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This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1259451
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1259451
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I disagree. He couldn’t do away with Obamacare without the Congress, and legislating through Congress can’t be impeachable. I think the bottom line is: what he does in the open isn’t impeachable, with the possible exception of instructing employees to ignore Congressional subpoenas. Rather, it’s the stuff that is kept from the people (and the Congress) that’s impeachable. That includes the Ukraine, the porn payments made while President, and whatever he said to Erdogan and Putin that we still don’t know about.
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Oh man I couldn’t disagree more strongly. First of all, if your implication is that if Congress does a thing the people must want it and there you are, I’d counter that Congress can be bullied and manipulated like any other group of people. When they discovered the durable popularity of the ACA they very obviously lost their enthusiasm for ending it. But Trump is pursuing it like Ahab and trying to criplle and kill it with every tool he has. It’s an obvious abuse of power.
Second, if you let him do anything as long as it’s done openly, you’re giving up any way to address his mental illness, which is the reason he can’t tell right from wrong. You’re saying the thing that makes him most dangerous and unfit is the thing you’re going to give him a pass on. Now God knows the things he has in fact done in a skulking, hidden way are bad enough. But he wants to rob millions of health coverage, with no way to replace it, because Barack Obama gave it to them. Only reason. He’s fucking nuts. It would be imperative to impeach him for that alone, man, come on.
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The problem here, I think, is that it ultimately boils down to a political position. I don’t see how that can be a winner. (Those who oppose the ACA will endorse pretty much any means of achieving its demise.)
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Agree with mattinpa that Trump’s failure to uphold the ACA laws, and the directive that the United States Government join in a lawsuit designed to destroy the ACA are certainly impeachable offenses. This act becomes heinous when the Trump administration fails to show evidence that they have a replacement health care law. A couple of links, the first on the impact of the ACA lawsuit; the second on a House hearing from this week. The hearing, with AEI health care maven Verma Seema, underscores the Trump administration’s open hostility to the provisions of the ACA.
https://stateofreform.com/news/federal/2019/07/updates-from-the-aca-court-hearing/
https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/healthpolicy/82909
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I think one could argue that Trump has failed to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” on a number of different fronts, his assaults on the ACA being just one example. How about an EPA that seems determined not to protect the environment? Or DeVos’s handling of the student loan forgiveness program, which has earned her a contempt citation? Or tolerating an Attorney General who seems to think that he’s Trump’s personal attorney, “justice” be damned? These are all examples of the Trump administration violating the stated intent of statutes passed by Congress and signed into law, or, in the case of the DoJ, completely undermining the reason the Department exists.
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Exactly. By conflating his abuse of power and extortion concerning the withholding of Congressionally appropriated and mandated military aid to the Ukraine with the assault on the ACA, the corruption and national security harm of his Ukraine actions becomes diluted by mere political conflicts.
There is much to be discerned when the redacted portion of the Mueller report is eventually released to Congress. Using that evidence of corruption and obstruction of justice should be part of the case for impeachment. The machinations regarding the ACA, however, will do nothing but confuse an easily distracted public and will only serve Republican interests in framing the proceedings as merely political.
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Well, we just disagree. I think impeachment is an extraordinary remedy, which has to address an extraordinary violation of the office, such as abuse of power or other high crime or misdemeanor. That’s why I included obstructing Congress, even if it’s in the open. Following your reasoning, if Trump can be impeached for trying to undermine the ACA, Obama could have been impeached by the Repub Congress for enacting it. It has to require more than vehement disagreement with political policy; it has to be that the President has done something out of the view of the Congress, to obstruct Congress’ oversight, or to use his position to benefit himself. I think Trump’s conduct regarding the Ukraine satisfies all of these requirements, but trying to cancel the ABA? Not as far as I can see.
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. . . and reinforce the existing tendency to resort to political tribalism.
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OK, I’m open to this. But:
We now know that over 5000 children were taken from their parents, often with no records kept of which children had been taken from which adults. And they were kept in freezing, unsanitary cages, with babies and toddlers being cared for, not by responsible adults, but by only slightly older children.
This is child abuse on an industrial scale. How is this NOT impeachable???
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I also doubt it would be a political winning strategy.
If the situation was reversed, Republicans would be investigating every possible financial trail possible looking for laundering and etc.
They made a career out of investigating Clinton’s Whitewater investment. Hell, they even made a stink about Hillary’s cattle futures trading endeavor.
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Yes, this is the weird blank check the press, and of course Republicans, have been writing for Trump for at least as long as he has announced his candidacy. Corrupt behavior done in the open is simply ignored. It is as if a mob boss orders a hit in public, he can’t prosecuted for it.
The acting of hiding a corrupt or criminal act does not change the corruptness or criminality of the act at all, although it may well be a new act of corruption or criminality.
Our system has never had to deal with open abuses of power and office before, and was thus unequipped to address it when Trump started - before he even took office.
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I’d like to see such an Article of Impeachment be successful, because this is one of the most horrible of the hundreds of horrible things he’s done to hurt people. But I think this would fall under the “elections have consequences” when it comes to policy argument.
If the Articles of Impeachment could be 1) Ukraine and endangering national security, 2) Obstruction of Congress, 3) Obstruction of justice in the Mueller investigation (10 or 11 instances), and 4) a list of about 10 or 15 other things he’s done (immigration, kids in cages, gutting regulations that results in not enforcing laws, emoluments, etc.) with a note that says “these are other impeachable actions that make him totally unfit for office, but we’re not going to address each one separately because it takes too long and he just keeps adding to the list anyway.”
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Yes. Trump has people in office who are violently and openly opposed to the very mission of the agencies they head.
Strongly disagree that ACA implementation should be subject of impeachment. Muddies the water on strong case charging Trump directly with encouraging a foreign government to meddle in our election. And general public would dismiss it on grounds Trump and GOP were just practicing politics as usual.
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Sorry, but on the relative scale of Trump crimes, this is like demanding that a petty larceny charge be added to charges for murder, rape and arson.
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If his assault on the ACA was the only example of his failure to execute the laws, I’d be inclined to agree. But his administration has mounted a wholesale assault on the laws, on so many fronts. It’s more like murder, rape, arson, and oh, by the way, he’s been embezzling millions from the firm for years.
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Feature, not a bug.
Explained here:
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They buggered the nation, too.
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I agree with others here that it is not wise to pursue at this time as part of impeachment - but simply because it is poor strategy, the press and U.S. public being what they are.
I absolutely disagree that it is in some way a “lesser abuse” than the Ukraine scheme, but that latter corrupt act is such a pure “test case” – something that is purely gratuitous personal corruption - that it should be pursued on its own. It is simply good strategy to go with one pure isolated act of personal corruption that is easy to prove.
The U.S. is unfamiliar with open abuses of office, and the press and public are unwilling and/or unequipped address it (the press simply unwilling to challenge Republican power abuse for sure, they would hold any Democrat accountable however).
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The problem is that pretty much everything he’s done since he took office has been a high crime and or misdemeanor. By flooding the zone he’s made it so much more difficult to point to specific crimes. Ideally he would be impeached and convicted on all of them, but the GOP (especially during the period when they controlled both houses of congress) has normalized much of his criminal behavior.
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