J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press
After long delaying impeachment, Democrats are starting down that road at what in electoral terms is the eleventh hour.
Until this past week, I was convinced that if there had ever been a time for impeaching Donald Trump, that moment had passed. The slow pace of Democratic congressional investigations and judicial appeals was pushing any impeachment proceeding into the election season, when it would inevitably get bogged down and dismissed as a purely partisan effort. Many voters would reasonably say that the election, not Congress, was the proper venue to resolve Trump’s fitness to serve.
Besides, it wasn’t clear to me that it made electoral sense for Democrats to pursue impeachment, especially since a trial in the Senate would almost certainly end with Trump’s acquittal, which would enable him to claim vindication. Impeachment would also suck up so much oxygen that Democrats would have difficulty making a positive case on their alternative agenda for the country.
Even now, Democrats do not have strong electoral reasons to impeach Trump. Impeachment may not work out to their political advantage; a failed impeachment is not necessarily a good start to an election campaign to oust an incumbent. But, come what may, they have to proceed for the only reasons that truly justify impeaching and convicting a president—the defense of America’s constitutional system and its national security.
By attempting to use a foreign power to win election a second time, Trump has forced even reluctant Democratic congressional leaders to move ahead on impeachment. It was bad enough that Trump escaped consequences for the efforts in his 2016 campaign to secure help from Russia and for his solicitousness as president to Vladimir Putin. Another such failure of our constitutional system, this time in connection with Ukraine, would only further embolden Trump to use the formidable powers of the presidency to entrench himself in office.
There is, to be sure, an element of self-defense in Democrats’ response to this latest Trump scandal. If Trump can get away with pressuring Ukraine to dirty up Joe Biden, he is likely to be unrestrained in his use of other executive branch powers—for example, investigations and prosecutions—to attack other political opponents. This is standard operating procedure for strongmen in authoritarian countries. If it becomes standard procedure in the United States, this will be a very different country from what we thought it was.
Trump’s effort to use foreign countries to get dirt first on Hillary Clinton and now on Biden is dangerous for another reason. It’s an open invitation to other countries to intervene in American politics by finding or inventing dirt on a president’s domestic opposition.
Trump’s pressuring of Ukraine is just one of a long list of abuses that Democrats in the House will be considering as they draw up articles of impeachment. But they can’t dither over the all-too-long menu of options; this is perhaps the last possible moment to move on impeachment before the election. Everything will depend on the Democrats in the House being able to focus and act quickly, while Republicans and Trump do all in their power to distract attention and slow things down.
Only once before in American history has Congress considered removing a president for high crimes and misdemeanors related to a re-election campaign. But when the House moved to impeach Richard Nixon in 1974, it was after his re-election. Now the House may vote to impeach during the election campaign—something for which we have no historical guide whatsoever.
Our constitutional system is ill-equipped to deal with a president who abuses the powers of his office to get re-elected. The requirement for action in both houses of Congress, particularly for a two-thirds vote after a quasi-judicial proceeding in the Senate, creates a nearly insuperable barrier against timely action.
Suppose, against all odds, the Senate does convict Trump. If the process has stretched into the spring, he may have already locked up the Republican nomination. In convicting Trump, the Senate would have to bar him from holding federal office when he was already the de facto 2020 Republican presidential nominee
In short, we’re in uncharted political territory. After long delaying impeachment, Democrats are starting down that road at what in electoral terms is the eleventh hour. The supreme urgency of this moment should be lost on no one.
