🚨 Last evening, President Trump’s attorney claimed: “And if a President does something, which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”
This extreme statement has no basis in the Constitution. It is chilling in its implications. Consider a few examples of the behavior – the “kind of quid pro quo” – that Donald Trump’s lawyers are asking the Senate to agree cannot result in impeachment:
The President could exercise his constitutional authority to grant a full pardon to any person convicted of the federal crime of hacking a political rival’s email, so long as HE believes this quid pro quo will help him get elected in the public interest.
The President could make a $25,000 campaign donation to get a State Attorney General to stop investigating his business, so long as HE believes this quid pro quo will help him get elected in the public interest.
Are any of these actions truly outside the realm of possibilities when we have an occupant of the Oval Office who admires violent authoritarian leaders and has declared: "I have an Article 2, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president”?
This isn’t theoretical. Last October, the President’s lawyer literally argued in federal court that the President could never be criminally investigated while in office. Even if he pulled out a handgun and shot someone on Fifth Avenue.
Where does this end? Are there no limits? Does anyone truly believe this type of imperial, lawless presidency is what our Framers envisioned? I’m troubled that Counsel for the President appears to be shifting from denying the allegations to arguing, “So what if he did?”
“So what if he did” flies in the face of the concept that in America, no one is above the law – especially not the President, who is bound by the Constitution to faithfully execute the law. The President’s defense appears to be arguing that he actually is above the law.
