Trump Will Never Resign-- Unless It's Part Of A Plea Deal To Keep Himself Out Of Prison... But Newspapers Are Already Calling For His Resignation

Coup d'état-- The dismantling of American Democracy by Nancy Ohanian

The Connecticut Post, part of the Hearst chain, serves the southwest part of the state-- primarily Fairfield County (think Fairfield, Bridgeport, Trumbull Darien, Stratford, New Canaan, Derby). It reaches over 50,000 families a day. Hillary won Fairfield County handily-- 238,723 (58.2%) to 155,457 (37.9%)-- and last year Democrats swept the county. Senator Chris Murphy racked up a 61.8% win. Ned Lamont took 53.0% in his gubernatorial win. And the county performed massively (D+24) for Jim Himes, the well-regarded local congressman. His was reelected 168,726 (61.2%) to 106,921 (38.8%) in what was once a GOP stronghold. So, over the weekend, the Connecticut Post was largely preaching the the choir when it called on Trump to resign. Someone had to be first, right?

The editors noted that "Even given the incredibly fast pace of news in the Trump era, the speed with which the Ukraine scandal has moved from vague complaint to impeachable offense has been stunning. Though we’re still at the beginning of the process, there is already a mountain of evidence implicating President Donald Trump with conduct far outside the accepted norms of a democratic leader. The most damning evidence came from the president himself. It centers around a phone call with the president of Ukraine in which Trump raises the issue of investigating the son of presidential hopeful Joe Biden, and the implication of Trump’s words is clear as day. He asks for an investigation that would benefit him politically and has nothing to do with legitimate U.S. interests, and he brings it up repeatedly, including immediately upon the Ukrainian president mentioning the need for U.S. security aid."

This is an impeachable offense. Republicans spent Wednesday arguing there was no explicit quid pro quo, but there is seemingly no line the president can cross that would inspire them to put the public good ahead of politics. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, joined by the entirety of Connecticut’s congressional delegation, has called for impeachment proceedings, and that process must now begin in earnest.

The proper next step for the president is clear. He should resign. He has repeatedly proven himself unfit for office and appears to view the presidency as a position meant to benefit himself personally, not as one that must represent the interests of an entire nation.

Because there’s almost no chance he is going to step down, Congress’ work becomes that much more vital.

The truth is that Trump has been breaking laws and norms with impunity from the beginning. For instance, the U.S. Constitution forbids federal officeholders from receiving any gifts or payments from foreign entities, but in the same phone call with the Ukrainian president we see evidence that Trump is in violation. “I stayed at the Trump Tower,” President Volodymyr Zelensky says of his last trip to the U.S. Since Trump never divested himself from his business and continues to profit from it, he’s in violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, according to many legal scholars, and it’s just one of countless examples on that score.

Further, the Mueller report into Russia’s intervention in the 2016 election details multiple occasions when the president apparently obstructed justice, and he was saved from criminal indictment only by virtue of the office he currently holds. The president, as is his wont, called the report a total exoneration. It wasn’t.

It’s not clear how much worse the Ukraine scandal will get. The summary of the phone call was released by the White House without need for a subpoena, but it is apparently abridged and does not represent all the whistleblower complaint that set the issue in motion. It’s easy to imagine that what we don’t know could be much worse than what we do.

But what we know is enough, and because it’s from the president himself, there’s no reason to question its veracity. There’s no going back from here. The long, bumpy ride of the Trump era may have turned a corner, but it’s nowhere near over.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch had a slightly different message for its readers in Missouri yesterday, one aimed at congressional Republicans: Trump is exhausting the nation's and his party's patience. Time to dump him. "Try as Republicans will to distract the American public and label the impeachment inquiry a witch hunt, there is no escaping the hard truth that President Donald Trump solicited help from a foreign leader for his 2020 campaign, an act that U.S. law specifically forbids. Republican leaders in Congress find themselves, once again, scrambling furiously to concoct a believable defense for a man whose conduct is indefensible. Trump’s recklessness and divisiveness is exhausting the nation’s patience. How far will GOP leaders in Congress allow Trump to drag this country down before they stand in defense of the Constitution?... How far must a president go in betraying his country before Republicans finally declare that he no longer represents their values? How much crisis, chaos and scandal can Republicans, exhausted from constantly defending him, tolerate before they decide enough’s enough? The time has come for Republicans to stand up for the Constitution, stand up for America, and tell Trump to step down."