The Nation
For many in our nation, it’s hard to get “past” the facts of the President’s actions. The most recent polling average shows that 48% of Americans want to impeach and remove the President from office. 45% are against that. After all of the presentations and hearings, all of the speeches and tweets, it all comes back to roughly the same number we’ve been living with since the beginning of the Trump Administration. Mr. Trump’s recent job approval rating is 53% opposed, 44% in favor (RCP).
In our “post fact” world America has two sets of facts. There is what I consider the “real world” facts, and there are the “Fox News” facts. These are two radically different stories telling absolutely opposite tales about the actions and intentions of the current President of the United States. If you can’t agree on the “facts,” it’s hard to imagine you can agree on anything else.
The Facts
But for the purpose of today and this essay, accept the following set of facts (I know I’m asking a lot, maybe too much for some, but to understand what the House of Representatives is doing, you need to work with “their” facts).
- In 2016, Donald Trump accepted and welcomed help from Russian intelligence sources to win the Presidency. Some of his top campaign workers cooperated with Russian intelligence, or its surrogate, Wikileaks, for election aid. While the Mueller investigation was unable to reach a “criminal” standard for most of those actions, the Report made it clear that they happened (Mueller Report, Volume 1).
- In 2017-18 Mr. Trump and his associates did everything possible to obstruct the Mueller investigation. In the Mueller Report, at least ten clear acts of Presidential obstruction of justice were explained (Mueller Report, Volume 2). A Trump political appointee, Attorney General Bill Barr, decided not to allow those charges to go forward.
- In 2019, Donald Trump conditioned Ukrainian aid on the government of Ukraine opening an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden, and the Crowd Strike conspiracy, actions that would aid the Trump 2020 Presidential campaign. This was not only outlined in the phone call with President Zelenskiy on July 25th, but was an orchestrated plan using Mr. Giuliani and political appointees of the Trump Administration. (Intelligence Committee Report, Volume 1).
- Since the “whistleblower” report revealed the President’s plan, Mr. Trump has done everything in his power to block any investigation into what occurred. He has absolutely refused to cooperate with Congressional investigation, ignoring subpoenas and denying witnesses. His actions have attempted to prevent any Congressional oversight of his actions (Intelligence Committee Report, Volume 2).
Justice
These are the “facts” as the leadership of the House of Representatives seems them. This is what Speaker Nancy Pelosi is using to determine what the next actions need to be.
There are three ways to check an “out of control” Presidency. The first is through regular criminal investigations. Attorney General Barr is very familiar with this function of the Justice Department. In his first stint as Attorney General under the George HW Bush administration, Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh finalized his investigation into the Iran-Contra Affair. Eleven Reagan Administration officials were indicted, including the National Security Advisor, an Air Force Major General, and the Secretary of Defense.
Attorney General Barr advised President Bush to pardon all of those convicted or waiting to stand trial. In the current crisis of the Trump Administration, Barr has made it clear that the Justice Department is going to act as the President’s personal attorney, demanding unprecedented powers and protections for the Presidency. In short, the Justice Department has become an extension of the Trump Presidency, not an unbiased arbitrator of the law.
Congress and Elections
So if the normal course of criminal investigation and prosecution can’t be used to oversee the Presidency, then it falls to the Congress to do the job. But, if the President refuses to recognize Congressional powers to oversee, subpoena documents, or call witnesses; then Congress will have great difficulty doing that. President Trump consistently shows that he will not cooperate with Congressional oversight.
The third way to check the President is the most obvious one: elections. We are less than a year away from the 2020 Presidential elections, and there is great comfort in saying: let’s wait until November, wait until “the people” can choose.
Here’s the problem. The 2016 Trump campaign welcomed Russian interference in the 2016 election. We know President Trump tried to pressure Ukraine to involve itself in the 2020 election. President Trump has brazenly asked for help from Ukraine and China in investigating his political opponent. And we know that the United States has done little to prevent the kind of election manipulation that took place in 2016. We can’t trust that the 2020 election won’t be tainted even more.
Impeach Now
Working from the “facts” as the House sees them, there is no choice. If the Justice Department won’t act, and the Congress is blocked, and the 2020 elections may be tainted: the House of Representatives must impeach the President for his actions.
Impeachment needs to go forward, even if a Republican Senate is unlikely to convict and remove the President. Impeachment is the only way to present “the facts” to the American people, even if the Senate “jury” is already tainted to ignore those facts (ask Lindsey Graham, who states that he won’t even look at the evidence).
Americans need to know what happened. If the Senate won’t act, then at least the nation will know when they go to the polls in November.
That’s why Impeachment is crucial.
