Reason # 87: First Impeachment
Why do we need to defeat Donald Trump and ensure that a Democrat occupies the White House?
It says much for the awful character and manifold crimes of Donald John Trump, that we have posted 86 reasons not to vote for him and haven’t even mentioned impeachment yet!
The U.S. Constitution provides that
“Article II, Section 4: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
It is, in effect, the last resort to deal with a treasonous, corrupt or criminal president – or a president who happens to fit into all three categories! The founders felt that the provision was necessary so that the president could be free of politically motivated criminal proceedings but still removable by the two houses of Congress working together. One other president, Richard Nixon avoided impeachment by resigning when Barry Goldwater informed him that Republican Senators would vote to impeach him. Would that we had an honest Republican Senator today.
It’s bad enough to have been impeached once, Donald has been impeached twice.
The first impeachment proceeding began on December 18, 2019, charging the President with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
The background was a military invasion of the Ukraine by Russian forces in 2014. NATO and the U.S. government had been providing extensive military equipment and training to Ukraine that was helping to stave off the incursion.
The scandal started in August 2019, with release of a whistleblower accusation that Trump was extorting Ukrainian President Zelinski for political favors that would improperly constitute foreign interference in the 2020 presidential election. The full text of the Whistleblower document is online at
https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/sep/26/read-declassified-whistleblower-complaint-ukraine-/
Specifically, Trump was charged with soliciting foreign intervention to enhance his reelection and then instructing his administration not to cooperate in the House investigation.
They charged that he withheld $391,000,000 of military assistance to Ukraine, in order to coerce President Zelinski to make a public announcement that Ukraine was investigating Joe Biden for corruption and support allegations that Ukraine, not Russia, had been responsible for foreign intervention into the 2016 U.S. Presidential election.
https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hres755/BILLS-116hres755enr.pdf
John Bolton resigned on October 10; the next day the hold on Ukraine military support was lifted.
It was, in effect, a retelling of the story of the “Manchurian Candidate”, a 1962 film, where a brainwashed American soldier is used in a conspiracy to install a president with secret ties to Red China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manchurian_Candidate
The House investigation lasted into February 2020 but many refused to testify.
“—Donald J. Trump has directed the unprecedented, categorical, and indiscriminate defiance of subpoenas issued by the House of Representatives pursuant to its “sole Power of Impeachment”.”
With the result that “—in response to which nine Administration officials defied subpoenas for testimony, namely John Michael “Mick” Mulvaney, Robert B. Blair, John A. Eisenberg, Michael Ellis, Preston Wells Griffith, Russell T. Vought, Michael Duffey, Brian McCormack, and T. Ulrich Brechbuhl.”
It all started with a “perfect” phone call. President Zelinski asked for Javelin missiles and an announcement of U.S. support.
A transcript is available at
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/6429022/Trump-Zelensky-Call.pdf
Trump asked for “a favor” in return.
“TRUMP: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike… I guess you have one of your wealthy people… The server, they say Ukraine has it”
This is factually inaccurate. Crowdstrike is a U.S. company and given its modern technology, there is little reason for it to have a server in the Ukraine. The implication was that Trump wanted support for the false narrative that Russia did not hack into the Democratic National Committee computer; it was the Ukraine.
He urged the Ukrainian president to act outside U.S. diplomacy and work with Rudy Giuliani.
He continued
“The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me. “ He urged contact with Bill Barr.
The House narrowed its impeachment focus to four questions.
“1. Did Trump once again solicit foreign help in an election?
2. Did the Trump White House agree to a meeting with Ukraine on the condition that Ukraine launch investigations on behalf of Trump?
3. Did Ukraine have reason to believe military aid was being withheld on condition of launching Trump’s investigations?
4. Has there been a cover-up of the basic facts of Trump’s conduct?”
https://www.vox.com/c/2020/2/6/20914280/impeachment-trump-explained
In the end, the Senate refused to hold hearing and the only Republican Senator who voted to impeach Trump was Mitt Romney. The first impeachment trial was over. It had failed.
If you are a conservative Republican, you have spent your entire life urging opposition to Russian aggression in Europe. Why would you now consider voting for a man who would abandon our ally Ukraine to Vladimir Putin?
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To date, I have written 85 Reasons NOT to vote for Donald Trump . They are archived at my Facebook page
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Why have I committed to posting 100 Reasons NOT to vote for Donald Trump? Because I do not have time to post 10,000.
Fred Grannis
October 10, 2024