USA TODAY International Edition
How to impeach Trump: A guide
Obstructing, abusing power, cashing in
The Trump administration has created some unusual realignments among Americans, and we are Exhibit A. We have spent very different lives in and around national politics, one for years as a ( now former) Republican, the other as a Democrat. We haven’t agreed on very much, and we still don’t. We both voted for Hillary Clinton — but for very different reasons and without remotely the same level of enthusiasm.
But we have both long argued that President Donald Trump should be impeached, and we both have concerns about how that process might unfold.
We are realists, adults without illusions, who have worked in Washington and who know the chance of Trump being removed from office is, as of this writing, close to zero. But we both see Trump’s impeachment as a constitutional duty, and we are relieved that the House Democrats finally decided, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in quoting Thomas Paine, that “the times have found us” for impeachment.
Impeachment serves more purposes than removal and should proceed without the certainty of a slam- dunk conviction in the Senate. Indeed, the process has more, rather than less, legitimacy if the outcome is not entirely predetermined by partisanship. And circumstances can change quickly. If we have learned anything in the age of Trump, it is never to say “never.”
Negligence and perfidy
It is reasonable to believe that voters who gave Democrats a record midterm win last year did so with the belief Trump would finally be held accountable for actions the Republicans all too willingly condoned. And so Pelosi and her fellow leaders now face searing choices as they embark on a journey that no matter the outcome will inflict significant, lasting pain on our country. As she put it last week on a call with House Democrats, Trump is “almost not worth it … but the Constitution is.”
It would be reckless to try to bring the president to account for all of his potentially impeachable offenses. Republicans think the right number of charges is “none,” while Democrats — rightly — could come up with dozens.
We believe the House should pursue a limited, but varied, set of articles revolving around abuse of power and obstruction of justice. Impeachment should serve as a reminder that there are many more offenses against the Constitution than outright treason or bribery. The Founders inserted a broad category of “high crimes and misdemeanors” to capture what James Madison called “the incapacity, negligence or perfidy of the chief magistrate.”
Trump should be impeached for abuse of his office, obstruction of justice, breaking campaign finance laws and violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clauses. The primary articles will bring into sharp relief that this president endangered the nation for his own self- serving purposes, while the emoluments charges should be a reminder of a sacred principle to which we seem to have somehow become numb: The president can never monetize his or her time in office.
Prudence over passion
The exchange with the Ukrainian president, in which Trump subjugated the national interest and national security to his own political impulses, is a strikingly obvious and impeachable abuse of power. Trump, anticipating this, is already making the argument — echoed by his congressional minions — that it is reckless to impeach him for one phone call. We are confident that other such incidents will be uncovered.
This is why the Democrats should proceed with more than one article under the abuse of power. It should include Trump telling the Russians he doesn’t care that they interfered in the 2016 election ( assuming Congress can confirm this reporting with documents or witnesses). Admitting that privately to the Russians violates Trump’s oath to protect and defend the United States, and implicitly grants permission for the Kremlin to do it again in 2020 — an invitation Russian President Vladimir Putin gleefully accepted.
Meanwhile, we know for a fact that Trump has urged China to investigate Joe Biden, because he did it in public Thursday in front of the White House. This is another impeachable offense.
There is little value in relitigating former special counsel Robert Mueller’s finding that the Trump campaigned “welcomed” Russian help — a conclusion that would have doomed any other president in any better time. But the multiple instances of obstruction that followed once Trump was in office, part of a pattern of executive abuses, are eminently impeachable.
Likewise, the House should remind Americans that the president is, in effect, an unindicted co- conspirator in the violation of multiple campaign finance laws. The fact remains that he paid off women for their silence as a means of furthering his campaign, and he signed these hush money checks after being sworn into office.
Democrats and disaffected independents must, at this point, exhibit prudence over passion. ( There are so few disaffected Republicans that they are not worth discussing, but we can still hope that at least some GOP senators will, at long last, rediscover their decency when their country needs it most.) It is tempting to impeach Trump merely for being Trump, exercising the power to remove him, in Benjamin Franklin’s words, merely because he has “rendered himself obnoxious.”
Don’t embolden Trump
But impeachment is not a remedy for aesthetic differences or boorishness.
This is only the fourth time in U. S. history that impeachment proceedings have been initiated against a president, and in our view, it is certainly the most deserved. Even more than Andrew Johnson’s obstinance, Richard Nixon’s panicked cover- up or Bill Clinton’s personal misconduct, no chief executive has placed the United States in more peril for less reason than Trump. No president has so flagrantly continued to commit the same transgressions despite his previous acts being brought to light.
Refusing to confront Trump serves only to embolden him. It should be a lesson that the call to Ukraine’s president on July 25 occurred the day after Trump declared victory over and vindication from the Mueller report. When a crime is tolerated, it is repeated.
Finally, there is the question of a timeline for the House process. The three House committees tasked with conducting the inquiry under the speaker’s leadership have proceeded expeditiously yet painstakingly. That balance should be continued without undue consideration of the calendar. We both have faith that the public will support a genuine search for the truth.
Whether it fails or succeeds in the Senate, the House should impeach Trump to restore our civic health. Americans must confront, yet again, the potentially dangerous nature of their own institutions of government if those institutions are allowed to function without some kind of commitment to public spirit, patriotism and trust from the people who occupy them.
Tom Nichols is a national security expert, a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors and author of “The Death of Expertise.” Philippe Reines, a former deputy assistant secretary of State and senior adviser to Hillary Clinton, co- hosts the “UNREDACTED” podcast and is a visiting lecturer at Tufts University.