Thread by @Monaheart1229

Is Trump on a Collision Course With Impeachment?
#SundayMotivation #VoteBlue #Midterms2018 #TrumpRussia
nyti.ms/2QMOZ3S

2/"President Trump was energized. Fresh from the fight to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, he was firing up thousands of supporters at a rally by complaining about how Democrats had treated his nominee and how they may yet try to remove Justice Kavanaugh from the bench. “They’re saying,

3/"We’ll impeach him!’” Mr. Trump practically bellowed into the microphone here last week, his voice brimming with incredulity and righteous outrage. “Impeach him for what? For what?” The crowd booed on cue. “Besides that,” Mr. Trump then added slyly, “I have to go first, right?”

4/"The crowd laughed. Perhaps only in the Trump era would the prospect of being impeached become a punch line for the president of the United States. But after almost two years of living under the cloud of a possible impeachment, it may soon cease to be a laughing matter.

5/"While Democrats are largely ducking the topic on the campaign trail, few in Washington doubt that impeachment will be on the table if they win the House on Nov. 6. If that happens, anyone who thought the battle over Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation was ugly and divisive should

6/"buckle up, because history suggests it would provide only a small taste of what lies ahead. The impeachment drives against Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton tore at the nation’s fabric, but an effort to remove Mr. Trump could lead to an even more incendiary

7/"conflict, thanks to the advent of social media and Mr. Trump’s brand of blowtorch politics. Impeachment, by its nature, represents the ultimate test of American democracy, a titanic clash between two branches of government over whether the nation’s leader has done such damage

8/"to the integrity of the Republic that the will of the people as expressed in our complicated election system should be overturned. It is, in effect, a moment of reckoning, as the framers intended it to be, a judgment on the standards of society as they shift through time.

9/"Rather than being apprehensive about the threat, Mr. Trump, who loves a good brawl, seems almost eager for Democrats to bring it on. He has begun making his case in recent months without waiting for the election. In August, he warned that if he is impeached, “the market would

10/"crash” and “everybody would be very poor.” In September, he told supporters it would be their fault if he is impeached because it would mean “you didn’t go out to vote.” And in Iowa, he laid out what would undoubtedly be his public argument. “You get impeached for having

11/"created the greatest economy in the history of our country,” he said. “The best job numbers in the history of our country, just about, right? The greatest trade deals, which we’ve just finished, in the history of our country.” Putting aside the hyperbole about the economy and

12/"jobs numbers, which are both strong but hardly the best ever, Mr. Trump has a certain advantage going into any impeachment fight. The history of presidential impeachments shows that they are started by the opposition party but are never successful unless the president’s party

13/"buys into the effort. In Mr. Trump’s case, a Democratic House might impeach him, but even if Democrats take the Senate, they would still be far from the two-thirds necessary for conviction, meaning that 15 or more Republicans would have to go along. Such a scenario seems

14/"unlikely unless the special counsel, Robert Mueller, produces a report with such damning information that it transforms the current political dynamics. But once again, the country would be confronted with the question of what the framers meant by “high crimes and misdemeanors

15/"Intent on differentiating the president from a king, immune from accountability, the authors of the Constitution inserted Article II, Section 4, to create a check on the executive. They started out by authorizing impeachment in cases of treason or bribery, but George Mason

16/"found that too limiting and suggested adding “maladministration.” James Madison pushed back, worried that would make a president too beholden to Congress. Removing a bad president is what elections were for. Mason backed off and proposed instead “or other high crimes and

17/"misdemeanors,” which was readily accepted. The Constitution included no further explanation, but in their discussions the framers made clear they had in mind any president who would employ his office for personal profit, “betray his trust to foreign powers” or injure society

18/"itself, among other possible offenses. Intriguingly, the framers anticipated the possibility that a president might try to use his power to thwart investigations into his actions. During the Virginia ratification debate, Mason asked what would happen if a president chose to

19/"“pardon crimes which were advised by himself” or to “stop inquiry and prevent detection” of a crime he or an associate had committed? Madison responded that “the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty.” The threat of impeachment has hung

20/"over many presidents, but it has never been taken to its full conclusion. John Tyler was the first to face a meaningful effort to remove him, but opponents could not muster a majority in the House. Critics investigated or submitted resolutions of impeachment against

21/"James Buchanan, Ulysses Grant and Herbert Hoover. Republicans talked about impeaching Harry Truman for firing Gen. Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War. Democrats talked about impeaching Ronald Reagan over the Iran-contra affair and George W. Bush over the Iraq war.

22/"George H.W. Bush predicted that he might be impeached if he went to war to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi forces without congressional approval. Barack Obama’s aides, likewise, feared impeachment if he launched airstrikes against Syria over congressional objections.

23/"The only three impeachment efforts that seriously endangered a president came in the Johnson, Nixon and Clinton cases. The House impeached Johnson for violating a law blocking him from firing cabinet secretaries without Senate approval, a law later found to be

24/"unconstitutional. But the underlying dispute was one of policy — Radical Republicans considered the president, a Tennessee Democrat, far too lenient on the South and unwilling to protect freed slaves following the Civil War. The Senate acquitted him by a single vote.

25/"Nixon’s case was a more clear-cut abuse of power and obstruction of justice: the Watergate burglary to spy on his political opposition and the resulting cover-up, including the payment of hush money and, finally, a transcript of the “smoking gun” tape of him trying to order

26/"the C.I.A. to block the F.B.I. investigation. The House Judiciary Committee voted to impeach, and Nixon resigned rather than continue to fight after fellow Republicans abandoned him. Bill Clinton’s case fell somewhere in the murky middle. Charged with perjury and obstruction

27/"of justice for trying to impede a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by Paula Jones by hiding his affair with a former White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, Mr. Clinton was impeached on a nearly party-line vote in the House and acquitted in the Senate. Defenders were left to

28/"argue that yes, he may have violated the law, but it was not such a profound violation to merit removal. More than any other president, however, Mr. Trump has lived under the shadow of impeachment since before he took office. Within days of his election in November 2016,

29/"speculation began about impeachment because of the many ethical issues surrounding him. Regardless of whether Mr. Mueller reports any ties with Russia during the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump’s critics have a laundry list of what they consider impeachable offenses, from hotel and

30/"other private business activities that benefit from foreign governments to the firing of the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, after trying to get him to drop an investigation of a former aide to hush money paid to two women to keep them from talking publicly about sexual

31/"encounters before the election. The public is more supportive of impeaching Mr. Trump than it ever was of impeaching Mr. Clinton and more than it was of beginning impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon until near the end of the Watergate scandal. In August, 49 percent

32/"of Americans surveyed by The Washington Post and ABC News favored impeaching Mr. Trump, while 46 percent opposed it. The elected Democratic leadership has been reluctant to talk about it, out of worries of a public backlash or playing into Mr. Trump’s hands. A failed

33/"impeachment could energize his base and even propel him to re-election in 2020. “It’s not someplace I think we should go,” Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, has said. But it is hard to imagine Democrats not going there if they take the

34/"House, given the enormous pressure from their liberal base to at least open an impeachment inquiry. Three-quarters of Democrats told pollsters that they want Mr. Trump impeached. Tom Steyer, the liberal billionaire who has been financing television ads advocating impeachment,

35/"announced this past week that he has collected six million signatures on a petition. Mr. Trump’s side is gearing up and hopes to use the potential fight to galvanize supporters to turn out next month.

36/"“It’s very simple — Nov. 6, up or down vote,” Steve Bannon, his former chief strategist, said recently. “Up or down vote on the impeachment of Donald Trump.” ~Peter Baker, NYT, 10/14/18