,
16 tweets,
3 min read
Read on Twitter
Let’s do a thread this morning about impeachment, since that subject has been in the news over the past week. I feel we need to talk about Mike Pence.
2. Modern precedents for impeachment proceedings had an key and under-recognized component: Vice Presidents widely believed to have no direct connection to what the incumbent President was about to be impeached for.
3. Gerald Ford had been a Republican Congressman from Michigan during Richard Nixon’s first term, supportive of Nixon but having no role in either administration policy or the 1972 re-election campaign. The “long national nightmare” of Watergate would end,...
4... it was thought, as soon as Ford became President. The Clinton impeachment was a somewhat different case, a manufactured proceeding pursued in bad faith against the political target of opportunity Clinton represented.
5. Even so, Vice President Gore was never credibly alleged to have been involved in any on the things Clinton was investigated for: not Whitewater, or the travel office, or Monica Lewinsky or anything else. The Clinton impeachment could therefore be only about Clinton.
6. Do we know this to be the case today with Vice President Pence? I submit we do not. To be fair, while President Trump is suspected of numerous and varied acts of malfeasance, it seems fair to rule out the possibility of Pence’s involvement in some of them.
7. Trump’s bogus Foundation, for instance, did not involve Pence. If Trump cheated on his taxes, as seems likely, Pence had no part in that. I’ve seen no reporting suggesting Pence knew anything about Trump paying hush money to porn stars & so forth, either.
8. What about Trump adjusting American foreign policy in response to Russian (and/or Saudi) financial investments in him or his businesses? What was Pence’s knowledge and/or involvement?
9. Pence was head of Trump’s transition team, during which a number of communications between Trump appointees and people associated with the Russian government took place. Did he really know nothing about them?
10. How has Pence assisted Trump’s efforts to use the Presidency for self-enrichment, through his Washington hotel and his golf courses in Florida and New Jersey? Has he used his connections among Republican and evangelical groups to solicit business for these establishments?
11. What role has Pence played in Trump’s efforts to obstruct the Mueller investigation or other legal proceedings involving Trump? How has Trump consulted Pence on these matters?
12. The point here is not that we know Pence is guilty of anything. We don’t. Pence has appeared to play a relatively minor role in the policy (though not the staffing) of the Trump administration; it’s quite possible he knew nothing about anything.
13. Unlike the precedents involving Ford and Gore, though, we can’t assume Pence’s non-involvement in impeachable acts by Trump at the start of any impeachment proceedings that may begin against Trump. Speaking hypothetically, for example,...
14...removal of Trump for collusion with the Russian government to become President or compromise American foreign policy, only to turn the Presidency over to a co-conspirator would be...problematic. That may be the best word for it.
15. Pence’s non-involvement in impeachable conduct, should we get to that point, will need to be established; we won’t be able to assume it. As with so much else in the Trump era, we’re in uncharted waters here. [end]
.@threadreaderapp Please unroll Pence/impeachment thread.
