Holtzman Elizabeth - The Case for Impeaching Trump

The

Case

for

Impeaching
Trump

Elizabeth

holtzman

New York

The Case for Impeaching Trump

Copyright 2018 by Elizabeth Holtzman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Electronic edition published 2018 by RosettaBooks

Cover design by Brian Peterson

eISBN: 978-0-7953-5167-9

www.RosettaBooks.com

Dedication

To Rebecca J. Folkman (19422017),
friend extraordinare, from the fourth gradeand always

Acknowledgements

T his book could not have been written without the hard work, exceptional intelligence, scholarship, and dedication of Victoria Bassetti. I am deeply in her debt. Thanks, too, go to Marshall Sonenshine, investment banker, lawyer, documentary film producer, and now literary agent, for making this book happen, and for his faith in me. I want to salute Common Cause, Karen Hobert Flynn, its president, and Stephen Spaulding, its Chief of Strategy, for first suggesting that I think seriously and systematically about impeachment, and for generously supporting my effort. I am grateful to my publisher, Tony Lyons, my editor, Michael Campbell, and my copy editor, Janet Byrne, for taking on this project. My friend Judith S. Ames and my brother Dr. Robert N. Holtzman were wonderful cheerleaders throughout. I am especially thankful to my friend, Jayme B. Hannay, for her unflagging encouragement and patience. Any mistakes in the book are my own.

Contents

Impeachment

W hen Donald Trumps presidential election victory was announced in the early morning hours of November 9, 2016, like many Americans, I rubbed my eyes in disbelief and dismay. Two questions raced through my mind:

What had become of America that a man so unfit, so small-minded, so mean-spirited could be elected? A man whose ethnic and racial bigotry had set the stage for his presidential run when he called Mexicans rapists and made racist birther attacks on President Barack Obama. Whose vulgarity and misogyny were laid bare in the Access Hollywood tape when he bragged about forcibly grabbing women by their genitals. Whose performance at presidential debates showed him not only flagrantly ill-informed, but manifestly unwilling to get informed.

My second question was how much harm this man would do to America as its 45th president.

I have my answer now to the latter, less than two years after the election. President Trump has damaged American democracy far more than I would have guessed. He has refused to protect our system of free elections from foreign interference; he has relentlessly attacked the administration of justice, in particular the investigation into a possible conspiracy with Russia regarding the 2016 presidential election, putting himself above the rule of law; he has failed to separate his personal business from the countrys, flouting the Constitutions requirements; and he has violated the constitutional rights of the people in separating children from parents at the Southwest border without due process of lawand to cover up these misdeeds, he has systematically lied and assailed the press. These are great and dangerous offenses that the framers of our Constitution wanted to counteract and thwart. They provided a powerful remedy. Impeachment.

Many tremble at the word, fearing how President Trumps supporters will react to an impeachment inquiry, worrying that it will only further polarize an already deeply divided nation or that there will not be enough votes in the Senate to convict him even if the House of Representatives votes to impeach. Just calling for an inquiry will be viewed as a Democratic Party attack on the head of another party, a kind of coup dtat. Its easy to find reasons to be anxious.

Im not afraid. As a junior congresswoman, the youngest ever elected at that time, I served on the House Judiciary Committee that voted to impeach President Richard Nixon for the high crimes and misdemeanors he committed in connection with the Watergate cover-up and other matters. Thorough, fair, and above all bipartisan, the committee acted on solid evidence presented in televised hearings that riveted the nation, handing us the blueprint for how impeachment can be successfully pursued today. In our 225 years of constitutional democracy, the Nixon impeachment process has proven to be the only presidential effort that worked. Though Nixon resignedthe only president ever to do sotwo weeks after the committees impeachment vote, he did so to avoid the certainty of being impeached and removed from office. We became a better nation for having held the president accountable.

All of which raises two further questions: Should we be considering the impeachment of President Donald J. Trump? Will we again become a better nation by pursuing that option? To answer, we need to set aside President Trumps unremitting attacks on the environment, on our close allies, on almost every program that President Obama put into effect, including the Affordable Care Act, and any disagreements we have over policy, as well as any personal animus, and ascertain simply whether he has engaged in the kind of egregious conduct that would meet the constitutional standards for impeachment and removal from office.

This means we have to focus sharply on his potentially impeachable offenses. In so doing, we will find it useful to compare them, when possible, to similar offenses by President Nixon found to be impeachable by the House Judiciary Committee in 1974. Here is a list of some of President Trumps potentially impeachable offenses developed as of this writing:

A possible interference with or obstruction of the administration of justice and an abuse of power. On May 9, 2017, Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, who was investigating both his national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and Russias connections to the Trump campaign in connection with influencing the 2016 presidential election. Two days later, President Trump admitted to NBCs Lester Holt that Comeys firing had to do with the Russia thingin other words, President Trump acknowledged that he was trying to shut down the FBI investigation into his possible conspiracy with Russia. (Flynn has since pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.)

The Comey firing uncannily echoes Nixons firing of the special Watergate prosecutor for seeking highly damaging information about the presidenta brazen defiance of the rule of law that triggered the start of impeachment proceedings against Nixon.

A second possible interference with or obstruction of the administration of justice and an abuse of power. President Trump has persistently and publicly attacked those heading the Russia investigation, including special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and has repeatedly condemned Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself, suggesting that he wants to fire any and all of them in order to get control of the Russia investigation. (He actually did give an order to fire Mueller.)