Impeachment: A worthy but flawed endeavor
Having long since concluded — and written — that Donald Trump is unfit for his office, I have no problem with the present impeachment effort. Except that it is prey to party sentiment and historical misinterpretation.
In fairness, its dysfunction is in part a consequence of divided government and the absence of an impartial and ceremonial head of state. Parliamentary systems do well without three branches and thrive on ritual. In England, for instance, the Mother of Parliaments will sustain a chief of government only so long as she can survive a vote of confidence, and most prime ministers know when the jig is up. Margaret Thatcher, after an unusually long tenure, was told by colleagues that she would lose an approaching confidence vote. “It’s a funny old world,” she said — and quit.
Every poll suggests that a substantial majority of voters would welcome Donald Trump’s riddance and return to show biz — for which he shows some aptitude. But the impeachment process seems likely to sustain him. Is our vaunted “democracy” failing? Not necessarily: Trump’s mute Senate judges have witnessed the repeated defeat of moderate colleagues by right-wing challengers in GOP primaries and are reluctant to tempt fate. This, notwithstanding the solid case lodged against him by House orators, notably Adam Schiff and patriotic witnesses in the permanent government. That Trump sought to blackmail Ukrainian officials in aid of his 2020 campaign is not open to doubt.
Notwithstanding that case, however, Trump’s defenders contend that only dire criminality would suffice for conviction and ouster. “He has done nothing wrong,” they say, though the better question is what has he done right? Learned scholars have noted that for many decades the new Republic had no code of federal criminal law — with the logical consequence that when in 1787 they premised impeachment on “high crimes and (high) misdemeanors” they could not have intended that an impeached president must be proved a common criminal to be dismissed from office. That notion, though embraced by many, is historical nonsense.
Some 20 years ago, I participated in a three-part study of the 25th Amendment, whose Section 6 was tailored to remedy problems that could arise if a sitting president survived an assassination attempt too seriously impaired, mentally or physically, to discharge his duties. The worry was mainly physical unfitness, which is fortunately more common. A proposed panel conducting a yearly psychiatric examination (no trivial concern in the nuclear age) was dismissed by a veteran White House counsel: “I can’t think of anything more terrifying than a 5-4 vote that the president is sane.”
The 25th Amendment, for all its worthy intentions, offers no remedy for the shortcomings of the impeachment article, even in instances of physical impairment. When may a debilitated president, once “temporarily” removed, reclaim the office? And who can say? The words are there in the 25th Amendment; but who is so naive as to believe they would work in the age of Trump?
As with all speculative issues, the outcome of the current impeachment is unforeseeable. Acquittal seems likely, and GOP senators who plan to ignore the indictment and vote for acquittal are doubtless salving civic consciences with the thought that even if acquitted this very deficient chief executive will soon face the voters again — including 3 million who cast the popular vote majority against him in 2016.
This story was originally published January 27, 2020 at 12:00 AM.