Impeaching Trump Before He Takes Office
This is what democracy looks like
I didn’t vote for Trump. I didn’t vote for Hillary. Neither did I vote for the toker nor the litigious left fielder. Not having a horse in the race was incredibly liberating for this former campaign lackey.
The single most enjoyable part of Trump’s election (thus far) has been the collective lefty meltdown; a glorious sight to behold.
First, there were the attempts to overturn the results of the election by way of that whole embarrassing Electoral College coup that never materialized. When the coup fell flat, the entirety of the Democrats and establishment media woke up one Monday and miraculously, simultaneously decided that despite zero evidence, the Russians had “hacked the election” — whatever that means. Sure they probably hacked into the DNC’s emails, but that was old news.
Now, and this is probably my favorite, there’s talk of impeaching Trump before he’s been sworn in.
Don’t get me wrong — I can’t stand Trump, not even a little, but as I wrote after he won the Presidential election — I’d love nothing more than to be proved wrong.
That said, talk of impeaching Trump when he’s as of yet innocent is hilarious. Sad, but hilarious.
Robert Kuttner, a HuffPo Contributor has this whole impeachment thing all planned out:
There is only one constitutional way to remove a president, and that is via impeachment.
What’s needed is a citizens’ impeachment inquiry, to begin on Trump’s first day in office.
The inquiry should keep a running dossier, and forward updates at least weekly to the House Judiciary Committee. There will be no lack of evidence.
The materials should be made public via a website. The inquiry should be conducted by a distinguished panel whose high-mindedness and credentials are, well, unimpeachable.
There needs to be a parallel public campaign, pressing for an official investigation. For those appalled by Trump, who wonder where to focus their efforts, here is something concrete―and more realistic than it may seem.
Trump has already committed grave misdeeds of the kind that the Constitutional founders described as high crimes and misdemeanors. With his commingling of his official duties and his personal enrichment, Trump will be in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which unambiguously prohibits any person holding public office from profiting from gifts or financial benefits from “any king, prince or Foreign state.”
Trump, who has entangled his business interests with his political connections at home and abroad, has already declared his contempt for these Constitutional protections. He declared, “The law is totally on my side, meaning the president can’t have a conflict of interest.” Oh, yes he can, and this president will.
In his dalliance with Vladimir Putin, Trump’s actions are skirting treason. John Shattuck, former Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and former Washington legal director of the ACLU has pointed to the constitutional definition of treason: a crime committed by a person “owing allegiance to the United States who… adheres to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort.” By undermining further investigation or sanctions against the Russian manipulation of the 2016 election, Trump as president would be giving aid and comfort to Russian interference with American democracy.
“There will be a lot more once Trump takes office. Trump will make grievous mistakes,” cautions Kuttner. So, let’s impeach him before he gets a chance to maybe do something wrong!
If playing fields were remotely equal (and they’re not), just imagine the weeping and gnashing of teeth if Republicans suggested impeaching Hillary before she’d had a chance to put her talon on The Good Book. Hell, we’d be maligned as sexist, ageist, and lord knows what else.
Want to impeach Trump before he’s sworn in or immediately thereafter? Fine. The political fall-out will be glorious, as will a President Pence. And both would be wins for the right.
Lost in all of the post-Trump-win meltdowns is a tiny but very significant fact — America chose him. For better, worse, or cold war, American primary and general election voters picked The Donald to steer the ship. You don’t have to like it (I certainly don’t), but that doesn’t really matter; not when you live in a democratic republic like we do.
This is what democracy looks like!
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Comments
As the Republicans learned to their dismay with Slick Willie, if you’re going to impeach, make sure it’s really about “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Along with putting Keith Ellison as DNC chair, I encourage the Democrats to go down this garbage disposal with all their heart.
Billy Jeff really did commit high crimes and misdemeanors. That’s why he lost his law license. He committed perjury and suborned perjury.
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/clinton/evidenceanalyzed.html
“…In the case of William Clinton, we had a President who lied repeatedly under oath, suborned perjury, and hid evidence. His lies, while about sex, continued after they were necessary to save his marriage or avoid extreme embarrassment. He lied to the grand jury when his basis for doing so was to avoid admitting earlier acts of perjury. There is no question but that the President’s actions were not those we would like to see from the nation’s chief enforcer of federal law…”
This may appear not to be an opinion that supports my contention. But I chose it precisely for that reason. Law professors aren’t above letting their politics trump reason. Notice this individual only gives two reasons why Clinton would lie. To save his marriage, and to avoid embarrassment.
And of course the lies were only about sex, which is the liberal give away, as that was the talking.
The 800lb. Gorilla in the room is that he sexual harassment. When you’re being sued for sexual misconduct, and you’re guilty as sin, sex is what you have to lie about. There’s no point in lying about the weather; that’s not what he’s getting sued over.
This is why O.J. Simpson didn’t have to lie about sex in the wrongful death civil case brought by the Brown and Goldman families. What Simpson had to lie about was murder. And he did, badly, and lost.
So this obtuse individual pretends not to understand why Clinton kept lying about sex long after it was necessary to save his marriage or avoid embarrassment. Duh! He kept lying because he didn’t want to to lose. When it became obvious he would he settled.
So, this person who pretends not to understand why he kept lying also is pretending to be so obtuse that this individual has to pretend as if the only thing at stake is Billy Jeff’s marriage or public embarrassment. As if there isn’t even a civil trial going on that has other possible outcomes involving more that just those two things.
Naturally, this obtuse individual pretends in the conclusion that we’ll just never know if he committed an impeachable offense. Yeah, we can know. He did.
This isn’t an example of “if you’re going to impeach, make sure it’s really about ‘high crimes and misdemeanors.’” This is an example of Leftist double standards.
Barack Obama could break into some random family’s home, have his SS security detail shoot the family dog, grill it in their backyard just like stepdad Lolo taught him back in Indonesia. and that would have been OK. In fact, the national press corps would have accused the shocked, weeping family of racism and cultural insensitivity. It’s only their white privilege that blinds them to the fact that Obama the lightworker as generous enough to share Indonesian culture with them, and now they’re bitching about it. Clearly they’re racists who only didn’t like seeing their dog get shot, grilled, and eaten because they can’t stand the thought of a strong black man being the president.
Those privileged white racists never complained when white presidents broke into people’s homes and turned Fido into dog-kabobs.
Hillary Clinton could have shot and BBQ’d every endangered animal in the National Zoo, every Dem pol and the entire national press corps would have jumped at the chance to attend the feast, and then later they would have defended HRC by saying it’s cruel to keep animals in cages and it was an act of mercy. When they weren’t denying it ever happened, calling it loony right wing “fake news” being spread by angry old white men waging a war on women, even thought they posted selfies of themselves with HRC at the BBQ on facebook or were tweeting those selfies out all over the twitterverse.
You see, that would have been OK, too. Just like they were all fine with Billy Jeff lying under oath, suborning perjury, etc. As Nina Burleigh of NPR said at the time, she would have put on kneepads and polished Billy Jeff’s brass to thank him for keeping abortion legal. And there would have been a line of reporters and Dem Reps and Senators, male and female, all wearing kneepads behind her. And these people were going to convict him in the Senate?
But if one of the Dem’s private investigators gets pictures of Der Donald so much as jaywalking they’re going to demand his impeachment.
The lawyer tasked by the House to run the impeachment investigation was a Democrat. Some years later, I listened to him talk about the charges finally agreed on by the Republican run house. He said that there were far more serious charges that the house could have settled on but they chose the glamour charges involving women.
“Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors” as set out in Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution.”
Is whatever the House of Representatives says it is when they bring the charges. And whether the persn is guilty depends upon whatever the Senate decides is enough for a vote of guilty.
Practically speaking, the constitutional definitions can be left on the floor.
Remember, Congress makes its own rules.
It was. The press faked it.
What I like is that he basically called Hillary a traitor, since everything he said applies to her.
So let’s say they get what they want- Trump is impeached and booted from office immediately. We end up with President Pence- a level-headed midwesterner who doesn’t suffer from twitterrhea, and plenty of time for the public to forget.
Trump is apparently at his best when he’s at his worst- in campaign mode. If the left was smart, they’d shut up and let events play out.
But they’re not. So they’ll just keep adding fuel to his fire.
I like Mike Pence. He has been a good and loyal supporter of President Trump since he was picked. He has shown some signs of absorbing the genius of President Trump’s conservative populist policies and results driven management style. But he is no President Trump yet. VP Pence needs to study under President Trump for 8 years and then he will be ready to be President. VP Pence has made me very glad that Ted Cruz never angled for the VP spot. VP Pence is a far better choice for VP to President Trump and far better choice for a future President after President Trump’s terms are over than Ted Cruz could ever possibly be.
The Russians did NOT “Hack” the DNC or John Podesta. John Podesta stupidly allowed himself to fall victim to a phishing scheme. You know about those. Everyone gets those in their inbox now and again.
And even if the Russians DID hack the DNC (which I don’t believe for a millisecond), the Russians are not responsible for the contents of the DNC emails.
The Russians and every other government in the world probably did indeed hack Hillary’s homegrown jerry-rigged server lodged in a bathroom, but HILLARY bears that responsibility.
As far as influencing elections goes, the Obama regime has gone well out of its way to influence elections in both Israel and the UK (spending our money to do so) and has been actively complicit in the overthrow of the LIbyan and Egyptian governments and a direct instigator of the Syrian mess. They’ve really no room whatever to talk.
The MSM has won this one: no one has mentioned what Julian Assange said: the source was not the Russians. He even had someone say I got them and turned them over to Assange.
Fake news has been alive and well forever.
I think no one has paid attention to what Julian Assange says because Julian has blown his credibility with everyone the last few years. He very well may be telling the truth this time, but no one is going to take the chance of believing anything he says anymore.
Julian Assange has blown his credibility?
Oh, do tell! Please be precise, because Assange is a publisher (just like the Washington Post) and his organization has gone to great lengths to verify the information they publish (unlike the Washington Post).
A clear, principled distinction between the Pentagon Papers, which were stolen and published by the Washington Post and New York Times, and John Podesta’s emails would be useful to support Servo’s comment, below. My comment is placed here, due to the inability to reply.
A “hack” is any unauthorized breach of a computer system. The method used to breach the system is not relevant. You’re trying to excuse a car thief because he first conned the owner out of the key and then used it to “take” (not “steal”) the car without permission.
I am NOT saying Podesta’s computer wasn’t breached by Russians. I’m saying it was hacked because the entry (by whomever and by whatever means) was unauthorized.
Your persistent Trump Derangement Syndrome is a known quantity—and of course your right—but it doesn’t explain why you persist in disseminating Dem propaganda.
Sure they hacked into the DNC’s emails
Ah yes, their persistent and silly The Russians Did It fantasy. And the evidence for this sure hacking is … ?
Yes, this is nothing but Virtue Signaling, the same thing we saw too much of during the pre-Obama years. “I am no fan of Bush, BUT…” It adds no meaningful content to the article, other than pointing out that the author wants you to know that their morality is superior to all others. It adds fuel to the left-wing fire, and it does nothing to help conservatives. It belongs on the Huffington Post website, not here.
Imagine the Russians hacked DNC computers. This does not mean that Assange didn’t acquire the emails from a different source. The two scenarios are not mutually exclusive. The Russians could have hacked DNC systems as part of an intelligence operation for their own benefit. Simultaneously, an insider may have leaked the DNC’s emails to WikiLeaks. There is motive aplenty for both operations to have occurred in parallel.
I read the definition of treason carefully and I wonder when Obama’s trial will begin. I know… racist.
Hillary enriches herself as SoS while enabling Russian companies to take ownership of a large portion of our national uranium reserves and it’s all good. Trump says some positive things about Putin, done as a way to jab his thumb in Obama’s eye, and the left goes full meltdown mode. Lord this is going to be an entertaining four years.
Some years ago, an employee had a sign hung on the wall of his cubicle. It read: Around here, you can earn as many at-a-boys as possible. Be forewarned though, one all shit wipes them out!
What I perceive as a problem with some of what’s being circulated about Trump is not only isn’t he being given the at-a-boys he deserves, the ones he has earned are being portrayed as all shits.
To my limited capabilities, if nothing else, Trump is due our gratitude for being a catalyst for a national discussion and debate about matters long overdue, not the least of them being the bias of the MSM. So, yes, I could envision powerful, malignant forces seeking to undo his administration and him.
Given President-Elect Trump’s decisions thus far, I do hope his enemies fail and mightily so.
This is where Gitmo becomes valuable. After the swearing in, round up these clowns and put them in cages with their jihadi friends.
Hillary Clinton and her ilk would have done it to us in a heartbeat.
They have hearts?
Nice to know the opposition is this inept. Robert Kuttner would do much more for his party if he would focus on getting the actual criminals out of the Party and the DNC.
Donald Trump is never going to destroy the Democratic Party. If he stays in, John Podesta and his crew will surely do so.
I had some hopes for Pence, who showed some signs of being his own man early on.
Since Carrier and his outright denouncement of market economics…in so many words…he’s dropped all pretense at being any particle a conservative, and is just another T-rump toady.
As to impeachment, you or I have no business voting for anyone you or I would not cheerfully impeach in the proper circumstances. This was one of the great evils of Barracula; he was essentially immune from impeachment. As I noted years ago, this means we simply cannot have another minority president until the nation matures fully along race lines.
If you vote for someone you would not vigorously move to impeach, you are simply a cultist. You have no principles. It’s all about a cult of personality.
In the very short sighted world of the cult of principles losing everything is preferred to mostly winning or winning everything in the wrong way. No wonder you are so clueless about Trump’s results driven management style.
It used to be said about Great Britain tennis players and coaches that they would rather lose looking pretty with their classically styled strokes than to win ugly.
Which naturally has nothing to do with supporting a stinking, lying, PATHOLOGICAL, Collectivist fraud. As you always have here, while lying about being a former Cruz supporter.
But there were so many, many lies you’ve told. Being a non-member of any “cult of principles”.
Why am I reading an article and a website that has a political opinion piece by someone how gleefully touts they didn’t vote?? Maybe Colin Kaepernick will write the next column here?
She…like millions of us…DID vote.
We voted “neither”, and told the system it had to do MUCH better than offer us the two worst people in the US as POTUS candidates.
You should join some other website and make comments there.
But then that makes you just like the sore loser Dems.
The system HAD the opportunity to offer us much better – we had Walker and Cruz in the mix. They lost. Get over it.
The “system” worked as intended, you simply didn’t like the result. Neither did I. But like most others, I was adult enough to accept the results of the primaries and vote for whoever could stop Hillary.
In hindsight, I don’t think Cruz or Walker could have beaten Hillary. They would have run a “standard” GOPe campaign and lost gracefully, just like Mittens did.
I hadn’t had you down as a cliche-spouting idiot until this comment.
I hope it’s transitory. Get over it.
I voted for Cruz in the primary, and I flirted with being a never-trumper and voting for Gary Johnson. But then his VP came out as a full-bore Hillary shill in the last couple of weeks and I couldn’t support him anymore. (not to mention all the stupid things he kept saying, which were mostly ignored as no one was taking him seriously.
I thought seriously about not voting, but i decided I could not live with the chance of Hillary winning and me not have taken my best shot at knocking her out, so in the end I voted for Trump.
But I hold nothing against those who decided they couldn’t do that, because I know how close I was to that decision for most of the campaign. The only people I truly can never forgive are those who went all in for Hillary. Everyone else I can make a good peace with, but not them. They are my enemies, now and forever.
Not true. If you did not cast a VOTE for a candidate who had a chance of winning, you did not VOTE. An abstention is not a vote.
In 2008 I voted for McCain. Not because I liked McCain, who is nothing more than a Liberal Progressive with an R after his name and who spends more time supporting the Dems than he does his own party. But to vote against Obama, an even bigger Liberal Progressive. In 2012, I voted for Romney. Again, not because I liked a man who was nothing more than another Liberal Progressive with an R after his name; but, because 4 more years of Obama would be disastrous and Romney might not be quite as bad. So, when someone tries to make it sound like doing NOTHING is being morally superior, I have a good belly laugh.
Some of you people touted Cruz as the maverick outsider who took on his own party. However, for his whole political life he has been a card carrying member of the GOPe. He positioned himself to take advantage of the anti-establishment ground swell growing in the GOP by seeming to oppose his party, because he is a smart, savvy politician. However, his Congressional opposition had NO effect on the Establishment agenda. Now, if Trump had not thrown his hat into the race, Cruz would probably have won the GOP nomination. But, once Trump entered the race, the anti-establishment movement was smart enough to see that Cruz was an obvious establishment insider and Trump wasn’t. Trump won and the rest of the pack lost.
You are correct. Cruz nor any other candidate other than Trump could have beat Hillary and her media puppets. Cruz was and is just a regional niche candidate who would have lost bigger than Mittens in 2012.
Let it be remembered that this is nothing but the broke-dick opinion of the most slavering of all the T-rump sucking cultists ever to darken this blog.
Thank you! During the campaign, it was an exercise in futility to point out to the never-Trumpers that voting for anyone other than Trump was the same as writing in Woody Woodpecker, because it did nothing to oppose Hillary. But people seemed to think that their vote would be recorded as an opposition to Trump, which would affect future elections in some unspecified way. I always wonder if people like that are undercover Democrat operatives.
Then after casting a vote effectively in support of Hillary they put on their Cruz dunce caps and started crying like a bunch of little babies.
Lots of us would issue you the same invitation.
I have passed on voting for candidates for certain offices in the past, the presidency among them. The principle is simple – if you don’t support any of the candidates, you don’t vote for them. The reason for the principle is simple – if you vote for a candidate you don’t support (say, because you want to vote against another candidate you like less), if that candidate wins, you are partly responsible for whatever that winner may do in office, including those things you knew he’d do in office that you didn’t want to see him do. The person who votes for nobody on principle can say of any winner, “I didn’t vote for that jerk.”
John Quincy Adams said,”Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” Your vote is surely lost if you vote for a candidate you can’t support on principle.
“I didn’t vote for Trump. I didn’t vote for Hillary. Neither did I vote for the toker nor the litigious left fielder. Not having a horse in the race…”
You did have a horse in this race. It’s called ‘your country.’
Your inaction could have elected Hillary Clinton.
Re this kind of psycho nonsense: look for McCain, Graham, McConnell, Ryan et al to join the left in it.
Ryan and McConnell need to go.
You mean Der Donald’s new BFFs…???
After Mr. Establishment endorsed them ALLLL? Hardly likely.
Just as I predicted.
Forest Rags says: simple is as simple does.
Predictions emanating from your alternate reality are meaningless. Here in the real world your predictions and understanding of Trump actions are on a par with your juvenile writing style.
Odd, then, Lying Gary, that I’ve nailed his conduct repeatedly.
But you’ll lie about anything, and are simply a T-rump sucking cultist of the slimiest order.
As we both know.
Impeachment of someone who holds no office? This guy does write some interesting fiction but I don’t understand why it is being published on a soi disant news site. I’d like him to explain what the basis is for this action.
In order for a federal official to be impeached that official must be charged with “Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors” as set out in Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution. Even if it occurred and could be proven bribery of a private citizen isn’t a Constitutional matter. And even though elected by the People and confirmed by the Electoral College Donald Trump will remain a private citizen not constrained by Art.II, Sec.4 until he is sworn in January 20th.
Nice try, Mr. Kuttner, but no cigar. Come back when you have a better grasp of our language, and the Constitution.
So, let me get this straight. We are finishing up TWO terms of a President who may not have been born either to TWO people having US citizenship or, possibly, even within the territory of the USA. Who was a CITIZEN of a foreign country, for all of his formative years, and who may never have petitioned to have his citizenship reinstated. Who has serious questions concerning both his social security number and his selective service registration. Whose administration released an official government document, a birth certificate, which has been shown to be almost certainly a forgery. Who refused to release ANY of his records, including his birth certificate, school records and passport records. And, all of the yahoos who were not concerned about the most powerful man in the world being a virtual cypher want to build a case against the next President based upon things that he MAY do in the future. Please.
Trump may not be very likable. He may be bombastic and rude. But, it appears that he can get things done. Maybe people ought to give the guy the first year to see how he does, before they start talking impeachment.
The birth certificate was most certainly a forgery. When it first became available online, I downloaded a copy of it and opened it in Adobe Illustrator. It had layers. Anyone who knows anything about image and document creation knows that a scan of a paper document to PDF results in what’s called a “flattened” image, i.e., it has no layers. Layers may be used in the creation of the original document or image, but once committed to paper and the paper is subsequently scanned, the resulting image or PDF document has no layers. The “birth certificate” was not a scan of an existing document – it was the file from which the “document” was created by assembling the parts necessary to create a forgery of an actual document. The forger forgot to flatten the image, and better still, he should have printed it out and then scanned it, and the PDF resulting from the scan should have been posted for the public’s consumption. This was a major cock-up that, with the collusion of the MSM, they were able to sweep under the rug.
For the record, I believe Barry is a citizen, but not because he was born in Hawaii. Barry is a citizen because his biological father was Frank Marshall Davis. Because Barry was born outside the US (most likely in Kenya) to a woman who was incapable of conferring her US citizenship on Barry (statute at the time prevented the conference), a forged Hawaii birth certificate was necessary to claim citizenship while keeping the identity of his actual father a secret. Barry probably figured that if his biological father was known, he would be unelectable.
Well, whaddya know? After eight years of national denigration, diminishment, and destruction under Obama, the Left is suddenly concerned about having a traitor in the Oval Office. Sorry, libtards, but you let that horse out of the stable years ago.
All Donald Trump has to do is remain loyal to his base. That’s it.
Screw the democrats, the media and the GOPe: the base will bankrupt the media, and vote out the GOPe.
The Donald will remain standing, and his base will stand alongside him.
It is important to remember that the majority of the DJT base detest both the Democrat and Republican elites. Trump is not a Dem. or GOPe.
Impeachment? It’ll never happen.
The requirement for “high-mindedness” in the impeachment panel is so perfect for the Left. They still think they’re better than the rest of us.