The Case for Impeachment
We must impeach Donald Trump regardless of how the Senate may vote. Trump’s lawlessness and corruption must be highlighted for the history books. We can’t sweep this under the rug for political expediency. Americans gave us the House in part for this reason, to hold Trump to account. Failure to do so would be disastrous to the Democratic Party and to the Nation. It would make Democrats look weak and unprincipled. Failure to impeach would also set a dangerous precedent for future Presidents if Trump’s actions are allowed to go unchallenged. It’s possible to imagine a worse President than Trump. One with the same Authoritarian instincts yet competent; that would be really dangerous.
The Clinton Timeline
With that said, I ran across this article in the Washington Post where it was argued that there is plenty of time for impeachment before the next election. The impeachment of Bill Clinton lasted less than 5 months. We are still 18 months from election day in 2020. Here’s the timeline for Bill Clinton’s impeachment.
- Oct. 5: House Judiciary Committee votes to open impeachment inquiry
- Oct. 8: House votes to begin impeachment proceedings
- Dec. 11-12: Judiciary Committee votes to approve four articles of impeachment
- Dec. 19: House votes to approve two of the four articles, officially impeaching Clinton
- Jan. 7: Senate impeachment trial begins
- Feb. 12: Clinton is acquitted on both articles, the more successful of which split the Senate 50-50
Spending 7 more months investigating would allow for a more solid case for impeachment. The Mueller Report only deals with Russian Conspiracy charges and Obstruction of Justice. That leaves out all of Trump’s Financial Crimes including:
- tax fraud,
- inflating/deflating asset values to defraud banks and insurers,
- money laundering,
- emoluments violations,
- inaugural financing irregularities,
- sketchy Trump Tower deals,
- NRA ties to Russian money, etc.
While I could easily be talked into starting impeachment proceedings right away I think it’s better to wait. We should go into the process with our best hand, and we are currently a little behind in some areas of investigation.
If we allowed 7 more months of investigation that would bring us to about December 1st 2019. Then a 7 month impeachment process would bring us to July 1st, 2020, well before the November election. There’s plenty of time. Let’s get this right the first time. Let’s shine a bright light on All of Trumps wrongdoings.
The Nixon Timeline
As shown in the above chart’s blue line, the Nixon impeachment process took around 15 months. It began with Senate Investigations and moved on to the House Judiciary Committee. There are 18 months remaining before the election of 2020. A combination of further investigation of 7 months and an impeachment process of 7 months would take us to July 1st 2020; well before the election.
There is plenty of time, but the next 7 months of investigation are critical. There’s much to be uncovered and exposed to the American people. If history is a guide, that work should boost polling in favor of impeachment and lower the President’s approval rating.