When Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election she was expected to win, anti-Trumpers began clamoring for his impeachment, even before he was
inaugurated.
The Mueller investigation and report didn’t do the trick. But President Trump’s July 25 phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy may have.
The Associated Press reported Thursday that Zelenskiy said no blackmail occurred — no tit-for-tat trading of military aid for a probe of Democrat presidential race front-runner Joe Biden.
But Trump’s apparent indiscretion sparked a U.S. House of Representatives impeachment inquiry — a prelude to possible actual impeachment in the House and a Senate trial.
The Dominion Post asked three WVU law professors with expertise in the U.S. Constitution if Trump’s pumping for a Biden probe rises to the level of impeachment for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
They are, in alphabetical order, Bob Bastress, Anne Lofaso and John Taylor.
Bastress
Bastress said from what he’s seen so far, there’s been no impeachable offense. But he hasn’t read the transcript of the phone call.
Trump’s action does warrant, he said, further investigation to determine the extent to which Trump compromised the integrity of an election and possibly national security. It’s possible to infer the transcript, with obvious redactions, is an accurate record of the conversation.
Bastress said, “Impeachment is really a drastic remedy.” And really political. The investigation could take a long time, and it wouldn’t surprise him to see it drag through to the 2020 election.
“From the information I’ve seen so far, I have not detected an impeachable offense, but then I have not read the ‘transcript’ of Trump’s phone conversation with the Ukrainian leader and I have heard there are reasons to doubt the completeness and accuracy of the transcript. (If it was doctored, there could be an obstruction of justice. Compare Nixon.) I can say that I have certainly heard enough to warrant making the impeachment inquiry and investigation.”
Lofaso
Lofaso said the real question is does it rise to level of investigation? “Clearly it does.”
Investigation will determine if the call transcript is accurate, with only minor things or garble trimmed out. “It could be a very thorough summary. We don’t know.”
It is reasonable to interpret from the transcript that he was asking the leader of another country to interfere with the election, she said, by making or finding dirt on his rival.
The inquiry also offers Trump some fairness, she said. More than 50% of the electorate now favor impeachment and the inquiry could exonerate him.
And more smoke keeps rising. The two Florida businessmen indicted last week for alleged illegal donations to Super PACs, including a Morgantown-based PAC, also had alleged ties to Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and the various Ukraine issues.
Looking further back, Trump’s one change to the GOP platform at the GOP convention was to alter the party’s Ukraine policy, which served to befit Russia’s President Putin.
The House has ad duty to investigate, which extends back to the unique set of checks and balances the nation’s founders created in the Constitution. “We need to have the rule of law in this country,” she said.
We’ve become so tribal, Lofaso said, so red and blue, that we don’t always see clearly. She teaches her students about “confirmation bias,” where evidence is viewed through the lens of our biases to find what we want and confirm our biases.
She urges them to look at the office, not the person. If you’re a Trump fan, for example, ask how you would react if Obama did it. And vice-versa. That will reveal any bias.
Lofaso said she believes if Trump did commit an impeachable offense, tribalism will give way to Americanism. People will see the crime or offense as destructive to democracy and look past red or blue. If there’s no evidence, the Democrats will look bad.
“I’m just waiting for the evidence to come in and see where it brings us.”
Taylor
While there’s some historical disagreement about the issue, Taylor said, it’s not essential for “high crimes and misdemeanors” to involve a criminal offense. The phrase encompasses serious abuses of public office.
“Whether it’s a crime or not, I think it’s a serious abuse of public office and would qualify as high crime and misdemeanor.”
Taylor doesn’t expect the courts would bail Trump out by ruling that his phone call or any subsequent actions fall within the purview of the phrase. If Trump went to court to ask for an interpretation of the phrase, the court would say that job falls to Congress.
“At the end of the day it’s very much a political process,” he said. The Democrats will investigate and the House will vote, primarily along party lines. In the Senate, conviction would require 67 votes and there’s no indication Trump’s supporters will desert him. A similar thing happened for Bill Clinton — the House majority Republicans impeached him but it was obvious up front he wouldn’t be removed from office.
In the letter Trump’s counsel sent out telling executive bench personnel not to cooperate with the inquiry, Trump cites the lack of a full House vote to launch the inquiry as one reason to oppose it.
But there’s nothing in the Constitution mandating that vote. Moving ahead without a vote may seem unfair, but it’s not required. The GOP-led House did hold a vote for the Clinton inquiry.
But Trump wouldn’t cooperate if the House did vote, Taylor said, so Trump’s demand is just a red herring.
If Trump refuses to cooperate with an impeachment process, he said, it could amount to a Constitutional crisis, because the Congress has oversight powers and impeachment is a legislative function. If he doesn’t cooperate, the House could issue subpoenas and the matter could go to court.
Trump’s willingness to push boundaries no one has pushed before is what most concerns him, Taylor said.
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