October 31, 2019
Re: Impeachment of President Trump
Dear family, friends and colleagues,
I urge you to get involved in writing to your elected representatives of all political stripes, participating and actively exercising your rights of free speech, petition for redress of grievances and freedom of assembly. There are ample opportunities to get involved locally and nationally.
The House impeachment investigation in its depositions of Trump Administration officials has to date confirmed in all material respects that the President has not only committed serious crimes, but also and most importantly has abused his constitutional responsibilities in pressuring the government of the Ukraine to help him smear the Bidens. Public hearings will begin soon, and the President will have a full opportunity to answer the charges, cross-examine witnesses and present any extenuating or exculpatory evidence. There is not much doubt that he did what he did, and that it’s illegal and a serious impeachable offense. It appears from the witnesses that there was both a quid and a quo and both are illegal and grounds for an impeachment proceeding,
The evidentiary and committee phases are important, but it is important to understand that the proceedings now include the “political” phase. Political is used here in the best sense of the word, which derives from the Ancient Greek for an informed and engaged citizenry, making vital decisions for the community consistent with the four virtues – “wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice”. We all need to speak up for our nation and its future, and we need to do it now and continue our involvement over the next year.
If the President wants to escape impeachment, his best route would be to acknowledge his improper conduct and apologize for it, show remorse rather than recidivism, and throw himself upon the mercy of the American people and their elected representatives. That is not his nature, which is at its core combative to the nth degree, and he is unable to acknowledge that he is anything but the height of perfection. Therefore witnesses will continue to be pressured, smeared and intimidated; vital documents will not be provided to Congress, and representatives and senators will be placed under enormous pressure to stand by their leader. The Trump tactics will be deny, delay, dissemble, obstruct, confuse and distract.
As Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist papers #65, impeachment is at its core a political process and judgment; his fellow politicians, including the requisite 2/3rds Senate majority, will be judging the President. They will impeach and then convict him if that is the overwhelming will of the American people, their own constituents to whom they owe their offices and their roles in public life.
Over the last month I have concluded that it is imperative that the President be impeached for three reasons: the Ukraine, the Kurds and the Doral resort. The Ukraine was at least a four month plot by the President and his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, involving the removal of the US Ambassador, the withholding of security assistance and financial aid, the dangling of a White House invitation and the hold up of trade agreements to pressure the new President of the Ukraine to participate in a smear of the Bidens, the Democratic candidate the President has most feared, and by the way it’s working to drive up Biden’s negatives. That conduct is both illegal and unconstitutional, it is not a casual “can you do me this little favor” and it is precisely the kind of conduct for which the Constitution’s framers believed that impeachment should be used. Unless he is stopped, he will do it again and again and again and again, as he already indicated on national TV, to maintain his hold on power. And in many ways, it is a repeat of the Hilary smears and DNC hacking with Russian involvement during his 2016 campaign, now abetted with all of the President’s very substantial powers marshaled in support.
The ill-advised and precipitous abandonment of our regional allies, the Syrian Kurds, is well within the President’s authority. As Commander in Chief, he is entitled to make these types of decisions. However for me, it highlights the perils of allowing the President to remain in office and make such poor judgments, inimical to our national security and our standing in the world. His judgment and conduct of foreign affairs with our long-standing allies in Europe and Asia and North America has been destructive of our standing, weakens our national security and respect across the globe, and emboldens our enemies. These are not per se grounds for impeachment, but they do highlight the urgent need to remove him from the high position of responsibility he holds.
Finally the decision to host the G-7 meeting at his own money losing Doral resort during the summer off-season is symptomatic and emblematic of his use of his public office for his own and his family’s private gain. The Constitution bars domestic and foreign emoluments (gifts and financial benefits from foreign governments, the states and our own national government) for the nation’s President, other than his salary. The Doral decision is not a one of a kind, an off hand mistake; our nation’s President has been using the government to beef up his own and his family’s financial benefits in the multiple resorts that he owns from Scotland to Florida, New Jersey to DC, and Ireland to Virginia. One should not begrudge the President’s desire to sleep comfortably in a bed at a resort that he owns; in fact we should strongly support it, but the frequency with which the entire Presidential retinue and his many subordinates and even military personnel are housed in and pay luxury rental rates at Trump owned facilities with federal tax dollars should be a cause for fiscal and political alarm. The frequency with which suitors from other nations use the President’s own facilities in an effort to advance their own causes is a glaring conflict of interest between the public’s trust and the President’s own financial gain. This is not a rich man’s casual oblivion to appearances, but rather a calculated use of the government he heads to further enrich himself and his family business.
Whether your representative is a Republican or a Democrat, there has been real alarm at the President’s actions, expressed privately from some in the President’s party and publicly for others. It is time for us to give our elected representatives the public support they will need to take the most courageous, consequential and wise actions of their political lives. Think of the courage of the protesters from Hong Kong to Beirut, from Iraq to Chile and the risks they run to speak truth to power. Let us be as courageous as our founders, and as true to their ideals, hopes and dreams for our proud democracy.
All my very best,
Lucien
PS: I have been participating with a group of deeply concerned and committed lawyers, you can see some of their statements at https://lawyersdefendingdemocracy.org/. I hope you will join their efforts, if their mission appeals to you.