THE CASE FOR IMPEACHMENT

The above is an excerpt from a letter sent to President Obama on 6 December 2009, just before the COP15 climate summit in Copenhagen began. It was signed by a coalition of business leaders. Among those leaders were: Donald J. Trump, Chairman and President; Donald J. Trump, Jr., EVP; Eric F. Trump, EVP; Ivanka M. Trump, EVP, the Trump Organization.

In more recent years, as we know, Donald Trump has called climate change a Chinese hoax, has questioned the scientific basis for it, has withdrawn from the Paris Accords (making the U.S. the only nation to do so); and has appointed cabinet members dedicated to rolling back all federal government efforts to address it (for example by promoting the use of coal, oil, and natural gas while cutting funds for renewable energy.)

This is the most consequential misprision perpetrated by Donald Trump during his occupancy of the Oval Office — but it is far from the only one. Trump has:

• refused to release his tax returns, or to fully divest his many worldwide business interests.
• consistently praised Vladimir Putin, and blocked or delayed measures to punish Putin's acknowledged interference in our elections.
• taken several steps to derail the FBI and special counsel investigations into the Russian interference.
• frequently attacked the media coverage critical of him as "fake news," and during the campaign had vowed to "open up the libel laws" to make it easier to punish news organizations which publish unfavorable coverage.
• several times expressed the opinion that the prime duty of "his" attorney general, and the Justice Department in general, is to defend him.
• been careless with classified information in multiple ways, including boasting about intelligence findings in the Oval Office with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov present, and allowing people who had not qualified for security clearances (such as Jared Kushner and Rob Porter) to see top-level secrets.

Allan Lichtman, Distinguished Professor of History at American University in Washington, DC, has compiled in this book a detailed record of Donald Trump's misbehavior in several areas. Among these areas are: disregard for Constitutional provisions such as the right of free speech and the separation of church and state; refusal to avoid conflict-of-interest issues by divesting his business operations; and a basic inability to develop consistent policies. There is in addition the possibility of his collusion with the Russians, which remains unproven but seems to irritate him immensely whenever it is mentioned in Congress or the media.

Professor Lichtman also gives us historical background on the two previous impeachments, of Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, neither of which brought a guilty verdict in the Senate, and of Richard Nixon, who would have been impeached but avoided this by resigning. He closes his extensive listing of Trump's faults with an open letter in which he lays out solid recommendations Trump could use to stave off the risk of impeachment.1 Finally, he surveys the merits of impeaching Trump in the event his misconduct rises to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors" the Constitution sets forth as the minimum criteria for beginning the process.

The book is extensively researched and well-written. Its main defect is that it lacks an index. Despite this, I give it full marks and consider it a keeper.

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Copyright © 2018 Christopher P. Winter. All rights reserved.
This page was last modified on 15 February 2018.