In an article today, I raised the idea of "Republican members of congress potentially voting to impeach Trump."
Together, his personality and his isolation from his own party make Trump more vulnerable to impeachment than any U.S. president in history. Democrats despise him almost without exception but so do many Republicans. Enough of them would likely vote to impeach him to reach the necessary simple majority in the House of Representatives and two-thirds majority in the Senate.
This scenario is the more plausible because Trump would be succeeded by his vice president, the formidable conservative Mike Pence. ...
That a number of ranking Republicans, including John Thune of South Dakota, the third-ranking senator, called on Trump to quit the race and open the way for Pence, has little practical effect before the election but enormous implications should Trump be elected. So does the fact other Republican leaders, like Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, said they plan to write in Pence's name when voting for president on Nov. 8.
This weblog entry follows that discussion.
To start with, a specialist in consumer fraud, University of Utah law professor Christopher Peterson, finds that the illegalities surrounding Trump University could potentially amount to a cause for impeachment. (October 18, 2016)
Nov. 11, 2016 update: Allan Lichtman of American University in Washington predicted in late September that, if Trump wins, he would be impeached by establishment Republicans:
They don't want Trump as president, because they can't control him. He's unpredictable. They'd love to have Pence – an absolutely down-the-line, conservative, controllable Republican. And I'm quite certain Trump will give someone grounds for impeachment, either by doing something that endangers national security or because it helps his pocketbook."
Also today, David Brooks of the New York Times off-handedly predicted about Trump that "the guy will probably resign or be impeached within a year."
Jan. 18, 2017 update: In another off-hand comment, Richard Cohen, a Washington Post columnist, writes that "when things go wrong he [Trump] will be chased from office — just like Johnson once was. ... Trump's presidency is doomed."
Jan. 29, 2017 update: Liberals are jumping on this bandwagon. "The Inevitability Of Impeachment: After just one week" is the title of an article by Robert Kuttner of the American Prospect. The key, of course, are the Congressional Republicans. Kuttner documents their ill-ease with Trump:
In the past week, Republicans from Mitch McConnell on down have tripped over each other rejecting his view of Putin. They have ridiculed his screwball claim of massive voter fraud.
They are running for cover on how to kill ObamaCare without killing patients or Republican re-election hopes. This is actually complicated, and nuance is not Trump's strong suit.
Rep Tom McClintock of California spoke for many when he warned: "We'd better be sure that we're prepared to live with the market we've created" with repeal. "That's going to be called Trumpcare. Republicans will own that lock, stock and barrel, and we'll be judged in the election less than two years away."
Sen. Lindsey Graham, mocking Trump's own nutty tweeting habits, sent out a tweet calling a trade war with Mexico "mucho sad."
Trump's own senior staff has had to pull him back from his ludicrous crusade against Mexico and Mexicans, where Trump forces the Mexican president to cancel an official visit one day, and spends an hour on the phone kissing up the next day.
Trump proposed to reinstate torture, but key Republican leaders killed that idea. Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the Senate's third ranking Republican said Wednesday that the ban on torture was settled law and the Republicans in Congress would oppose any reinstatement. Trump's own defense secretary holds the same view. After blustering out his new torture policy, Trump meekly agreed to defer to his defense advisers.
All this in just a week!
Feb. 10, 2017 update: The liberal firm, Public Policy Polling, finds that,
Just three weeks into his administration, voters are already evenly divided on the issue of impeaching Trump with 46% in favor and 46% opposed. Support for impeaching Trump has crept up from 35% 2 weeks ago, to 40% last week, to its 46% standing this week. While Clinton voters initially only supported Trump's impeachment 65/14, after seeing him in office over the last few weeks that's gone up already to 83/6.
Feb. 13, 2017 update: Bookmakers are all over Trump's possible impeachment, Politico reports:
There's already talk of impeachment, just three weeks into Donald Trump's turbulent presidency. In fact, many are already betting on it.
Gambling houses all over the world are taking in action on whether Trump, inaugurated just last month, will resign or be impeached. And the odds aren't as long as you might think.
Ladbrokes, the British oddsmaking giant, has Trump's chances of leaving office via resignation or impeachment and removal at just 11-to-10, or just a little worse than even money. The odds of Trump being impeached this year in the House of Representatives are only 4-to-1, according to the Irish bookmaker Paddy Power, despite GOP control of the chamber. You can win $180 on a $100 bet with Bovada, the online gaming site, that Trump won't make it through a full term — though the bet is off if Trump passes away during the next four years.
Feb. 19, 2017 update: The talk is becoming operational. A story by Gabriel Debenedetti in Politico reports that "A handful of Democratic House progressives — among them California Rep. Maxine Waters, Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin and Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro — have already publicly raised the specter of impeachment."
Mar. 17, 2017 update: Asked about Trump, "How are we going to get him out?" Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Democrat of California) replied "I think he's gonna get himself out."
Apr. 3, 2017 update: Juan Williams builds on newer Public Policy Polling data to write an article titled "Trump's Risk of Impeachment Rises."
Apr. 18, 2017 update: Today is publication day for The Case for Impeachment by Allan Lichtman, a distinguished professor of history at American University, presumably the first book-length study on this topic. The blurb announces that Lichtman
illuminates exactly how the impeachment of President Trump might work by showing how his actions—past or future—make him uniquely vulnerable to impeachment proceedings. From his dealings with Russia, to his conflicts of interest at home and abroad, to the numerous civil suits involving him, Lichtman zeroes in on Mr. Trump's key areas of weakness.
In Lichtman's view, "it is not a question of if President Trump will be impeached, but a question of when."
Apr. 20, 2017 update: Robert Reich presents four, maybe five, reasons to impeach Trump in a short video. Comment: Most of the reasons are ridiculous – such as the attempted ban on immigrants from six Muslim-majority countries.
May 7, 2017 update: Impeaching Trump has taken on a folk quality. From an obituary of Corliss Gilchrist, an Iowa worker, 91:
Corliss Gilchrist, was born May 7, 1925, in Ayrshire, Iowa, one of sixteen children born to James and Arrah Gilchrist. He passed away May 3, 2017, at his home in Altoona, IA. We told him the process to impeach Trump had begun - so that he could rest in peace.
May 8, 2017 update: Evan Osnos writes in the New Yorker, "How Trump Could Get Fired" with the subtitle, "The Constitution offers two main paths for removing a President from office. How feasible are they?" The article surveys not just these two paths but also many opinions on the possibility of impeaching Trump. One paragraph sums up the analysis:
When I asked [William] Kristol about the chances of impeachment, he paused to consider the odds. Then he said, "It's somewhere in the big middle ground between a one-per-cent chance and fifty. It's some per cent. It's not nothing."
May 10, 2017 updates: (1) Trump's firing of James Comey, the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that just happens to be looking into his ties to Russia, has caused new murmurs about impeachment. Sen. Richard Blumenthal was perhaps the senior politician who most explicitly raised this topic, saying that the firing "may well produce another United States vs. Nixon on a subpoena that went to United States Supreme Court. It may well produce impeachment proceedings, although we're very far from that possibility."
Sen. Blumenthal: Comey firing "may well produce impeachment proceedings" https://t.co/CEtAILnLMr https://t.co/XctE9myqOY
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) May 11, 2017
(2) In light of the Comey firing, I raised the question in a tweet whether the US strike on Syria on April 6 was a wag-the-dog diversionary operation intended to sour relations with Putin and thereby render moot the investigation into Trump's earlier actions. Just a thought.
In light of the #ComeyFiring, was the April 6 US strike on #Syria really a wag-the-dog diversionary operation to sour relations with #Putin? pic.twitter.com/HPq1ZtIDaF
— Daniel Pipes (@DanielPipes) May 11, 2017
May 12, 2017 updates: Andy Borowitz has a satire today, "Trump Boasts That His Impeachment Will Get Higher TV Ratings Than All Other Impeachments."
"Everywhere I go, people tell me that if I am impeached, they're going to watch it," he said. "The ratings are going to be through the roof." ... Even though he anticipates "just terrific" ratings for his impeachment, Trump said that he did not expect the media to provide an honest accounting of his audience size.
"They're going to lie and say that a lot of people who watched my impeachment didn't watch, and that's going to be very bad and unfair, but it's not going to change the fact that my impeachment will be a great impeachment, a really beautiful impeachment," he said.
May 13, 2017 update: Lawrence Tribe, a famed Harvard law school professor, argues that "Trump must be impeached" for obstruction of justice and calls for "the machinery of removal [to] be reactivated."
May 16, 2017 addendum: Phillip Carter, an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University, writes that "the time has come to commence the slow, deliberate process of demonstrating that Trump needs to be removed from office so he can harm the nation no more" and then proceeds to draft seven articles of impeachment.
May 17, 2017 update: Trump's "week from hell" has moved impeachment talk from margins to the center. Some headlines:
- Washington Post: "'I think we're in impeachment territory,' says David Gergen, former aide to Nixon and Clinton."
- Washington Post: "Impeachment chatter ratchets up in halls of the Capitol."
- National Public Radio: "Trump Impeachment Talk Grows From Conspiracy Theory To Mainstream."
- Politico: "Conservatives begin to whisper: President Pence."
- New York Times: "How the Impeachment Process Works."
- Guardian: "Impeachment seemed impossible a few days ago. Not anymore."
May 18, 2017 update: I'll quit here because I can't keep up.
Oct. 10, 2019 update: Resuming this watch nearly 2½ years later, in the aftermath of Trump's Sep. 25 telephone call with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky because, for the first time ever, there is an actual possibility of his impeachment and conviction.
At least, that's what Matt K. Lewis argues today in the Daily Beast: "I've started believing there is at least a chance that 20 of the 53 Republican senators could vote to convict." He then goes on in detail to explain how he came to this conclusion.
Dec. 18, 2019 update: The House voted today to impeach Donald Trump. Specifically, it voted 230-197 to charge him with abuse of power and 229-198 with obstruction of Congress.
Feb. 5, 2020 update: The Senate acquitted Trump. That ends the impeachment process.
