Perspective: Impeachment should be a no-brainer, no matter what the Mueller report says
The sign for Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va. By Jeffrey A. Engel Jeffrey A. Engel is director of Southern Methodist University’s Center for Presidential History and co-author of"Impeachment: An American History." The views here are his own. April 15 at 6:00 AM The Constitution’s authors wouldn’t have needed any summary of the special counsel’s report to know it was time to impeach the president.
Our first president risked everything for American independence, including business opportunities, cherished time with his family and a certain date with a hangman’s noose if ever captured once duty called him to command in 1775. He would not see home again for six years, nor return for another two years after that. When he did arrive home, he hoped this time it would be for good.
This willingness to put country before self is why Washington’s presence lent legitimacy to the controversial convention, why delegates immediately voted him the presiding chair and why they ultimately designed the presidency with him in mind. Put simply, they trusted him and knew he would put America first.
That pesky phrase, “high crimes and misdemeanors” has befuddled Americans ever since. It shouldn’t. The Constitution’s authors understood that impeachable treachery need not, in fact, be a literal crime at all, but rather a demonstration that a president’s presence harmed the body politic, the people, either through maliciousness or selfishness.
Trump has been accused of each of the aforementioned misdeeds. After nearly three years of investigation, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report “does not conclude that the President committed a crime,” but “it also does not exonerate him,” according to the summary by Attorney General William P. Barr. Trump’s allies claimed victory. He claimed “complete and total exoneration” and later declared, “I won.
And with that, he misses the presidency’s entire point, at least as the founders conceived of it. Sacrifice lay at the heart of virtue, and a leader incapable of understanding the difference could in no way be trusted with high office. One who would not sacrifice even for the chance to serve was one who could never be truly virtuous.
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