Sunday, January 22, 2017

Here is What Will Get Donald Trump Impeached

For my readers in other countries, which is most of you, you must remember that to be impeached it takes a majority of the House of Representatives to indict the President and 2/3's of the Senate must vote to impeach.  So there will have to be substantial Republican support to impeach Donald Trump.

Violations of the Emoluments Clause will not be enough to get the GOP legislators to vote for this.  Too many of their voters and campaign contributions don't see this clause as applying to a business relationship, unless there is a smoking gun relationship to a direct policy action.  Which there may be some day, but I doubt it.  And if Trump were a Democrat with liberal leanings for the Supreme Court you can be the GOP would be already filing for impeachment on this basis.  But the GOP cannot let hypocrisy get in their way of ramming their vision for America down our throats.

What I believe Trump could do and the GOP will not stand for is use t"he IRS, the FBI, and Regulatory Agencies for personal advantage and abusing power against his perceived enemies"*.  If he does that, then we will see calls for impeachment rise in a bipartisan way.

The only drawback to that as a Democrat, is Mike Pence is also a Conservative ideologue and the GOP will still control the Congress so policies will not improve upon impeachment.  The only saving grace is a man of no morals will no longer be in the White House.

Of course, Machiavellian men do not see abuse of power as a flaw, but rather as the way of the world. So perhaps the GOP would not support an impeachment under these circumstances.


*Peter Wehner NYT column

No comments:

Post a Comment