Representative Al Green, Houston, Texas, put it this way: "The House
of Representatives decides if the charges rise to the level of calling
for impeachment. That is their job. The Senate has the
responsibility of conducting the hearing. " He went on to say that it
doesn't matter what the Senate does. The House has its responsibility
and must decide on the charges laid out before it. Failure to do so
will weaken our democracy.
Regardless of the outcome in the Senate, the American voters will have
a much clearer picture of just where their own Senators line up. That
alone would be useful in 2020, assuming that the Democrats have the
backbone to take a position.
In my opinion, failure to call for impeachment by the House will
assure Donald Trump a second term. This would put the final touches
on the dismantling of what is left of our glorious Republic.
Carl Jarvis
On 5/24/19, R. E. Driscoll Sr <llocsirdsr@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl:
While it may be true that Mr Trump ‘deserves’ impeachment the practical
conditions now present effectively no success possible., the Republican
controlled Senate.
Richard
Sent from my iPhone
On May 24, 2019, at 6:31 PM, Carl Jarvis <carjar82@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
This congress may well go down in history...or what time we have left,
as the most spineless, yellow bellied, chicken hearted, congress.
Between a House that can't make a move in any direction, and a Senate
that has a majority of "No Nothings", it's embarrassing to call myself
an American.
Carl Jarvis
On 5/24/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Trump Deserves Impeachment. Does US House Have the Integrity?
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
24 May 19
“I’m not a crook.” – Richard Nixon, February 26, 1973
“I don’t do cover-ups.” – Donald Trump, May 21, 2019
The theatrics at the White House on the morning of May 22 were
especially
surreal as the president who doesn’t do cover-ups stormed (by all
accounts)
out of a scheduled meeting to discuss national infrastructure and rushed
to
a pre-arranged press conference in the Rose Garden where he said he
wouldn’t
work with Democrats on anything until they stop investigating him.
Because
he doesn’t do cover-ups? Strictly speaking, that’s kind of true.
Withholding
documents, preventing witnesses from testifying, refusing to testify
himself
– Trump does all that openly, so it’s not a cover-up so much as a
stonewall.
Either way, evidence gets withheld. Or as the president went on to tell
the
assembled press corps:
I think most of you would agree to this, I’m the most transparent
president,
probably, in the history of this country.
What was truly transparent was the falseness of the president’s claim
that
he couldn’t work with Congress at the same time House committees are
investigating him. Is he subtly admitting a disability that could
trigger
his replacement under the 25th Amendment? Or is that being covered up?
And
will it be stonewalled? Ironically, the president’s view of
investigations
is a mirror image of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s view of impeachment,
that
the House can’t do two things at once, pursue impeachment and pass good
legislation. Her view is as transparently false as the president’s. How
long
has it been transparently obvious that the president will keep pushing
Congress into a submissive corner until the Congress pushes back?
There are so many issues, large and small, where the Trump
administration
has demonstrated either limited transparency or none that listing them
all
would be daunting to impossible. Consider just a few areas involving war
and
peace where the American people are getting much more dishonesty than
transparency – Iran, Venezuela, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, central
Africa,
among others. Domestically there are the obvious black holes where the
country expected disclosure on the president’s tax returns, on his
separation of private interests from government business, on his
reckless
handling of security clearances, or on his multiple failures faithfully
to
execute the laws of the United States as required by the Constitution.
The
suffering he causes ranges from children dying in US custody to the
environment and the planet dying from US predation.
Later in the day, the White House continued the counter-attack,
tweeting:
“This week, Congress reminded Americans exactly why its public approval
rating is 20%.” The White House tweets go on a familiar attack against a
do-nothing Congress of the bipartisan sort we’ve heard for self-serving,
empty decades. Then the tweets get to specifics and the spectacle is
absurd.
“Not fixing our immigration system” – by letting the administration kill
children without consequence? “Not rebuilding our infrastructure” – by
letting the president leave the room without looking at a lengthy
proposal?
“Not lowering prescription drug prices” – how are any of these
Congressional
failures when there is absolutely no administration proposal on the
table?
The apparent trigger for Trump’s pre-planned morning tantrum was House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s commentary coming out of a Democratic Caucus
meeting.
She concluded by expressing her understanding of the caucus consensus:
We believe that it’s important to follow the facts. And we believe that
no
one is above the law, including the president of the United States. And
we
believe that the President of the United States is engaged in a cover-up
–
a
cover-up.
Although the Democratic Caucus meeting was closed to media coverage,
there’s
little question that it was devoted in part to questions of whether and
when
to initiate formal impeachment proceedings against President Trump.
Pelosi
and other Democratic leaders have been avoiding, evading, slow-walking
the
impeachment issue for years now, but increasing numbers of Democrats are
saying both publicly and privately that time’s up, the president is
dictating the way the government runs, and this is fundamentally
unconstitutional. The morning theatrics look like the president calling
Democrats’ bluff. And it could be a catalyst for the Democrats calling
the
president’s bluff. No matter what, it’s a long winding road ahead with
an
unknown destination.
Just before the Democratic Caucus meeting, Democratic congressman Al
Green
from Houston appeared on Democracy NOW to urge the principled case for
initiating formal impeachment hearings now. In the fall of 2017, Rep.
Green
was the first member of Congress to introduce formal articles of
impeachment
against President Trump. At the time, the Republican majority voted in
lockstep not to consider the question. A majority of Democrats, led by
Pelosi, also voted against even discussing impeachment.
Almost surely what Al Green said on Democracy NOW is what he said at the
Democratic Caucus meeting. He was careful not to make it an issue of
Pelosi’s leadership, but rather a test of constitutional principle:
… where the House itself is on trial in the court of public opinion. The
question is: Will we allow the time-honored system of checks and
balances
to
be destroyed by this president? Your news report has indicated that he
has
resisted. In fact, he’s stonewalling. He doesn’t allow subpoenas. He
doesn’t
allow witnesses to testify. And the question is: Will he then amass this
enormous amount of power that the Framers never intended him to have?
This
is the equivalent of becoming a monarch. We don’t want a monarchy; we
want
democracy. And impeachment is the means by which we maintain the check
on
the president so as to keep the balance of power.
Rep. Green is asked the standard journalistic cliché question, so what’s
the
point of impeaching the president in the House when the Senate will
never
convict him? It’s not as though that prediction is a fact. At best it’s
a
current likelihood. But the process of impeachment is long and
illuminating
as it winds through investigation, examination, and passage of the
articles
of impeachment, and then a full trial in the Senate presided over by the
Chief Justice. To predict now what the Senate will do after a year or
more
of all that is presumptuous. It is to assume that evidence will not
matter.
And the cliché question dismisses any question of principle, justice,
constitutionality. Green answers the question directly:
Nowhere in Article 2, Section 4 of the Constitution does it say that the
House must have a Senate that will agree with it. What it says is, if
the
president commits impeachable acts, then we must move forward. That’s
what
it gives us the prerogative to do. It does not require that Republicans
agree with us. It does not require that the public agree with us. What
it
requires is that we act on principle, not politics, that we put the
people
above our political party. It requires that we decide that we will not
allow
the moral imperative to be trumped by political expediency. This is
really
not about people in the House of Representatives. It’s about the people
in
this country and whether we are going to allow this president, who has
demonstrated that he’s ruthless, lawless and reckless—whether we are
going
to allow him to destroy the system of checks and balances.
As to particular impeachable offenses, Rep. Green first cites
obstruction
of
justice. In the case of Richard Nixon, the first article of impeachment
voted by the House Judiciary Committee in 1973 was for obstruction of
justice. The charges against Nixon included making false or misleading
statements, influencing witnesses, withholding evidence, interfering
with
investigations, approving payments to witnesses, and hinting at pardons.
Any
of that sound familiar? The Mueller Report lists numerous instances of
presidential behavior that could be construed as obstruction of justice.
More than 800 former federal prosecutors have indicated that if anyone
but
the president had committed the same acts, that person would have been
prosecuted. Mueller left the question to the House. Rep. Green argues:
“That
obstruction of justice is something we cannot allow to go unchecked.”
He makes no effort to provide a comprehensive list of Trump’s
impeachable
offenses, but he emphasizes one area that is the epitome of “high crimes
and
misdemeanors” as contemplated in the Constitution:
But I also have contended, and still contend, that the president has
infused
his bigotry into policy. I think this is impeachable, as well. I have
indelibly imprinted in my brain that baby standing at the border crying
while she is being separated from parents. This is not what a great
country
does. We cannot allow a president to talk about African country as
“s—hole
countries” and then engage in the process of developing an immigration
plan.
We can’t have a president who is going to say that there are very fine
people among the bigots, the racists, the xenophobes, the homophobes,
who
were in Charlottesville, where a woman lost her life protesting against
bigotry, and do nothing about it. His bigotry is worthy of his being
impeached.
Rep. Green dismissed the president’s claim that Congress couldn’t work
with
him and investigate him at the same time. He framed his answer in the
context of the reality of presidential behavior:
We can work with the president and still fulfill our constitutional
responsibility. We must do so. Now, working with the president is not
easy.
He will give you an answer today, and then he will negate the answer
tomorrow or later today or perhaps in the same sentence that he gives
you
the answer. So, I am all for working with the president, but I’m not for
allowing the constitutional mandate that has been accorded the House of
Representatives to be obliterated because we want to try to appease a
president, who clearly has demonstrated that he’s not in the business of
making reconciliation with us in any way. He doesn’t want to negotiate;
he
wants to dictate.
Rep. Green rejected another journalistic cliché question: well, what if
Trump welcomes impeachment proceedings, what if you’re playing into his
hand
politically and not getting important legislation like the Green New
Deal
done? This is a muddled question, hobbled by prediction based on no
evidence. The House has already passed important legislation (such as
H.R.1,
election reform) that the Senate may never consider. The Senate cannot
avoid
an impeachment trial. There is no reason to suppose the House won’t
continue
to pass important legislation (maybe even a Green New Deal, if it’s ever
rendered in the form of a bill). The question is rooted in
ill-considered
assumptions that are most likely false (depending on House leadership –
oh,
that again). As far as one can tell, the Democratic strategy for 2020
includes the creation of a host of desirable health, economic, justice
and
other bills that Republicans can either pass or run against.
As for Trump inviting impeachment, Rep. Green doesn’t buy it. He calls it
a
reverse psychology trick. He says Trump’s bluffing. Following through
with
articles of impeachment would call that bluff. That would create an
unpredictable dynamic that would depend first on the strength of the
evidence presented to the Senate. And if the evidence is strong that the
president committed impeachable offenses, and the Republican Senate
votes
NOT to convict, how will that play with American voters?
As for the alternative, Rep. Green sees it as unacceptable:
And if we don’t impeach, here’s what the president will say. He will say
that the Democrats had the House by overwhelming numbers. He will say
that
they did not impeach me. He will say, “By their inaction, I have been
vindicated, I have been exonerated.” Mr. Mueller did not exonerate him.
Why
would the House of Representatives exonerate him? And he will say, “By
virtue of this, you ought to elect me”—meaning him, President
Trump—“president again.” And let me share this with you. He will make a
powerful argument that we were complicit, in a sense, in his actions by
not
having our action in the House of Representatives.
That’s a credible scenario as far as it goes, but it omits anything else
that may happen between now and November 2020, including not least the
choice of a Democratic candidate. As it stands now, Trump is forcing the
House to choose between impeaching him and caving in to him. Even if the
House calls his bluff and impeaches him, Democrats and the country may
lose
the election. But if the House caves and allows the president to
continue
on
his law-defying dictatorial path, then the election might well be
irrelevant.
Email This Page
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV,
print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont
judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America,
Corporation
for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award
nomination
from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
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to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
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