A clear case for impeachment -- beyond the Mueller Report

MADISON, Wis. — The view from here tilts my thoughts toward a simple solution to the perplexing problem of the president. The take-charge spirit and victory of the U.S. women's national team in the World Cup is catching on here, since University of Wisconsin graduate Rose Lavelle scored a goal in the final game.

It's clear as lake air. Congress could forget the Mueller report and still impeach the president for everything else he does.

I bet solemn special counsel Robert Mueller thinks so, too.

When Mueller testifies on Capitol Hill next week, he may say the matter should not rest on his report alone. British ambassador Kim Darroch, who cabled London to say Donald Trump is "inept," politely put out the case for a dysfunctional White House with "vicious" infighting.

Let me suggest other counts to consider.

Impeach Donald Trump for locking up children in border detention camps separate from their parents. The policy has caused disease, hunger and sexual abuse. This is fast becoming "who we are."

Impeach Trump for a wild, militaristic Fourth of July celebration. He suggested the American Revolutionary War had air power, conflating that war with the War of 1812's "rockets' red glare." We laugh, but better to cry. How much more do we need to know about his shoddy grasp of basic facts?

Impeach Trump for breaking with major global treaties, the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord. The damage he has done by withdrawing from the Iran deal is hard to know now. But he's destabilized Iran in a volatile region by imposing harsh sanctions. A war with Iran should be last on our list.

In one fell swoop, we lost our leadership in the world by leaving the Paris agreement. Environmental protection is a goner for a president who's embraced dirty coal mining. Impeach Trump for his threat to harm the 2020 census and being close to violating a Supreme Court ruling. His fixation on a citizenship question could distort the true count of people in the United States. The Constitution is clear: enumeration for fair political representation in House districts.

Thomas Jefferson directed the first census in 1790, when enslaved people were counted as three-fifths of a person. Maybe Trump aims to go back to those days and count immigrants like that.

Impeach Trump for his long, lonely golf weekends, which cost the government hundreds of millions of dollars. President Dwight D. Eisenhower played a lot of golf, but Trump's rate is ridiculous. Trump does literally nothing else in his spare time. No books or arts; no museums, operas or symphonies. He does not darken the doors of the Kennedy Center.

Impeach Trump for his multitude of lies — excuse me, falsehoods — counted by The Washington Post, surpassing 10,000 "false or misleading claims." His dark art is repeating them, flogging the American public with tweets and statements that twist the truth. For example, he crowed that the Mueller report "exonerated" him, when it specifically did not.

Give him this: Dishonest methods have worked out well so far. But, I might add, his misdemeanors are rife:

—His resistance of the co-equal branch of Congress and insulting of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by the American graves at Normandy.

—His appointment of Supreme Court justices who oppose women's constitutional reproductive rights.

—The company he keeps — including pouty first lady Melania Trump and old friend Jeffrey Epstein, who's being prosecuted as a sexual offender.

—His blocking of Harriet Tubman being on U.S. currency. He couldn't face displacing President Andrew Jackson, a slave plantation populist.

—Finally, his using ugly words enough to make a sailor blush, swearing freely. Trump's diatribes break the books on presidential speech.

For now, we know Mueller's investigation revealed that Russian interference helped Trump win in 2016.

Mueller's inquiry gives three reasons to take action against Trump. Their names are Michael Cohen, his longtime lawyer; Michael Flynn, his first national security adviser; and Paul Manafort, former head of his campaign. They pleaded guilty to serious crimes, and two are doing hard time. (Flynn has not yet been sentenced.)

So a House indictment is pretty much sealed, with or without the Mueller report. Trump is the perfect candidate running for impeachment.

To find out more about Jamie Stiehm and other Creators columnists and cartoonists, please visit the website Creators.com.