It has been argued that the impeachment of Donald Trump is unnecessary since in ten months the people, not a partisan Senate, can deliver a verdict on his suitability to hold the office of president. There are several objections to that logic.
First, Trump may win a second term if enough people can be persuaded that his behavior doesn’t rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors — or even if it does. It is also possible that the limp democratic field is too obsessed with arguing issues minutia to concentrate on combatting the real threat from a dangerous demagogue.
Second, Trump may win re-election through the connivance of an amoral, toady party prepared to overlook or abet his criminality, the conservative propaganda ministry that includes Fox, Breitbart and all the rest for whom truth is a fool’s game, and the same foreign adversaries who aided Trump’s win in 2016 and now are at work doing the same again.
Luckily, the founders chose to include impeachment in the constitution to guard against an unfit president using his popularity to pervert and undermine the government and to violate the oath he swore to faithfully execute the office of president and to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Impeachment is a tangible expression of the guarantee that this should be a government of laws, not of men.
That means that a president should be impeached if he has broken laws, as we now know Trump did from 1) the GAO’s ruling that it was illegal to hold aid to Ukraine authorized by Congress hostage unless a ransom in the form of dirt on a political rival was delivered, 2) the Mueller report’s detailed list of obstructions of justice in regard to the investigation of Russian election interference and 3) as common sense reveals he did when he solicited help from foreign enemies in stealing an election in 2016 and is again doing now.
Most importantly, even if Trump were to be removed by the ballot box in November, his criminality might go unpunished. He might immediately carry out an assault on the new administration and begin running to recapture power in 2024. With the connivence of his domestic and foreign claques, he could continue to dominate the blogosphere, the twitterverse and various malign channels of disinformation, to stage his Nuremberg rallies, create a new myth of a Lost Cause, and pollute the public discourse with fraudulent narratives.
Impeachment, thanks to the wisdom of the founders, is an inoculation against a dangerous pathogen like Trump even infecting the body politic again. How? Article 1, Section 3, Clause 7 of the Constitution states that:
“Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.”
That is, if impeached Trump can never again be president, senator, congressman or White House chimney sweep, but he can be punished in the courts for any and all crimes he committed in office.
Impeachment would also make it possible to clean the Aegean stables of the government of all the anti-democratic, co-conspirators who enabled Trump’s maladministration including Attorney General Barr, Secretary of State Pompeo, Chief of Staff Mulvaney, Vice President Pence, and dozens more.
The cover-up will end when Trump vacates the premises and witnesses and documents he has obstructed from the light of justice will come out in the open. In the case of Nixon, over three dozen henchmen in government and out were eventually indicted and faced prison. As more and more rocks are turned over when Trump is gone, the list of those who conspired in his corrupt reign, enabled it, and profited from it should keep courts busy for years.