Impeach, Convict, Remove

By Kevin D. Williamson

Tuesday, January 12, 2021

 

Donald Trump should be impeached, convicted, and removed from office.

 

If it takes until five minutes before Joe Biden is sworn in to get it done, then so be it. And if Trump runs out the clock, then he should be impeached and convicted after the fact, barring him from ever holding office again and providing a prelude to his likely prosecution on criminal charges in several jurisdictions.

 

This process should have started before the sacking of the Capitol by the mob he whipped up a week ago. It should have started with the release of the recording of the telephone call between Trump and Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, which documented the president’s attempt to suborn election fraud in Georgia. This was a scheme to effect a coup d’état by means of rank corruption. If that is not an impeachment-worthy offense, nothing is.

 

What stands between the United States and ordinary tyranny is Raffensperger and others like him. They require reinforcements, which Congress must provide.

 

There are criticisms to be made of the impeachment effort. Of course Nancy Pelosi is acting in bad faith — it is the only faith she has, and I expect she manages to act in it even when picking out Christmas presents for her grandkids. Yes, the articles are over-lawyered and introduce unnecessary technical legal disputations into the process. But as my colleague Andrew C. McCarthy has succinctly put it: “The Framers designed impeachment as a political remedy, not a legal one.”

 

The political situation is urgent.

 

As I write this, the president is here in my home state of Texas threatening further political violence, saying that efforts to remove him from office bring with them “tremendous danger,” even as he coyly pretends to foreswear disorder. A stop must be put to this. Congress must stop it.

 

Impeachment, not the 25th Amendment — which never has been used to remove a president — is the remedy fitted to the problem.

 

Much of what is wrong with the Trump presidency is only the cancerous mutation of what is wrong with the presidency itself — its powers have grown too vast, and its role in American public life too central. That is not to ignore the unique character of Donald Trump’s presidency, his patented alloy of instinctive venality and comprehensive incompetence. Nor does it mean failing to fully appreciate what Trump has done as president, attempting to overturn a legitimate election and install himself in continuing power, twice — once through corruption, and once through violence. What it means is that the solution must come from Congress, which for far too long has abdicated its constitutional duty and allowed itself to be dominated by this president and others.

 

As terrifying as it is that the future of this country depends upon the intelligence and patriotism of a body whose prominent members include Josh Hawley and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, legislators cannot punt this one back to the executive branch and hope that Mike Pence will do their work for them. That Mike Pence continues to serve in this administration at all is an indictment of his judgment and his fitness for office in the future.

 

Republicans will have here the joyous opportunity to put themselves forever on the record in this matter, for the judgment of today’s voters and tomorrow’s historians, for their children and their neighbors.

 

As the old miners’ song demands: Which side are you on?

 

Watching the likes of Senator Ted Cruz beclown themselves while trying to get out in front of the Trump parade in hope of taking over as grand marshal — only to discover that they’d got out in front of a riot and a rabble — has been painful for those of us who once admired Cruz and the other conservatives who have made too many excuses and indulged far too much for four years.  Of course there is compromise in politics, and everyone in Washington gets into bed with the Devil from time to time. But this is something different from ordinary coalition-building. That it should be the Republicans who have introduced this distinctively Chavista flavor into American politics is an unsavory irony.

 

It is far past the time for Republican leaders — if there are Republican leaders worth the name — to liberate themselves from the thrall into which they have willingly entered. But they will have to shake themselves out of it. Mitch McConnell cannot do it for them, and surely neither can Nancy Pelosi.

 

What Pelosi can do is introduce the articles of impeachment. And that, for the moment, is sufficient. If Republicans have any remaining authentic patriotism, rather than the prepackaged synthetic stuff you can buy by the pound from Sean Hannity and his sorry ilk — or, barring that, if they possess any instinct for long-term political self-preservation — then they should surprise Pelosi with the one thing that she is not expecting here: a unanimous vote.