How to ease US into impeachment mode
Democrats cannot let Trump run out the clock
The impeachment waiting game Democrats are playing has made them ripe for parody. They need to step up to the demands of this moment in history, or at least this minute in politics. There are truths to be told in the brightest spotlight possible, people in desperate need of facts, and voters waiting for signs that the ballots they cast last year made a difference.
To the bed-wetters, as former Obama aide David Plouffe used to call his party’s perpetual worrywarts, I’m not suggesting an overnight dive into impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. But the alternative doesn’t have to be waiting for a legal process that might never bear fruit, or that is resolved when it’s too late to matter. There are patriots in this nation who are willing to testify on Capitol Hill without a subpoena.
The House Judiciary Committee is pointing the way, finally, with a hearing today on the Mueller report. Its star witness: President Richard Nixon’s White House counsel, John Dean. Here are six other hearings Democrats should hold ASAP to ease America into contemplating impeachment — in our history, and in our time:
❚ Watergate veterans. Start with an encore from Dean, who famously told Nixon that there was “a cancer within, close to the presidency, that’s growing.” Also: David Dorsen, a former assistant chief counsel of the Senate Watergate Committee under Sen. Sam Ervin, DN.C.; former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman, D-N.Y., who was elected in 1972 at age 31 and participated in the Nixon impeachment hearings as a member of the House Judiciary Committee; and Jill Wine-Banks, an assistant Watergate special prosecutor who is now working on a book about “Watergate and Trumpgate.” The parallels between then and now, including charges of obstruction of justice and abuse of power against Nixon, would demystify the impeachment process. And the outcome — Nixon’s resignation — would show that political opinion can be swayed and that results are possible.
❚ Historians of the Andrew Johnson presidency. We might as well go back to where it all began, the first impeachment. One obvious choice is Brenda Wineapple, author of the new book “The Impeachers.” Her publisher describes the book this way: “With the unchecked power of executive orders, Johnson ignored Congress, pardoned rebel leaders, promoted white supremacy, opposed civil rights, and called Reconstruction unnecessary. It fell to Congress to stop the American president who acted like a king.” Another candidate: David O. Stewart, who says his 2009 book “Impeached” explores “the staggering levels of corruption that ultimately kept Johnson in office after an impeachment contest that had no winners.”
❚ Participants in the Clinton impeachment process. Ideally, Americans would hear testimony from special prosecutor Kenneth Starr on how Trump compares with Bill Clinton. And from Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., back then one of the House impeachment managers, on why he thinks Clinton deserved impeachment but Trump does not. But if that doesn’t happen, Democrats should move along and do what’s possible. Invite Paul Rosenzweig, a senior counsel on the Starr investigation, who comes to a different conclusion than Graham when he applies the same obstruction-of-justice standards to Clinton and Trump. Other possibilities include Stephen Bates, one of the writers of the Starr report; David Kendall, Robert Bennett and Lanny Davis, three of Clinton’s lawyers; Julian Epstein, then the chief Democratic counsel for the House Judiciary Committee, and constitutional law expert Susan Low Bloch, who testified about impeachable offenses.
❚ Impeachment scholars. A few possibilities: Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe, co-author of “To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment”; American University historian Allan Lichtman, author of “The Case for Impeachment”; and Jon Meacham and Timothy Naftali, two coauthors of “Impeachment: An American History.” Bonus credential: Naftali is a former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.
❚ Former federal prosecutors who signed a letter saying Trump would have been charged with obstruction of justice had he not been president. The more than 1,000 signatories include Democrats and Republicans, among them Rosenzweig, the Starr senior counsel. It shouldn’t be hard to round up a few bipartisan panels. In fact, the organizers would probably need a lottery to cull the field.
❚ James Comey. Just him, speaking at a public hearing (as opposed to a private session the former FBI director testified at late last year) on the origins of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation on Russia, whether he’s worried about Trump giving Attorney General William Barr the authority to review and declassify anything he wants relating to investigating the investigators, and whether Comey thinks this type of power is appropriate.
This is a wish list, and a wish to get Democrats moving before Trump runs out the clock with fusillades of excuses, attacks and lies. He can’t be allowed to laugh all the way to the bank, and perhaps the polls, while dodging the courts, Congress and anywhere else accountability lurks in wait.
Jill Lawrence is commentary editor of USA TODAY and author of “The Art of the Political Deal: How Congress Beat the Odds and Broke Through Gridlock.”
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