and remove President Trump from office will put the republic in danger every day that he remains in office.