Removing Donald Trump from the presidency

Invoking the 25th amendment isn't going to happen. Democrats must move forward with a quick impeachment.

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Since the storming of Capitol by rampaging Trump supporters who were incited by Donald Trump and who engaged in rioting and looting, there’s been a lot of focus on removing Donald Trump from office. The Washington Post called for him to resign — something that it and other papers should have done years ago — and so has the right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial board.

Clearly insurrection and threatening the lives of members of Congress isn’t good for business, nor for Rupert Murdoch’s image — though Trump’s promotion of white supremacy, his rolling back environmental protections, his building a wall on the border and lots of other abhorrent things were previously just fine with them.

Trump’s former Chief of Staff John Kelly called on members of the Cabinet to discuss Trump’s removal via the 25th amendment, saying he would support removal if he were still in the Cabinet. This, too, is rich, because Kelly so enabled Trump in law-breaking, corruption and terrible violence — including, when he was Homeland Security Secretary, terrorizing immigrants — that it’s hard to take him seriously.

Most public condemnations of Trump coming from Republicans — including the two Cabinet officials who resigned in recent days, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos — are about self-preservation. As Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert on fascism I spoke with several weeks ago and the author of Strongmen: From Mussolini to Present, notes, business elites always flee a dictator toward the end, once there’s a real danger of physical or other harm to themselves.

WBEZ @WBEZ

Top Democrats in both the House and Senate have now voiced support for removing President Trump from office via the 25th Amendment: “If the vice president and Cabinet do not act, the Congress may be prepared to move forward with impeachment.”

ow.lyPelosi, Schumer Join Chorus Of Calls For Invocation Of 25th Amendment Against TrumpThe House speaker said she had already made her interest known to Vice President Pence, and if he and the Cabinet don’t act “Congress may be prepared to move forward with impeachment.“

And we surely are at the end, precarious as it is. Incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, worried about what further violent actions Trump could take over the next 13 days, called on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th amendment as well. “While it’s only 13 days left, any day can be a horror show for America,” Pelosi said. And she’s right.

Apparently, Pence wouldn’t talk with the Democratic leaders when they called, and had them hang on the line for 25 minutes without ever coming to the phone.

Robert Reich @RBReich

Schumer and Pelosi say they called Pence to urge him to invoke the 25th Amendment but "we have not yet heard back" and "look forward to hearing from him." Tell him if he doesn't invoke it by 9 am tomorrow, January 9, you begin impeachment. This is a national emergency.

The Cabinet, led by the vice president, can use the 25th amendment to take a president’s power away against his own will for a short time if they vote that he is unfit to govern. But Pence, according to reports, is still subservient to Trump even after Trump put him in danger, and is opposed to moving in that direction — and Cabinet officials like Chao and DeVos, by resigning, are abdicating responsibility after having wreaked havoc for four years only to flee the scene without removing Trump from office.

Pelosi and Schumer threatened that if Pence doesn’t move speedily — and Pelosi called the situation “dangerous” and “urgent” — they may have to move to a quick impeachment. "If the Vice President and the Cabinet refuse to stand up, Congress should reconvene to impeach the president," Schumer said.

This is actually the only realistic option now. Several members of the House, including Representative Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, have written up articles of impeachment, and the effort is ready to go. It would not require any drawn out hearings or investigations — just a floor debate and a vote. It could be done in two to three days.

Democrats in the House would probably even get some Republicans on board this time, and then it’s all left up to Mitch McConnell and GOP senators. Many of them, including McConnell, have already acknowledged the gravity of the situation — he called Wednesday’s siege an “insurrection” — so it would be enormously hypocritical not to do anything about it. But if they want to do nothing in the face of a president who incited domestic terrorism and an attack on the Capitol, and who might do more harm, then it’s on them.

We can’t afford not to try, and there’s a chance the Senate will take it up quickly and that there could even be a two-thirds majority to remove Trump. The fear and disgust right now is palpable and a lot of GOP senators might be afraid of not doing anything when faced with the option. Removing Trump via impeachment would also mean he couldn’t run for elected office again. It’s vital Democrats take a shot at it.

And if the Senate doesn’t convict Trump — or take it up in time — there’s no downside for Democrats, who acted with the best intentions of the country, and it puts all Republicans on the record. They got behind Trump from the beginning of this reckless and brutal administration, greedy for tax cuts and wanting to pack the courts, and they defended him through his vilest dictatorial actions. It’s time they own him on the way out as well.