USA TODAY International Edition
Vote on impeachment articles starting now
House can keep probing, add more charges later
The White House’s blanket stonewalling of the House impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump isn’t just deeply troubling or further indirect evidence of the president’s underlying abuse of public power for private gain. It signals another clear ground for his impeachment: obstruction of Congress.
Article III of the Nixon articles of impeachment provides the closest precedent to what Trump did here: He blocked Gordon Sondland, the U. S. ambassador to the European Union, from testifying about a scheme to withhold military aid in order to extort Ukraine into meddling in the 2020 election. The White House counsel followed up by telling House leaders there would be no cooperation with any part of their impeachment inquiry.
The House Judiciary Committee in 1974 identified President Richard Nixon’s direction of systematic defiance of congressional impeachment inquiries by his administration as an obstruction of the constitutional role of Congress, and thus a violation of the president’s duty to faithfully execute the laws. Such a charge is manifestly warranted against Trump today.
This is far from the first time Trump has directed administration officials and associates not to comply with a congressional request or subpoena. Ordinarily, he has relied on misapplied or nonexistent executive privilege or immunity as justification. Here, the obvious public value of Sondland’s testimony plainly carries the day. But even if that weren’t the case, the Trump administration’s stonewalling becomes constitutionally indefensible where the underlying conduct could not be more clearly impeachable.
Cut through brazen obstruction
Given the hopelessness of those standard arguments, Trump and his attorney general, William Barr, have denied the broader legitimacy of the entire House impeachment inquiry and branded it a “kangaroo court.” However, it is none of Trump’s business how the House conducts its inquiry. Article I, Section 5 provides that each House “may determine the rules of its proceedings.” The House has done that here by empowering individual committees to inquire into whether the president has committed impeachable offenses, and to pursue those inquiries with subpoenas voted by the respective chairs of those committees without the need for any vote by the full house.
The House clearly cannot permit Trump’s brazen obstruction to carry the day. It should instead forge ahead with articles of impeachment now, independent of whatever further detours to court it might deem necessary.
Though the House is overwhelmingly likely to prevail in enforcing in federal court the various subpoenas it has issued or will issue, even expedited judicial proceedings move slowly. The three- year and still ongoing efforts to gain access to Trump’s federal income tax returns perfectly illustrate how effective even a legal team barely able to formulate a coherent pleading can be at stalling judicial proceedings — despite a federal statute that makes handing over such tax returns mandatory at the request of the House Ways and Means Committee chair. Testing the House’s dormant power of inherent contempt to take Trump’s cronies into custody ( or subject them to escalating fines) is likewise likely to spawn legal challenges and further delay.
Neither the House, nor indeed the country, has that time to spare.
Growing danger each day
Moving forward with articles of impeachment for the “high crimes” that are already plainly evident does not mean letting Trump and his gang escape having to testify or produce documents. As Schiff told The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, Congress can continue to issue new subpoenas and enforce existing ones in the courts while drafting and voting on articles of impeachment for impeachable offenses already clearly demonstrated.
Further, since nothing in the Constitution limits the House to a single set of articles, pursuing impeachment charges now doesn’t foreclose the prospect of future articles as more information comes to light. If anything, drafting and voting on articles of impeachment soon should strengthen Congress’ already overwhelming case to enforce its subpoenas in federal court, escalate the pressure on the White House, and catalyze an even greater shift in public opinion.
The Founders envisioned impeachment as an emergency mechanism. Donald Trump is Exhibit A of what they had in mind. They believed they had provided the device we might one day need to preserve constitutional democracy. Yet, as the walls close in ever more tightly, Trump grows ever more desperate and dangerous. His abandonment of our Kurdish allies is a case in point. Indefensible even though not impeachable, it illustrates what this cornered man might do to distract as the constitutional system blocks his every exit.
The House must move expeditiously to vote for articles of impeachment based on President Trump’s already evident “high crimes,” including abuse of power and obstruction of justice, even as it pursues the truth through relentless investigation that resorts as needed to the still independent judiciary.