THE LEGAL SCOOP ON IMPEACHMENT
Dr. Common Good
Here is the legal scoop on impeachment. While I am not a lawyer, this is, I believe, a reasonably accurate summary of key legal issues surrounding the Trump impeachment case:
First of all, there does not have to be legally-defined crime to impeach a president. The Constitution (Article II, Section 4) states that a president can be removed from office by impeachment for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” the definition of which is a political judgment. Moreover, Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution states that a president, even after impeachment, is still “liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law,” thus clearly separating impeachment from a legal proceeding. Impeachment is aimed at removing a president or other officeholder who has abused their office.
Then there are actual crimes for which Trump which can be tried under an impeachment proceeding. These include (but are not limited to) the following:
- Bribery and solicitation of foreign assistance in an election campaign: Under 18 U.S.C. 201, it is a crime for a public official to directly or indirectly corruptly demand, seek, receive or accept anything of value in return for being influenced in the performance of an official act. Trump requesting Ukraine to seek dirt on the Bidens, and a public announcement of their investigation, in return for the release of military assistance and a meeting with the president, falls clearly under this violation. Moreover, as you can read, the mere act of seeking such assistance, regardless of whether or not it is provided, is a violation.
- Extortion: Another reading of Trump’s actions can be seen as extortion, that is, when a public official obtains something of value by threatening another party. In this case, the threat was the withholding of necessary military aid.
- Obstruction of justice, defined as “the crime or act of willfully interfering with the process of justice and law especially by influencing, threatening, harming, or impeding a witness, potential witness, juror, or judicial or legal officer or by furnishing false information in or otherwise impeding an investigation or legal process” (from Merriam-Webster legal dictionary). There have been so many of these violations by Trump it is hard to count – impeding witnesses and blocking testimony, witness tampering via threats and promised pardons, withholding documents, requests to change judges in a court proceeding, and flat out lying, to name a few. These obstructions have occurred with respect to the Ukraine bribery and with respect to Russian interference and collusion in the 2016 election – which, although Mueller did not feel he had enough evidence to make a criminal charge of criminal conspiracy, he documented extensively.
- Other violations: There is a litany of other violations which could be brought to bear, including violations of the Foreign Emoluments Clause of the Constitution (Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution, prohibiting the receipt of any gift, benefit, title, etc. from a foreign state or official), and campaign finance violations (payments made via Michael Cohen and American Media Inc. to silence women during the election with allegations against Trump, and potential liability (not yet established for Trump, but established for Rudy Giuliani and two associates) the channeling of illegal foreign donations to a pro-Trump political action committee (America First Action) through a false, “front company” that disguised the actual foreign donors.
THE TASK: Democrats, and Republicans who still have some belief in Constitutional integrity, need to make this case clearly to the American people. It is being diffused and misdirected by Trump followers, to the serious detriment of our country and democracy.