We’ve arrived. Democrats can no longer talk about whether Trump should be impeached, they must now think about how Trump will be impeached. Federal prosecutors have said they have enough evidence to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Trump conspired in a felony to violate election laws.
I was never a fan of running the 2018 campaign with impeachment being a lead issue. We unfortunately have a very uninformed public that still doesn’t understand the extreme danger our democracy and eventually their lives face. But democrats are now forced into the position of fulfilling their constitutional responsibility to provide a check on an executive branch and Republican party that has declared war on our democracy.
Lawrence O’Donnell is on a mission to push Democrats to do their duty and do the right thing. O’Donnell worked in the Senate for a long time and I suspect he’s an institutionalist and it’s bothering him to see what Trump and the Republicans are doing to our democratic institutions. Here is some of what he said last night:
“If Donald Trump lost the election and federal prosecutors were pursuing this same case, he would be pursuing exactly the same consequences as Michael Cohen,” the "Last Word" host said Friday night. “He would be charged with exactly the same two campaign finance violation crimes for arranging secret payments to two women during the campaign to buy their silence about their sexual affairs with Donald Trump.”
“Congress moved to impeach Richard Nixon when the special prosecutor described his crimes," he continued. "The House of Representatives moved to impeach, and did in fact impeach, Bill Clinton when the special prosecutors showed that he committed perjury in that civil case involving Paula Jones."
“And so if history means anything in the Trump era, if precedent means anything in the Trump era, Donald Trump will be, must be, impeached because of the crimes prosecutors say he committed in the Michael Cohen case," O'Donnell said.
This one charge alone puts an historic * next to Trump’s name and will permanently call into question whether he was a legitimate president. But we all know that this is the LEAST of the crimes that Trump has committed and their is a Tsunami of other charges that are coming.
A few days ago O’Donnell had Rep Nadler, who will be the chair of the judiciary committee where impeachment will start, on his show and he pressed him hard about impeachment. Last night he had Rep Cohen, another member of the Judiciary Committee, on his show and again O’Donnell pressed him hard about impeachment. You can see that Rep. Cohen actually agrees with O’Donnell but is under pressure not to talk about impeachment.
Getting to impeachment is going to be a process. Democrats can’t start impeachment on day 1, but they also can’t wait until we get into the 2020 campaign. We have no idea how long Mueller is going to take to complete his investigation, so Democrats may not be able to wait for him. And the worst excuse of all, is that we know he won’t get convicted in the Senate so why bother. To wait for the Republican fascist cult to give Democrats permission to fulfill their constitutional duty is insane.
First, the Judiciary and intelligence committees will have to hold PUBLIC hearings about what happened in 2016 and bring the traitors in front of the committees and let America watch them tell lie after lie after lie. The public will have to be dragged away from dancing with the stars and force fed the extreme danger we all face. Then by late spring the impeachment proceedings can begin and they have to be rushed because the fascists will do everything they can to delay.
If Trump gets away with all the crimes and traitorous activity we know he’s done, without the Democrats moving for impeachment, the Republican fascist cult will know they can get away with ANYTHING and see WI, MI, NC to see just the beginning of what they are capable of doing.
There’s a difference between attacking Democrats implying they are corporatists or the same as Republicans or don’t care, and applying pressure to let them know we are engaged and they can’t ignore this serious problem. Now is the time for a friendly phone call to your Democratic representatives telling them that we are now forced to go down the path of impeachment after the house investigations into the high crimes and misdemeanors of the illegitimate Trump regime, and time is of the essence.
A thank you to Lawrence O’Donnell for making impeachment a major issue and pushing on members of the judiciary committee to do their constitutional duty. I can’t wait to see the rest of the members on his show.
RESIST!