Impeachment Is a Mistake - Rob Horowitz
Rob Horowitz, MINDSETTER™
Impeachment Is a Mistake - Rob Horowitz
“In concise summary, on Wednesday the leader of the executive branch incited a crowd to march on the legislative branch,” wrote the Wall Street Journal in its editorial calling on the president to resign. “The express goal was to demand that Congress and Vice President Mike Pence reject electors from enough states to deny Mr. Biden an Electoral College victory. When some in the crowd turned violent and occupied the Capitol, the President caviled and declined for far too long to call them off. When he did speak, he hedged his plea with election complaint.”
As Chris Christie, until recently a strong Trump supporter, said during the panel discussion on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, “I think if inciting to insurrection isn't [an impeachable offense], I don't really know what it is.” The former Governor of New Jersey said that if he was in Congress, he would vote to impeach.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTI agree with Governor Christie, Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA), many other Republicans and nearly all Democratic elected officials that President Trump’s recent actions merit impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate. Proceeding with impeachment, however, with only 10 days until the end of Donald Trump’s presidency is a mistake.
Impeaching Mr. Trump does little or nothing to solve the problem of taking the nuclear codes and other tools of presidential power away from a man who has demonstrated that even in the little time he has remaining in the White House he has the potential to do great harm. Senator McConnell has already said that the earliest that the Senate could take up the matter is the day before Joe Biden is inaugurated. It is highly unlikely that impeachment would get Mr. Trump out the door even one day sooner.
Additionally, even if the House of Representatives holds off delivering the impeachment charges to the US Senate for 100 days or so in order not to disrupt the beginning of Joe Biden’s presidency-- an idea floated by Representative James Clyburn (D-SC) over this past weekend—a trial in the Senate would still be a consuming and divisive distraction from the current and still pressing business of government whenever it was conducted.
Impeachment also creates the danger of turning an event that has earned the president strong bi-partisan condemnation into what will be viewed by many as Democratic overreach and more partisan wrangling. Impeaching the president on his way out of office no matter how merited will be by definition highly controversial. As a result, the lesson that this is the kind of behavior that we must proclaim as unacceptable and for which presidents must be held accountable could be at least partially lost.
A better option is to censure the president. This has the possibility, even the likelihood, of an overwhelming bi-partisan vote, sending the strong message that President Trump’s actions last week and since the election were disgraceful and beyond the pale. Combining a censure with the establishment of a Commission, similar to the 9/11 one, to examine all aspects of the storming of the Capitol and the events leading up to it as well as to make recommendations to prevent something like this past Wednesday from ever happening again will not provide all the justice President Trump deserves, but it is the best path forward for a nation that needs to heal and turn our attention to the big challenges ahead.
