What Would It Actually Take to Impeach Trump?

Despite the hint of secrecy, a skilled defense lawyer could argue in court that Trump wasn’t twisting Comey’s arm so much as he was expressing an opinion. Likewise, when Trump said, “I hope you can let this go,” he was being aspirational, not thuggish, his defense attorney would maintain. Unless there actually are White House tapes with Trump saying he wants to shield Flynn to protect himself, a criminal prosecution for obstruction might founder.

But an impeachment doesn’t take place in court; it happens before Congress. It’s an exercise of political judgment—how severely the president is damaging American democracy—more than an exercise in meeting legal standards. High crimes and misdemeanors in the impeachment context “don’t have to satisfy all the technical aspects of an ordinary crime,” says Noah Feldman, a Harvard law professor and Bloomberg View columnist. High crimes describes abuse of power that undermines the rule of law. “Using the presidential office to try to shut down the investigation of a senior executive official who was also a major player in the president’s campaign is an obvious and egregious abuse of power”—in other words, a high crime.

The White House has denied the accounts of the memo, saying Trump “never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation involving General Flynn.” The idea that Comey made all this up strains credulity. We’d be in a better position to judge if the memo, and a paper trail of other memos he’s said to have written about troubling encounters with Trump, were made public.

That could happen soon. Representative Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican who chairs the House Oversight Committee, has demanded that by May 24 the FBI turn over all memos and other recordings related to communication between Comey and Trump. In a statement striking because it came from a conservative Republican, Chaffetz said: “If true, these memoranda raise questions as to whether the president attempted to influence or impede the FBI’s investigation as it relates to Lt. Gen. Flynn.”

Trump’s attempt to stifle the Flynn probe is, of course, not the only evidence of obstruction relevant to any eventual impeachment proceeding. More circumstantial evidence might include Trump’s firing Comey with Russia on his mind and the president’s enlisting Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to provide contradictory written justification for the firing. There’s also the president’s unlikely sounding public claim that Comey told him on three occasions that Trump himself wasn’t under investigation.

House Speaker Paul Ryan has backed the call for all the Comey memos to be turned overto Congress, but that’s not to say that Republicans have the desire or courage to begin the impeachment process. Still, if the Comey memos provide yet more proof of Trump abuses, Democrats could start organizing for a potential removal of the president. If the stranger-than-fiction Trump presidency continues on the “downward spiral” described recently by Tennessee Republican Senator Bob Corker, the 2018 elections could result in a change of congressional control, making impeachment much more plausible.

In the meantime, impeachment preparation could be accelerated by the appointment on May 17 of a special counsel to oversee the FBI investigation into Russian election interference. Rosenstein announced the choice of Robert Mueller, a former FBI director, to ride herd on the probe. Mueller will answer to Rosenstein and ultimately to Trump, but he’ll presumably have more autonomy than an ordinary Justice Department prosecutor. And whatever he digs up could one day find its way into impeachment proceedings.

The bottom line: The road to an impeachment proceeding is long and complicated, and it has more to do with politics than legal tests.

Article Appeared @https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-18/what-would-it-actually-take-to-impeach-trump

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