On Impeachment, the Tables Have Turned
By Felix Yeung
Columnist
“The best way to remove Trump is at the ballot box,” I was recently told. Perhaps this is the case. Perhaps it is not. The practicality of Trump’s removal from the Oval Office through the United States Congress is, to me, a secondary concern. Instead, our interest should lie in the fact that the legislature will not continue to indulge a president whose actions regularly blur the lines between executive power and illegal overreach. Nancy Pelosi’s speech on Tuesday was a victory. Still, I ask: what took the Democrats so long?
President Donald Trump is a symbiosis of idiocy and venom and has regularly shown his brazen disregard for the laws of the land. The most recent evidence, his pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Ukranian business interests of Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, served as the catalyst for Pelosi’s recent speech. When Zelensky resisted, Trump conveniently withdrew American military aid from Ukraine over concerns of corruption. I have to say, the man has a good sense of irony. The President of the United States of America attempted to impede a political opponent by manipulating foreign forces. We should take a moment to let that sink in. Because it is egregious.
Nevertheless, these allegations are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of abuse of power. After persuasion from reality television personality Kim Kardashian, Trump made it his personal goal to intervene in the detainment of rapper A$AP Rocky in Sweden earlier this year. He went so far as to direct American diplomats to threaten Sweden with “negative consequences” should Rocky not be released. Allow me to make clear that Sweden is a state in which the law respects the right to due process. Trump’s intrusion into Rocky’s case is, at best, a demonstration that the president does not understand the rule of law. At worst, it is another example of his flagrant misuse of the awesome power that he holds.
Trump has also broken campaign finance laws with hush-money payments to women alleging to have had affairs with him (including Stormy Daniels), pressured agencies to “lock up” such political opponents as Hillary Clinton and investigate such critics as Kathy Griffin and fought tooth-and-nail to bar entry into this country based on religion. He also failed to fully sever fiscal ties with his businesses, promoting his properties as venues for government events and urging government officials to use them as lodgings while conducting official state business. Perhaps most importantly, he attempted to obstruct the investigation into his potential collusion with Russia. In his testimony before Congress, special investigator Robert Mueller refused to say that the president had not obstructed justice. The evidence in Mueller’s detailed report seemed to suggest that he had. These charges, among others, are chronicled in Need to Impeach, an online movement backed by presidential candidate Tom Steyer '75.
It seemed that these blatant abuses of power were not grounds enough for impeachment to some, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. I wondered: if these acts aren’t impeachable offenses, what acts are? How can elected representatives choose political success over moral imperatives? Why do the Democrats—and Republicans—of Congress let Trump’s indiscretions slide?
What the House does now will set a precedent. It will set the confines within which a president may act. It will be an example of the fact that action, even delayed, can send a cogent message. Now, Trump, a president who does not know right from wrong, will know what it means to be reined in.
Still, Trump and his cronies have been allowed to infest the political atrium for too long. Blame for this goes to those on both sides of the aisle. Democratic leaders feared backlash during the next election cycle, while a majority of congressional Republicans, putting party over morality, continue to stand behind their false messiah. I may be an idealist, but such political concerns cannot and should not dictate the responses of elected officials to the perversion of the highest office in the land by its current occupant. As Elizabeth Warren said just days ago, “Congress is complicit.”
It is now time to send President Donald Trump the message that he is not invincible. Even if it does not result in removal from office, impeachment will formally condemn President Trump and mar his legacy. It will discourage those who endeavor to follow in his footsteps from repeating the odious steps he has taken to stay in power and benefit from it.
Politicians have been impeached for less. Bill Clinton was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice. In this case, Trump’s actions seem drastically more grievous than those of President Clinton. Even the crimes of Richard Nixon, whose Watergate scandal resulted in articles of impeachment and his eventual resignation, seem less serious to me.
Now, some say that impeachment will be folly; a public spectacle with little payoff. After all, impeachment is only the first step in removal from office, and it is unlikely that a Mitch McConnell-led Senate is going to oust Trump. Even so, further public inquiries into the president’s action will be a worthwhile endeavor. This is a fight worth having. This fight to stand up against further incursions into the United States’ democracy is worth the political risks. This is the only question left: will Congress have the spine to do what it should?