Max Boot: Even if the Senate won't convict, impeachment will still punish and deter

[Dennis Donovan]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/30/even-if-senate-wont-convict-impeachment-will-still-punish-deter/


By Max Boot Columnist
September 30, 2019 at 9:26 a.m. EDT

There are good and bad arguments against impeachment. I don’t find either compelling, and I’d like to explain why.

The bad arguments, cynically spread by President Trump and his toadies, go to the substance of the allegations against him. Faced with damning evidence that, as the whistleblower put it, “the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election,” his disingenuous defenders toss out one lame alibi after another.

Trump didn’t break any laws. Actually, it’s a crime for an American candidate to solicit or accept “any contribution” from a foreign national. But you don’t have to break the law to be impeached.

There was no quid pro quo. Wrong. There was. Right after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his desire to buy U.S. munitions, Trump said, “I would like you to do us a favor though.” He then went on to ask Ukraine for its help, first, to clear him of charges of collusion with Russia and, then (“the other thing”), to “find out about” Joe Biden. This demand was buttressed by Trump’s stoppage, at least a week before the call, of nearly $400 million in U.S. aid.

The president is allowed to ask for foreign help with a corruption investigation. True, but there is no investigation of Biden — and if there were, it would be conducted by the FBI, not the president’s personal lawyer. The reason there’s no investigation is that Biden did nothing wrong in pressing Ukraine to get rid of a corrupt prosecutor — who was not, contrary to Trump’s lies, probing the energy company on whose board Hunter Biden sat. Trump was asking for the Ukrainians to start an investigation to help him politically.

All presidents politicize foreign policy. True, to varying degrees, but no president has ever so blatantly asked for foreign interference to help him win. The closest parallel is Richard Nixon’s secret efforts in 1968 to encourage Saigon to sabotage peace talks with North Vietnam — but Nixon wasn’t yet president and those sordid machinations weren’t documented till years later.

</snip>

[empedocles]

1. This crisis is not about a 'punish and deter' trump things. It is about decisively getting rid of

trump for good.

[C_U_L8R]

2. Many staffers could find themselves in big trouble

I wouldn't count on a Trump pardon if I were any of them

[Newest Reality]

3. The argument for impeachment

is not primarily about Trump. I think speculations like that diffuse the real point.

This is about the office of the President itself and the country at large. How much of Trump's behavior would we want to stick to the walls of the Oval Office indefinitely? Can we allow dictatorial behavior to sully the position? What other means are there to enforce it?

If we just allowed Trump to despoil a cherished institution and also to continue to blatantly compromise our security and integrity from within and without, along with the damage he is doing to the economy, morale, agencies, courts, etc., then we would be condoning it and being passive right now is neither patriotic or dutiful. Doing nothing at all would be disastrous.

People go on and on about this and that concerning impeachment, but I think the basic, important facts make impeachment a necessity, not just an either/or comparison. We have obviously crossed a threshold where partisan politics, posturing and speculation are counterproductive when you consider that the entire country is really at stake now.

So, speculate away. I think that the legalities and process will speak for themselves as impeachment proceeds. It is vital. We need it. We have to. This is a crisis.