An Illegitimate Presidency-- And Why Congress Must Start Impeachment Now

On Friday evening, we looked at the OpEd former Republican Congressman Tom Coleman penned for the Kansas City Star. Coleman's OpEd shouldn't get lost in the clutter and I was happy to noticed it has been reprinted in dozens of newspapers in small cities around the country, from the Sacramento Bee to the Wichita Eagle. CNN's Erin Burnett had Coleman on her show-- video above-- to discuss some of the major points he made:

• The Mueller report's clear case for obstruction of justice
• Trump's collusion with the Russians to steal the election
• The illegitimacy of Trump and Pence
• The dereliction of duty by Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer in their decision to not impeach him
• The danger of Trump "dismantling our democracy every day brick-by-brick (through) his actions, his lies, his abuse of power."
• The need for impeachment.

"I would hope," Coleman told the CNN viewers, "the people in the Congress, who took an oath of office to uphold the Constitution, would get thatConstitution out again and read it and find out what their responsibilities are as the first article in that Constitution..." If you haven't already, please watch Coleman make his case in the video above and in his OpEd. Soon people will be talking about how horrible it would be to kick Trump out of office just to have President Pence pardon him and his spawn. (Rather than President Biden, who is nearly as likely to do that as Pence.) Coleman made the case that Pence is as illegitimate a vice president as Trump is a "president."

[T]he Trump campaign encouraged a foreign adversary to use and misrepresent stolen information on social media platforms to defraud U.S. voters. Because the presidency was won in this way, the president’s election victory brought forth nothing less than an illegitimate presidency.

...Contemplate the possible behavioral problems of a Trump untethered from the law and who is frequently untethered from reality. Would we be surprised if he were to repeatedly brandish his get out of jail card while breaking, at will, democratic norms, presidential precedents and criminal statutes? Trump said early in his campaign that he “could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK? Are we now at that point?

Because DOJ regulations put a president above the law while in office, I believe the only viable option available is for the House of Representatives, under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution, to open its own investigation, hold public hearings and then determine if they should pursue removal of the president through impeachment.

...If this process leads to impeaching Trump in the House of Representatives and also results in convicting him in the Senate, his illegitimacy would survive through Vice President Mike Pence’s succession to the presidency. Because the misdeeds were conducted to assure the entire Trump-Pence ticket was elected, both former candidates-- Pence as well as Trump-- have been disgraced and discredited. To hand the presidency to an illegitimate vice president would be to approve and reward the wrongdoing while the lingering stench of corruption would trail any Pence administration, guaranteeing an untenable presidency. If Trump is impeached, then Pence should not be allowed to become president. The vice president should resign or be impeached as well if for no other reason that he has been the chief enabler for this illegitimate president.


...What if House Democrats decide not to embark on impeachment? If that were the case, I believe the public would conclude Democrats are no better than the Republicans who have enabled Trump for the past two years, putting party above country. It could hand Trump a second term. Failure to pursue impeachment is to condone wrongdoing. To condone wrongdoing is to encourage more of it. To encourage wrongdoing is to give up on the rule of law and our democracy. To give up on the rule of law and democracy invites autocracy and eventually dictatorship. History has taught us this outcome.

Pelosi: "The focus groups don't want impeachment."