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Donald Trump.
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Twenty years ago, a very divided House of Representatives voted against President Clinton, against the wishes of the majority of the American people. Now that President Trump is publicly implicated in serious criminal behavior, the question of whether the President will be dismissed and removed from office is once again at the center of concern. Trump has already begun to stir up indignation at this prospect, saying that "people would revolt" in the face of impeachment proceedings. The president's open threat of violence is scandalous, but also recalls that, if prosecuted indiscriminately and without adequate bipartite support, efforts to remove a president may further divide the country.
This risk weighs heavily on the Congress when it is a question of deciding whether, and when, to invoke its constitutional authority with regard to impeachment. An incipient debate has been launched between the opponents of Trump, reflecting radically different views on the subject: decide to act quickly in the light of the scandals surrounding the president, or to take a longer-term approach term to form a broad coalition of lawmakers parties who believe that the president must be dismissed. Both sides of this debate are reflected in the views of two personalities.
The first is the new chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jerrold Nadler, who has gained national notoriety as a vocal opponent of the removal of President Bill Clinton. If President Trump faces a possible indictment, the first hearings will be organized by Nadler and his committee. The second is George Conway, the husband of Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway, and a lawyer who played a critical role behind the scenes in the failure of the effort to defeat Clinton in the 1990s.
Conway, who, not so long ago, was considering becoming a senior Trump justice official, sets the most aggressive standard for the dismissal of the president, as he did at the time. 20 years. Nadler, on the other hand, has adopted a much smaller standard.
It is not possible to dismiss a president with the support of his most ardent opponents, however justified .
As Conway had recently explained in an interview with Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman, during the course of the Clinton proceedings, he considered the impeachment standard in clear and unambiguous terms: if the president perjured in taking an oath under oath in respect of a material fact, he should be dismissed and dismissed, regardless of the context of the subject matter. Conway also emphasized his belief in the importance of "consistency," which he says requires him to apply the same standards of conduct that he wanted to Clinton as he and Trump.
So it should not be surprising that, in the wake of the statement of former FBI director James Comey, that citizens "should do everything they can to make sure that lies stop on January 20, 2021, "replied Conway . ] tweeting "I am increasingly optimistic that we can do better than that," clearly suggesting that the president may soon be ripe for impeachment.
Like Conway, Nadler's views on the impeachment issue were forged in the battle for Clinton's dismissal. Nadler was a junior member of Congress in 1998 and was one of Clinton's most ardent supporters. Indeed, he drew the public's attention to testifying before the then-GOP-controlled Judiciary Committee that the President's attempt to remove him from lying about his sexual activities had all the characteristics of 'a partisan coup d'etat'.
Unlike Conway, Nadler believes that the circumstances of the misconduct of a president really matter and that the alleged offense of Clinton, according to Nadler, simply did not deserve the extraordinary relief of his dismissal. "An imprescriptible offense is an abuse of presidential power to undermine the structure or operation of government, or the violation of constitutional freedoms," and even though Clinton lied under oath, his conduct failed to respect that obstacle, explained Nadler.
Nadler is a harsh critic of Trump, whom he describes as "the greatest threat to the constitutional freedom and the operation of our government's living memory". Yet when asked recently whether Trump should be subject to dismissal, if any In criminal matters, Nadler has demonstrated remarkable consistency with his stance on the issue 20 years ago.
Nadler warned against what he described as a "partisan impeachment," explaining that lawmakers "must be reluctant to make an impeachment". As a result, Nadler has set out a three-part test that he will insist on for him to meet before his committee examines potential impeachment articles against Trump.
First, the Congress must determine whether the President has committed an offense that may warrant dismissal. But even if this initial hurdle is respected, Nadler says Congress must then consider whether the "gravity" of the offense is serious enough to warrant "inflicting on the country the trauma of impeachment". . Finally, Nadler argues that even if the president has committed a crime serious enough to deserve an impeachment, Congress should only proceed if a "good faction" of members of the president's party agrees.
It is on this last point that the cleavage between Nadler's and Conway's views is most striking. Although Conway thinks that a president should be removed from office simply if he indulges in misconduct consistent with the standard of potential unpredictability, Nadler asserts that dismissal is inappropriate unless the country did not agree that the president should be removed from office. The story of Clinton's dismissal and the end of Nixon's presidency may well support Nadler's caution.
Two decades ago, the GOP-controlled House was condemned by Clinton by making it clear that most citizens agreed with Nadler that their proceedings amounted to a trial for a partisan show. , which ended in a partisan line vote, based on Conway 's opinion that perjury deserves the end of a presidency outright. By the time the impeachment items were presented to the Senate, it was clear that the elimination efforts were doomed to failure. Following the dismissal vote of the House, Clinton's popularity reached 73%. During the impeachment process, the House GOP conference suffered electoral losses and turned into a leadership chaos that led to the resignation of Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and his appointed successor. .
On the other hand, when the Judiciary Committee of the House began to initiate impeachment proceedings against Nixon, evidence that the President had obstructed justice and committed other serious acts of misconduct was becoming overwhelming . Nixon subsequently resigned before the near-certainty that he would have been dismissed and dismissed from the presidency had he attempted to remain in office. This was because the "smoking gun" cassette had captured Nixon who was directly involved in the concealment of Watergate and, as a result, Republican support for Nixon began to collapse.
In this context, one can reasonably wonder if Conway has not known how to draw lessons from history, including the ignominious failure of his compatriots in their efforts to eliminate Clinton: It is not possible to overthrow a president with the support of his president. fiercest opponents, however justified they may be.
Nadler, on the contrary, submits that the Chamber should only proceed to dismissal if "a good fraction" of the other party is in agreement. In addition, in January 2019, the partisan composition of the Senate, which will include a greater number of Republican senators (and more ardent supporters of Trump), will further complicate the challenge of securing the two-thirds majority required for removal.
Still, it may be salutary for the path of indictment to be so steep. As Nadler pointed out, the Trump presidency tragedy could be compounded if Trump is forced to leave office without a clear national consensus. As he did 20 years ago, Nadler recently warned that an indictment conducted without bipartite support could again appear as a coup d'etat for the president's supporters: "You do not want that half of the country say the other the next 30 years, "we won the election. You stole it from us. "
It may be necessary and appropriate for the president to be forced out of office before the end of his term, but if that happens, the process should be based on a national consensus. This consensus, in the end, will only be achieved if, as in the last days of Nixon's presidency, the nation faces unequivocal evidence of serious and pervasive presidential crime. For this reason, the most important determinant of the survival of the Trump presidency may not be the beginning of an advance impeachment proceeding, but the authorization of the Mueller inquiry to proceed to its conclusion. without any hindrance.
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