Robert Reich: Would the Founding Fathers Impeach Trump?

[babylonsister]

https://prospect.org/impeachment/would-the-founding-fathers-impeach-trump/

Would the Founding Fathers Impeach Trump?
The framers feared that the new nation might fall under the sway of foreign powers.
by Robert Reich
November 7, 2019


Trump has asked a foreign power to dig up dirt on a major political rival. This is an impeachable offense.

snip//

During the Virginia ratifying convention, Edmund Randolph explicitly connected impeachment to foreign money, saying that a president “may be impeached” if discovered “receiving emoluments [help] from foreign powers.” George Washington, in his farewell address, warned of “the insidious wiles of foreign influence.”

You don’t have to be a so-called “originalist,” interpreting the Constitution according to what the founders were trying to do at the time, in order to see how dangerous it is to allow a president to seek help in an election from a foreign power.

If a president can invite a foreign power to influence the outcome of an election, there’s no limit to how far foreign powers might go to curry favor with a president by helping to take down his rivals. That would be the end of democracy as we know it.

snip//

Trump’s entire presidency has been shadowed by questions of foreign interference favoring him. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation documented extensive contacts between Trump’s associates and Russian figures—concluding that the Kremlin sought specifically to help Trump get elected, and that Trump’s campaign welcomed Russia’s help.

Trump at one point in the 2016 election campaign even publicly called on Russia to find Hillary Clinton’s missing emails, and within hours Russian agents sought to do just that by trying to break into her computer servers.

More recently, he openly called on China’s help, saying before cameras “China should start an investigation into the Bidens.”This is an impeachable offense, according to the framers of the Constitution. Trump did it.

Case closed.

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. They would have done it the day after inauguration for all the obvious reasons.

[Sneederbunk]

2. They would have called him out for a duel by now.

[Moostache]

3. Or a good old fashion Tar and Feathering...

THAT would be something to behold for sure...

[Nitram]

4. Duh!