Impeachment: The Battle Of 2020
[Writer’s Note: This was originally posted on my website on 12/23/2019. This was considered a “Current Event” article, so new details may have come out since publishing this article that could change the story. Republishing this article is a way to archive old work.]
IMPEACHMENT! It is all over the news, pop culture, billboards, universities, children’s fashion magazines, sports ball games, and… why not here too? It is almost an obligation at this point to say something about this momentous event on a website that centers around political content. So, because of this, I created a “current events” section to cover these kinds of significant occurrences. And as you might be able to tell by my opening few sentences, I will handle this is with the seriousness everyone else has been handling it with.
For a quick review for what has happened so far (by the end of 2019), President Trump has been impeached by the Democrat controlled House… maybe (I will cover that later). With two articles brought forth for the Republican majority Senate to debate and vote on. The formal impeachment inquiry was started on September 24th, 2019 over the infamous Trump-Ukraine phone call in which President Trump discussed investigations into Ukrainian corruption, possible 2016 election interference, and specific corruption surrounding Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and the company he was on the board of, Burisma Holdings. This phone call in combination with executive instruction to withhold aid to Ukraine created a feeling of possible abuse of power on behalf of the president to dig up dirt on a potential 2020 presidential opponent. This event inspired many to take up Latin and throw around the phrase, “quid pro quo” which means “something for something” in Latin. Aid for dirt. This is a crime which should be taken seriously and surely lead to impeachment, if proven.
Bribery, defined as an act of influencing judgement or conduct in an illegal exchange, is the original charge the Democrats in the House were pursuing, but the burden of producing evidence to support elements of a crime proved to be too much to provide in the timeline they were willing to take. Because of this, the first article of impeachment they produced was not the criminal charge of bribery, but the non-criminal charge of “abuse of power.” The Democrats did experience several roadblocks during the impeachment inquiry process including the President’s demands for executive officials to not follow through with congressional subpoenas. Because of this, Democrats were not able to collect all the evidence they wanted for a bribery article of impeachment but did allow them to produce another article in addition to the abuse of power charge.
Obstruction of Justice is a serious crime that does not allow investigating bodies to do their job. But again, it is not easy to prove the criminal elements to support a crime, especially when time is a factor. Obstruction of Justice was not an article produced by the House, but instead, they produced an “Obstruction of Congress” charge. Obstruction of Congress is, well, exactly what it sounds like it is. And it is also obviously what the President did. He and all his defenders do not dispute this charge, but instead dispute the validity of this charge as an impeachable offense. For the text of the articles of impeachment against President Trump, click here.
The Democrats case for both articles of impeachment are the President has acted in his own interests using the power of the presidency. He has also demanded executive officials to defy congressional subpoenas to cover up his crimes. The Democrats brough in Harvard law professor Noah Feldman as a witness to testify for impeachment. Feldman said, “The abuse of office occurs when the President uses a feature of his power, the awesome power of his office, not to serve the interests of the American public but to serve his personal, individual, partisan, electoral interests. That is what the evidence before the House indicates.”
The Republicans case against both articles is abuse of power is not a crime nor is it narrow enough in scope to impeach President Trump without implicating most presidents who have in some capacity acted in their own interests, and obstruction of congress is also not a crime and if the House wanted to enforce congressional subpoenas, they must go to the courts. If President Trump or any executive officials were to defy a court ordered subpoena, they would be obstructing justice which is a crime. The Republicans brought in George Washington law professor Jonathan Turley as a witness to testify against impeachment. Turley said, “Today, my only concern is the integrity and coherence of the constitutional standard and process of impeachment. President Trump will not be our last president and what we leave in the wake of this scandal will shape our democracy for generations to come. I am concerned about lowering impeachment standards to fit a paucity of evidence and an abundance of anger.” Turley continued to point out that abuse of power will be an issue, but not for the President, but for Congress. Turley told the House, “I can’t emphasize this enough and I’ll say it just one more time. If you impeach a president, if you make a high crime and misdemeanor out of going to the courts, it is an abuse of power. It’s your abuse of power. You’re doing precisely what you’re criticizing the president for doing.”
Both cases have their points, but which one is right? How do we move this forward? What does impeachment require in order to be valid? This is where black and white turns to shades of grey.
First, we can ask which side is right? Democrats bring valid facts and opinions forward in each impeachment article. Did President Trump abuse power? It seems very likely he did or at least saw an opportunity to do so. He is definitely using the power of the presidency to help him campaign in 2020, but is that unique to Trump? I do not think we can say it is. If we were to use abuse of power to help campaign or push a personal agenda as a litmus test for an impeachable offense, we would be impeaching presidents left and right (pun intended). Is it not common for a president to change policy to be more friendly to the economy right before an election? Does a president not use his policies to favor a specific voting base? We may not like it, but in some capacity, every president uses their power for personal purposes. For a more specific example, President Obama was caught on a hot mic promising “flexibility” to negotiate with the Russians after the 2012 election. The personal gain was looking strong on Russian missile defense so the American people would not doubt President Obama’s Russia policy. Was this an impeachable offense? Probably not. Abuse of power was an article brought forth during the President Clinton impeachment, but was dismissed because a failed majority vote.
We also have obstruction of Congress. Who is right on that one? Well, it seems like both sides are correct in some respects. President Trump did obstruct Congress, but Congress should have gone to the courts to enforce their subpoenas. This makes it an offense, but not a criminal offense.
The next question is, how does the process move forward after the House vote? The answer is, after votes on each article is taken, and assuming at least one article has a majority vote to move forward, the approved article or articles are then delivered to the Senate for trial and approval with a 2/3’s vote. The problem we are seeing today is Democrat majority leader Nancy Pelosi is refusing to deliver the articles to the Senate claiming there are concerns of unfairness with the Republican lead trial. Republican majority Senate leader Mitch McConnell is not claiming to be impartial to the process that, according to him, would inevitably lead to the acquittal of President Trump. To be fair to Senator McConnell, the House vote on the articles of impeachment were voted on strictly partisan grounds, so why are expectations different for the Senate? We also have an interesting conflict on whether President Trump has officially been impeached by the House if the articles are not delivered to the Senate. Noah Feldman, yes, the same professor brought in to testify on behalf of the Democrats, claims that very position. According to an opinion article by Feldman, “according to the constitution, impeachment is a process, not a vote.” This does not seem like a relevant finding, but it will help President Trump claim he was never impeached by the House during his time campaigning for 2020 if Representative Pelosi refuses to deliver the articles to the Senate.
The final question is, does there need to be a criminal offense to make an impeachment case? The answer many advocates for impeachment give as a defense of the non-criminal articles voted on by the House is no, impeachment is not a criminal trial and needs no criminal elements to support it. This is completely true. Impeachment is a political process, therefore needs no criminal charges. Technically, a president can be impeached for anything. Does this subvert the will of the people? Not exactly. The people vote for their representatives; therefore, those representatives are accountable to the people to be reelected. If we find presidents are being impeached without cause approved by the people, there will be quicker turnover in elected officials voting against the people’s voting interests. This is an interesting way to hold public officials accountable to the people but is an alternative to a direct democracy. Instead of the people voting directly, which can quickly devolve into mob rule, the US government has a system of checks and balances to hold people accountable.
That brings me to my opinions on the matter. I do think the House brought forth legitimate articles of impeachment that is in many ways accurately describing President Trump’s conduct. He did abuse his power, most likely, and he did obstruct Congress. I recognize these offenses not because they are criminal, because they objectively are not, but because impeachment is a political process as I have described before. I completely agree with the Republican’s characterization of the abuse of power article. He may have abused power, but we cannot keep that as a standard for impeachment and not impeach every president we elect moving forward. I also agree with the Republican’s characterization of the obstruction of Congress article, but I would take it a step further. I believe not only the president can obstruct congress, but he or she has an obligation to do so. One of our most important functions of a checks and balances government is for each branch to constantly obstruct the others to make it hard to get anything done. If policy, law, or verdict is passed, it should be such a “no brainer” that all branches agree. So yes, as I have said several times, President Trump did obstruct Congress, but that is not a criminal offense.
What can be done to make all this grey blacker and whiter? It would help if we understood the meaning of “impeachment is a political process.” Politics is “the art or science of government,” according to the Marriam-Webster dictionary, but I would describe it more accurately as, “the art or science of persuasion.” In order to have a government and not become tyrannical, you must persuade the people to follow that government. A criminal process must fulfill criminal elements. A political process must use persuasion to fulfill impeachable elements. Advocates of impeachment must compel the people and their representatives that removal is the best option. This is why impeachment is possible without criminal elements, but it not a very compelling case for impeachment in the end. We are acting hyper-partisan because a compelling case to “come to the other side” has not been established for most people. Therefore, I believe the Democrats have put together a legitimate case for impeachment, but not a compelling case to impeach.
P.S. If you are still reading, and I hope you are, I will be republishing my writing from my website on Medium so there may be some older stories I cover, although I do not often cover current events. I shut down my website because I have changed my main resource of communication and content hosting to Locals.com. Although I will be publishing my long-form written content on Medium, you can find my more regular content, podcasts, and interactive community at engineeringpolitics.locals.com. Please feel free to join this growing community if you want to stay up to date and/or support this content. Thank you for your consideration!
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