With the release of a public letter explaining their reasons for supporting the impeachment of Donald J. Trump, more than 750 American historians are sounding the alarm about the duty and necessity for lawmakers to vote in favor of impeaching the president.

Co-authored by Sean Wilenta, professor of American history at Princeton University, and Brenda Wineapple, author of a book about Andrew Johnson – the first of only three U.S. presidents to be impeached thus far –  the letter sites the uncannily prescient words penned in 1792 by the venerable Alexander Hamilton:

We are American historians devoted to studying our nation’s past who have concluded that Donald J. Trump has violated his oath to “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States” and to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” His “attempts to subvert the Constitution,” as George Mason described impeachable offenses at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, urgently and justly require his impeachment.

President Trump’s numerous and flagrant abuses of power are precisely what the Framers had in mind as grounds for impeaching and removing a president. Among those most hurtful to the Constitution have been his attempts to coerce the country of Ukraine, under attack from Russia, an adversary power to the United States, by withholding essential military assistance in exchange for the fabrication and legitimization of false information in order to advance his own re-election.

President Trump’s lawless obstruction of the House of Representatives, which is rightly seeking documents and witness testimony in pursuit of its constitutionally-mandated oversight role, has demonstrated brazen contempt for representative government. So have his attempts to justify that obstruction on the grounds that the executive enjoys absolute immunity, a fictitious doctrine that, if tolerated, would turn the president into an elected monarch above the law.

As Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist, impeachment was designed to deal with “the misconduct of public men” which involves “the abuse or violation of some public trust.” Collectively, the President’s offenses, including his dereliction in protecting the integrity of the 2020 election from Russian disinformation and renewed interference, arouse once again the Framers’ most profound fears that powerful members of government would become, in Hamilton’s words, “the mercenary instruments of foreign corruption.”

It is our considered judgment that if President Trump’s misconduct does not rise to the level of impeachment, then virtually nothing does

Hamilton understood, as he wrote in 1792, that the republic remained vulnerable to the rise of an unscrupulous demagogue, “unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents…despotic in his ordinary demeanour.” That demagogue, Hamilton said, could easily enough manage “to mount the hobby horse of popularity — to join in the cry of danger to liberty — to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion — to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day.” Such a figure, Hamilton wrote, would “throw things into confusion that he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.’”

President Trump’s actions committed both before and during the House investigations fit Hamilton’s description and manifest utter and deliberate scorn for the rule of law and “repeated injuries” to constitutional democracy. That disregard continues and it constitutes a clear and present danger to the Constitution. We therefore strongly urge the House of Representatives to impeach the President.

If you are an historian, you are invited to add your signature to this historic document. Click on the link below.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScorrGrlDoKp-BdaUfreuvDfQiidP2pIq84BwsAOrwKuWHcPg/viewform

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Last week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House of Representatives would launch a formal impeachment inquiry in response to allegations that President Trump pressured Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden’s son in what appears to be an attempt to influence the 2020 election. Whether Hunter Biden’s behavior was ethically dubious is a fair question (it was) or if President Trump’s actions were an abuse of power (they were) is a discussion for a different day. Yesterday according to most whip counts, the House has the votes to impeach the President of the United States and it looks like they will. So, what might come next?

1. The House votes to impeach and Majority Leader McConnell refuses to hold a trial in the senate.
   • As of the writing, there are reportedly 221 members of the House who are prepared to vote for impeachment which is a couple votes more than the majority that the constitution requires. The transcript and the whistleblower report don’t look good for the President. In fact, everything looks very bad and probably worse than the Mueller report because these new documents actually make a value judgement about the President’s behavior. We should not be shocked if the House votes to impeach because this is likely as close to a smoking gun that Congress is going to get. This charge is particularly damaging because we already litigated this issue and we already decided that foreign election interference is bad. It would still be a historic move for the House to vote to impeach the President, it’s only happened once every century, but this kind of corruption is historic. But of course, that’s not the end of the impeachment process, the Senate also plays a role and they are meant to hold a trial. If these were normal times then we’d expect it to happen without question, but after Majority Leader McConnell held the Supreme Court hostage in 2016 then we really have no reason to expect McConnell to respect constitutional norms. Although McConnell has said that he will follow Senate rules if impeachment makes its way to the Senate, trusting Mitch McConnell has never been a well-reasoned decision. It’s easy to imagine McConnell just refusing to hold a trial but it’s unclear if that would actually be beneficial to Republicans. President Trump would not be able to claim he had been acquitted because he literally wouldn’t be, he’d just be in some state of impeachment limbo. Furthermore, impeachment is polling a lot better than it was a few weeks ago and the imagery of Republicans refusing to even acknowledge their constitutional duty probably wouldn’t play well with voters. That doesn’t mean it still won’t happen, McConnell has continued to gamble with the constitution, and he continues to win so maybe he can win again.
2. The House fails to impeach because some moderates change their votes
   • It took around 80 days for the House to decide to launch an impeachment inquiry to actually voting for Impeachment in 1998. If we assume that we’re looking at a similar timeframe for President Trump, then we should expect a vote sometime in December. A lot could happen between now and then and given the chickenshit like nature of some Democrats I don’t have too much confidence in our caucus. I’m especially concerned about the New Democrat Coalition, which is made up of moderates, centrists, and your assorted third-way types. Many of these members come from purple districts and are rightly concerned with their electoral prospects. As a very likely hypothetical, let’s say that by December Elizabeth Warren is leading in the polls in the Democratic primary and is followed by Bernie Sanders while Joe Biden has slipped to a distant third. What is going to go through the minds of members like Sharice Davids of Kansas or Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey or any of the newly elected Orange County Democrats? Many of them have made clear that they’d rather Biden were the nominee. Will they feel like they’ll be able to run as a moderate with a progressive or a leftist at the top of the ticket and vote for impeachment? I think it’s an open question.
3. The House votes to impeach and the Senate acquits the President without Republican defections
   • Maybe the Democrats will impeach the President. It’s been a long time coming and we’ve probably crossed the Rubicon on impeachment. The evidence against the President is pretty damning and the timeline of events shows a pattern of corruption that is hard to ignore. Well actually it may be very easy to ignore if you’re a Republican senator and live in a perpetual state of fear because of your constituents cult like devotion to the President. Donald Trump has an approval rating among Republicans that is probably in the high 80s which means something. The President in the past has successfully rallied his supporters to oust incumbent members of Congress and there are a number of elected officials who if not for Donald Trump would not be in Washington. Also relevant is that the GOP lacks any ideological mooring and seems to exist solely for promoting the interests of corporations, Christians, and caucasians. This has produced some senators who are genuinely from the Republican base and are not rational actors and may actually believe that the President is acting in good faith. Josh Hawley, Marsha Blackburn, and Cindy Hyde-Smith come to mind but there are certainly others. Then of course there are the so-called “profile in courage” Republicans that liberals love. I’m talking about Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Rob Portman. These are the Republicans who are always “deeply concerned” about the President’s behavior and are “reluctantly” voting for some evil multi-billion-dollar legislation to torture immigrant children. They’ll go on MSNBC, they’ll furrow their brows, and they may even cobble together a joint editorial and send it to the Washington Post. Then they’ll vote not to convict because they are cowards.
4. The House votes to impeach and the Senate acquits the President with several Republican defections
   • We’ve established that the Democrats are going to impeach the President and that Republicans are cowards. However, this time may actually be different because there are a lot of Senators who are still waiting to go on the record and haven’t instinctively jumped to Trump’s defense. Of course sycophants like Josh Hawley have but his senior counterpart Roy Blunt has not. That’s notable because for several reasons. First, Blunt was only narrowly re-elected in 2016 (underperforming Trump by 15.7 points) and likely would’ve lost if not for Trump’s landslide victory in Missouri. Second, Blunt played an integral role during the 2017 inauguration and commenced the ceremony. Finally, Blunt is the number four Republican on the Senate Leadership team. If anyone was going to defend Trump immediately it was going to be Blunt, yet he’s still “waiting and seeing”. If Blunt is a barometer for other Republicans, then maybe we can expect some Republicans to actually vote for impeachment which isn’t to say that Blunt won’t in the end vote to acquit. There are a lot of Republicans who have made clear their distaste for the President and although the votes to remove him from office likely aren’t there (Joe Manchin and Doug Jones are Democrats who might vote to acquit), we may still be looking at as many as a dozen Republican defections. If I had to guess who might vote to impeach, I’d look at retiring senators and Bush Republicans like Lamar Alexander (retiring), Pat Roberts (retiring), Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, and Lisa Murkowski.
5. The President is impeached and removed from office
   • This is the least likely outcome. I would sooner expect an Andrew Yang nomination than a Trump conviction. But it could happen, we may still be missing a piece of the puzzle. Donald Rumsfeld famously said “there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know”. There is almost certainly an unknown unknown out there and it could be one that is so repugnant and disturbing to the conscious of the nation that Republicans will literally have no choice but to impeach. I was tempted to lay out an addendum to this scenario because perhaps the Republicans could convince the President to resign in a similar fashion to what happened to Nixon. But we know Donald Trump and we know in our heart of hearts that he is not going to resign. Unlike other politicians who can be compelled to act by fear or shame or threat to their future in the party, Trump exists outside of conventional norms and he knows it. Trump has captured the racist zeitgeist and will have millions of followers no matter what happens next and that’s enough for him. The only way the President is leaving the White House is through impeachment or at the end of his term, whether that’s 2021 or 2025. There may come a point when Republicans begin to ask themselves, “Is this worth it? Could we achieve the same ends with Mike Pence?” and then the President will be in trouble.

There’s also a number of wild card scenarios that we should be prepared for because the moment we’re in is very fluid and it’s hard to predict anything anymore.

1. Clarence Thomas resigns or some other Supreme Court Vacancy
   • It’s probably time we stopped pretending that the Supreme Court isn’t partisan. It is. We don’t select justices based on merit, we select them based on reading their rulings, so we understand their judicial philosophy and ideology. There’s a reason that liberal and conservative groups create lists of preferred nominees, it’s because they know where they stand on the issues. The Supreme Court is a broken institution and it can be manipulated for partisan purposes. Enter Clarence Thomas, who has a very conservative world view and witnessed first-hand the kind of mobilizing force a Supreme Court vacancy can have on an election (see 2016 and to a lesser extent 2018). Clarence Thomas has served on the Court for nearly 30 years and hasn’t exactly hidden his conservative leanings, his wife Virginia worked for the Heritage foundation and currently contributes to Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller. He may just decide to announce his resignation at the end of the 2020 SCOTUS term and that would probably be enough for Republicans to circle the horses around President Trump. If the worst should happen, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Stephen Breyer (or both) should die, then we’d be faced with a more significant realignment of the Supreme Court that actually would likely mean the realization of many conservative goals like outlawing abortion and same-sex marriage. That would almost certainly mean either impeachment would be completely abandoned by Democrats or Republicans would engage in some historically ugly campaigning.
2. President Trump Resigns from Office and then continues to run for re-election

• • Donald Trump did not win the Republican nomination because he had institutional support from the party. He won in spite of it because he was what Republican voters wanted, an anti-establishment figure who was willing to be unorthodox and dress down an elite that they loathe. If he needed to, he could probably do it again and if impeachment looks likely then that’d probably be a viable path forward. Would Mike Pence be willing to lead a caretaker government while Trump campaigned for President? He might have to because his choices are pretty limited. Would Pence defeat Trump in a Republican primary? Doubtful because even with the unlimited resources of the RNC, Trump is still Trump (ask Jeb how far $140 million will get you). Does Pence want a future in Republican politics? Probably, and he’s tied his fortunes to Trump and needs to stay in his good graces and for Trump to remain popular. That’s the thing about Faustian bargains, the Devil always gets the better end of the deal. Trump may well reason that he’d have a better chance of staying in power by giving it up. Trump appreciates a good story and the populist president who promised change is stymied by the Washington Establishment and is running an insurgent campaign on behalf of the people…that’s pretty good.

I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but we shouldn’t be surprised if it’s something we don’t expect. I wouldn’t hold my breath for the more outlandish scenarios that involve “President Pelosi” or “Hillary Clinton 3.0” but there’s a lot that could happen in the coming days and weeks. The President probably abused his office and attempted to have a foreign power influence our elections. That’s serious not just for President Trump but for our democracy. It’s time to see the full extent of the Article One powers in the Constitution.

The post 7 Paths Forward for Impeachment appeared first on Occasional Planet.

It’s risky, but impeachment definitely has to be on the table. If you have been watching television lately, you have probably seen a video by Tom Steyer making a case for impeachment.

However, we have to be cautious. The very reason why Trump should be removed from office is the same reason why no attempt should be made. As we have previously stated, trying to assess him by his “beliefs” or positions on issues is irrelevant, because he is a psychologically damaged individual and the nature of his illness(es) is what drives his actions. The word “unhinged” has frequently been used, and with the exception of Richard Nixon in his final days, we have never had a situation quite like this.

Trump is far too erratic to be a legitimate leader of our country. But because he is unhinged, we are taking a trip into the unknown if a serious attempt is made to remove him from office. Legally, he has his finger on the button; he can be the one to launch American nuclear missiles. Practically, we are not sure whether there are military or other security personnel in the government who have taken steps to prevent Trump from acting unilaterally, even if he thinks that he can. Just think about what you would do if you were in the government and you had an opportunity to “disarm” Trump. Would you take steps of dubious constitutionality to save the country or the world? Not an easy question to answer.

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times stated this morning on CNN’s New Day that Trump’s disconnect has been markedly accelerated in recent days and weeks. His retweeting this morning of far-right, Anti-Muslim videos seems to be more gratuitously nasty and distorted than anything he has done to date.

Republicans are not going to take the lead on impeachment. They should, because in a sense, they own him. To paraphrase Colin Powell about the Pottery Barn policy, “if you break it you own it.” But most Republicans are too partisan to act boldly, and perhaps more importantly, they are often poor readers of reality; e.g. when a tax bill would take way health coverage from thirteen million or more Americans, they don’t seem to see the pain. People who can’t see pain are not really equipped to assess the damage done by Trump.

The downside to Democrats taking the lead on impeachment is that it would appear to be partisan. In part, it would be. But is it possible for something partisan to also be good policy? The answer is clearly yes, witness virtually everything that Democrats were able to do in the New Deal and the Great Society. More recently, the establishment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by Democrats.

On the partisan scale, it would be important for Democrats to get ahead of the curve and make it even more clear that they have had little or nothing to do with the damage that Trump has done, and likely will continue to do to the country. If Democrats do not act, there will be a certain hollowness to their future pleas that they did everything that they could to spare the nation from the wrath of Trump.

But more important than any political benefits to Democrats, the issue of Trump being unhinged begs for our attention. As Maggie Haberman said, it is only getting worse.

If a genuine effort was made to impeach Donald Trump, there are at least two areas of risk. The first can be summed up in two words: Mike Pence. The second is the question of what Trump would do while the process is taking place.

My suggestion would be for the Democrats to take the lead on a move for impeachment, but to recognize that they might have to back off if the Trump situation gets too volatile. Theoretically, if Trump’s behavior becomes even more outrageous, it might prompt discussion between Pence and members of the Cabinet on invoking the 25^th Amendment to temporarily remove Trump from office. Finally, there is the wording in Section 4 of the 25^th Amendment which allows Congress to take quick action for temporary removal.

This is all tricky. We need to say things publicly that might best be said behind Trump’s back. But that is not an option. We may need to follow the old adage, “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.” Of course, like Trump, the adage needs to include women.

Postscript: Interview with Psychiatrist Lance Dodes re. mental status of Donald Trump

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As if on cue, following Donald Trump’s speech about Afghanistan last Monday (8/21/17), he removed the subtlety of his mental and emotional challenges the next night in his “campaign speech” in Phoenix. As soon as he gave himself permission to walk away from the teleprompter, it was open season on the bizarre, the rash, the offensive, the nonsense, and the falsehoods. Once the speech was concluded, CNN’s Don Lemon was a little less polite in his assessment.

Since the Phoenix speech, there have predictably and fortunately been more disclosures and revelations about Trump’s mental state and how it puts the country and the world at risk in an unprecedented fashion. But fortunately for all of us, talk of his instability is becoming more and more commonplace.

Former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, shared his thoughts Tuesday evening with Don Lemon. “I really question his ability to be — his fitness to be — in this office, and I also am beginning to wonder about his motivation for it.”

The following day, Harvard Law School professor Jeannie Suk Gersen wrote a comprehensive article in The New Yorker about why the Goldwater Rule should be revisited.

The class of professionals best equipped to answer these questions has largely abstained from speaking publicly about the President’s mental health. The principle known as the “Goldwater rule” prohibits psychiatrists from giving professional opinions about public figures without personally conducting an examination.

The Constitution contemplates, by virtue of the First Amendment, that we may freely raise concerns about elected officials, and also that in the extreme circumstance envisioned in the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, medical professionals would be free to help us understand whether the President can fulfill his duties. If those who know the most are the least free to speak, neither Amendment can function properly. The Goldwater rule was an overreaction to psychiatrists wielding their professional badge to do politics. Today, the profession risks protecting itself from the taint of politics by withholding expertise from a vital public debate—a situation that seems no less irresponsible.

It is not just a matter of professionals in the field of mental health to offer their assessments of the president. All of us as citizens must include the mental and emotional state of the president as we make judgments about whether he or she is fit to serve.

Consider the words of Hillary Clinton who experienced Trump in an “up-close and personal” manner that would make most of us cringe. In her forthcoming book, “What Happened,” she writes about how Trump was stalking her on the stage of the second debate at Washington University in St. Louis:

“This is not okay, I thought,” Clinton said, reading from her book. “It was the second presidential debate and Donald Trump was looming behind me. Two days before, the world heard him brag about groping women. Now we were on a small stage and no matter where I walked, he followed me closely, staring at me, making faces.

“It was incredibly uncomfortable. He was literally breathing down my neck. My skin crawled. It was one of those moments where you wish you could hit pause and ask everyone watching, ‘Well, what would you do?’ Do you stay calm, keep smiling and carry on as if he weren’t repeatedly invading your space? Or do you turn, look him in the eye and say loudly and clearly, ‘Back up, you creep. Get away from me. I know you love to intimidate women, but you can’t intimidate me, so back up.’”

Here is the audio (excuse the opening commercial).

A major problem that our country has, and one that is rarely discussed, is that as individuals, we need to improve our “creep detection” ability. Innocent people continuously are victimized by others who one way or another may fit within the definition of a “creep.” Hillary Clinton tells us how she saw that in Donald Trump and millions of other Americans did as well. Unfortunately, millions did not see that, or they did see it and did not care.

Using such loose language can be dangerous. But with everything that we see in Donald Trump and the risks that he presents to us. we are obliged to truly call it as we see it. Short of him receiving some remarkable therapy, he is thoroughly unfit to be out president and either by the Twenty-Fifth Amendment or impeachment, he must be removed from the position.

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How far will Trump go before it’s too late? We need to test the limits. President Donald Trump has already shown that he is comfortable taking drastic measures, foolish measures and basing decisions on false information. But what so many are concerned about, and this is what separates Trump from his Vice-President, is how dangerous he will get.

He has the nuclear code. He’s easily peeved. He does not have a good understanding of international relations. He appears to be largely blind to the consequences of his actions. How much longer can we allow him to be in this position?

There are two peaceful ways to try to curb Trump unleashed. The first is by invoking Section 4 of the 25^th Amendment:

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

That is the easiest and the quickest way to do it. However, since Trump has hand-picked his cabinet members and many of them seem to be as unprepared for their job as he is, it will require a significant improvement in the wisdom and fortitude of enough Cabinet members to invoke the amendment.

The second path, one which may be more democratic but is also lengthy and drawn out, is for the House of Representatives to open impeachment hearings and initiate the process that could lead to a conviction of Trump by the Senate, thus removing Trump from office. It would not be difficult to find “high crimes and misdemeanors” that Trump has committed, beginning with his finances.

Many would argue that it would be rash to move ahead with either of these options at this point, and I would agree. However, I would suggest that two steps need to be taken to indicate whether drastic action might be needed in the near future. These two steps are intertwined.

Some Republicans are going to have to stand up to Trump. Obviously, neither the 25^th Amendment nor impeachment and conviction can occur without Republican involvement. Once some Republicans stand up to Trump, it will be illustrative to see what he does.

For example, if there were a handful of Republicans who voted against one of his cabinet nominees, how would Trump respond to that? Would he go on a name-calling tirade? Would he try to cut off federal favors to those senators? Would he try to turn his legion of voters against them?

What would he do about submitting a replacement nominee? If we were talking about Secretary of Health and Human Services, would Trump say that there is no one else in the country who could do the job as well as Dr. Tom Price? Would he insist on resubmitting Price’s name for consideration, or would he be able to move on to someone else?

Suppose that Republican members of Congress joined with Democrats to pass a law saying that the president could not place a gag order on employees in federal agencies. Or if the House of Representative rescinded its adoption on the Holman Rule which gives the president wide leeway in firing workers in the executive branch, or short of firing, actually reducing their pay down to $1 a year.

How big would the Trump tantrum be if Congress went against his will on any of these issues? What would it tell us about his stability, or instability, in situations where Kim Jong-un or Vladimir Putin would rattle his chain?

There certainly is good cause for Republicans to immediately stand up against Trump. Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham have both spoken of the need for the United States to stand strong against Russia. They both have expressed serious concerns about Secretary of State-designate Rex Tillerson’s close ties with Putin.

Surely there is someone else in the United States who could be a better Secretary of State than Tillerson. If either of these senators had constructed a “short list” of twenty possible nominees for Secretary of State, they would have had quite a few who were (a) far more capable than Tillerson, and (b) acceptable to Republicans, and perhaps even some Democrats.

McCain and others have to back Trump to the wall on non-nuclear issues to see how he responds. If he fails those tests, then serious consideration must be given to peaceful means to remove Trump from office.

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