Reich writes: "In today's political climate, the question of whether or not to impeach the President of the United States is often thought of in political terms."
Former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich. (photo: Steve Russell/Toronto Star)
The Real Reason for Impeachment
27 July 19
n today�s political climate, the question of whether or not to impeach the President of the United States is often thought of in political terms.
But there is a much deeper concern at the heart of the question.
An impeachment inquiry in the House is unlikely to send Trump packing before Election Day 2020 because Senate Republicans won�t convict him. And it�s impossible to know whether an impeachment inquiry will hurt or help Trump�s chances of being reelected.
Does this mean impeachment should be off the table? No. There�s a non-political question that Congress should consider: Is enforcing the United States Constitution important for its own sake � even if it goes nowhere, even if it�s unpopular with many voters, even if it�s politically risky?
Every child in America is supposed to learn about the Constitution�s basic principles of separation of powers, and checks and balances.
But these days, every child and every adult in America is learning from Donald Trump that these principles are bunk.
By doing whatever he could to stop the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, including firing the head of the FBI, Trump told America it�s okay for a president to obstruct justice.
Goodbye, law.
By issuing a blanket refusal to respond to any congressional subpoena, Trump is saying Congress has no constitutional authority to oversee the executive branch. He�s telling America that Congress is a subordinate branch of government rather than a co-equal branch.
Forget separation of powers.
By spending money on his �wall� that Congress explicitly refused to authorize, Trump is saying that Congress no longer has any constitutional authority over spending.
Goodbye, checks and balances.
By unilaterally shuttering the government in order to get his way, Trump told us he has the constitutional right not to execute the laws whenever it suits him.
Farewell, Congress.
By directing the Attorney General, the Justice Department, the FBI and the Secretary of the Treasury to act in his own personal interest rather than in the interests of the American people, Trump is saying that presidents can run government for themselves.
Adios, Constitution.
By unilaterally threatening to cut off trade with the second-largest economy in the world, Trump is telling us he has sole authority to endanger the entire American economy. (Make no mistake: If he goes through with his threat, the U.S. economy will go into a tailspin.)
The core purpose of the Constitution is to prevent tyranny. That�s why its Framers distributed power between the president, Congress and the judiciary. That�s why each of the three branches was designed to limit the powers of the other two.
In other words, the Framers anticipated the possibility of a Donald Trump.
Fortunately, they also put in a mechanism to enforce the Constitution against a president who tries to place himself above the law and to usurp the powers of the other branches of government.
Article I, Section 2 gives the House of Representatives the �sole Power of Impeachment.� Article I, Section 3 gives the Senate the �sole Power to try all Impeachments.�
Trump surely appears to be usurping the powers of the other branches. Under these circumstances, the Constitution mandates that the House undertake an impeachment inquiry and present evidence to the Senate.
This may not be the political thing to do. But in order to safeguard our democracy, it is the right thing to do.
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The 2000 presidential election where G.W. Bush (with the help of his brother, Jeb Bush) and the Republican Party openly stole the presidency should have been a major wake-up call.
You had the phony felon list produced by a data-base company at the behest of Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris in Florida illegally nullifying the voting rights of almost 90,000 Afro-Americans. You had the police in Florida strategically stationed at minority polling precincts harassing and threatening minority voters attempting to enter the polling precincts to vote, and these were just some of the voter suppression techniques used by Jeb Bush to steal Florida from Al Gore.
The NAACP at the time took both Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris to court, mainly on the phony felon database, and the NAACP won. The NAACP held a huge towhhall meeting in which it investigated all of the illegalities that took place that voting day with hundreds of witnesses giving testimony.
So, one might ask the question as to what all was accomplished from this then and now. The answer is simply nothing. The 2000 election in Florida should have been nullified and held again, but it wasn't, and Al Gore should've fought the illegal decision made by SCOTUS to stop the Florida recount, but he didn't. HAVA was then passed when Bush was president and now we're all screwed.
After all the world has changed around them but they still live and hang out in Washington DC.
Please note that the work work does not appear in the previous statement.
Washington and the ruling elite has no interest in anything other than keeping you marginalized.