Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Without Impeachment, We’re Lowering Standards for All Future Presidents

https://truthout.org/articles/without-impeachment-were-lowering-standards-for-all-future-presidents/
"Once in office, Donald Trump serially obstructed justice by interfering with the Mueller investigation and demanding that his attorneys and advisers lie about his conduct and manufacture evidence to obscure his conduct. His attempted disruption of the investigation into then-national security adviser Michael Flynn; the firing of then-FBI director James Comey; his efforts to fire Robert Mueller and derail the investigation; his insistence that then-White House counsel Don McGahn lie about the efforts to remove or disrupt Mueller; and his efforts to disrupt the gathering of testimony from former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen individually and collectively blow right past the constitutional standard of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” These were deeply damaging bold-face crimes committed in the presence of testifying witnesses. Trump can be prosecuted, impeached or both for committing them even if no underlying crime was established in the report. “You don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic if the Senate determines that your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role,” said none other than Senator Lindsey Graham in 1999, “because impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office"."