The Trump Impeachment Chronicle
Written on February 26th, 2020 by {"login"=>"jcbitshyd", "email"=>"journal@hyderabad.bits-pilani.ac.in", "display_name"=>"Journal Club, BPHC", "first_name"=>"", "last_name"=>""}Why was Trump under investigation?
The impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump, the incumbent President of the United States, was initiated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on September 24, 2019 after a whistleblower alleged that Donald Trump may have abused the power of his presidency. Trump was accused of withholding military aid as a means of pressuring the then newly elected President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky to pursue investigations of Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden and to investigate a conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, was behind the interference in the 2016 presidential election. More than a week after Trump had put a hold on the previously approved aid, he made these requests in a July 25th phone call with the Ukrainian President, which the whistleblower said was intended to help Trump's reelection bid.
Context
It’s important to gather some basic context before we move on to talking about the issue at large. Firstly, in the backdrop of this calendar, the Democratic Presidential Nominee Primary was at its peak. Joe Biden was running for the Democratic nomination and was widely considered to be the frontrunner and the ‘most electable’ as compared to other candidates like Bernie Sanders.
Secondly, the funds that were appropriated to Ukraine were authorized by Congress. Now, in essence, that means that the President cannot impede/add on to the process of the funds being transferred for political reasons.
Thirdly, Hunter Biden was part of the Board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma as a non-executive director. This role is widely seen as a ‘ceremonial role’ that’s done primarily to increase international exposure and credibility. The statement that Biden wasn’t qualified for the job and hence, must be corrupt is a very disingenuous non-sequitur.
Fourthly, a Ukrainian prosecutor by the name of Viktor Shokin who was investigating allegations of corruption amongst many Ukrainian companies, including Burisma, was removed in 2016 after widespread calls from the European Union and the United States, including Joe Biden. The allegations of corruption against Burisma were aimed at the company managing to get away with money laundering and tax violations while their owner was the Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources.
Lastly, there have been numerous investigations in the above scandal involving Hunter Biden and all of them point to he being innocent. While the optics of the situation might not look great for the Biden’s, it’s important to recognize that they were innocent in this matter.
The question that was raised through this issue was two-fold:
1) Did the President withhold important military funds that were already appropriated to get an investigation opened into his political rival hereby leaving the sanctity of the US election process in tatters?
The answer to this question, while complicated, is yes. After multiple testimonies from expert credible witnesses, the White House Counsel and official White House Documents – this does seem to be the case.
2) Is this offense impeachable?
Unfortunately, or fortunately, the classification of an impeachable offense is very hazy. More often than not, the issue turns out to be partisan and toxic towards the US political climate. While Republicans say that the President was simply doing his duty towards checking corruption and ensuring Ukraine handled it’s prosecutorial duties well, Democrats say that the President used the power of his office to enrich himself personally, by ‘bullying’ another nation into doing his dirty work for him.
General Procedure of Impeachment
At the federal level, the impeachment process is a three-step procedure:-
• First, the Congress investigates. This investigation typically begins in the House Judiciary Committee, but that does not always have to be the case. For example, the Nixon impeachment inquiry began in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The facts that led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton were first discovered in the course of an investigation by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr.
• Second, the House of Representatives must pass, by a simple majority of those present and voting, articles of impeachment, which constitute the formal allegation or allegations. Upon passage, the defendant has been ‘impeached’.
• Third, the Senate tries the accused. In the case of the impeachment of a President, the Chief Justice of the United States presides over the proceedings. For the impeachment of any other official, the Constitution is silent on who shall preside, suggesting that this role falls to the Senate's usual presiding officer, the President of the Senate, who is also the Vice President of the United States. Conviction in the Senate requires the concurrence of a two-thirds majority of those present. The result of a conviction is removal from office.
Past Impeachments
What’s common between Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump?
They all have had articles of impeachment passed against them in the House of Representatives. The most obvious, Richard Nixon, faced 3 articles of impeachment related to the infamous Watergate Scandal in which he allegedly obstructed the investigation and helped cover up the crimes surrounding the break in. Nixon faced articles of impeachment, meaning that the House Judiciary Committee approved the 3 articles of impeachment but he didn’t let the process get any further, resigning before the House could impeach him.
On the other hand, Clinton, whose impeachment was connected to the cover-up of his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky while in office, was 22 votes away from reaching the necessary number of votes in the Senate.
Now, Johnson’s impeachment trial in 1868 looked a whole lot like a real trial. Witnesses were called, sworn testimony was given, and evidence was presented. The outcome truly was in the balance. At the end, senators had to vote on whether to convict or acquit on particular articles. A two-thirds vote on any one article would have convicted Johnson and removed him from office. However, in the three articles the Senate voted on, Republicans fell short of this margin by just a single vote all three times — so he was acquitted, and remained in office.
By contrast, Clinton’s impeachment trial in 1999 was a bit of a joke. It was clear to everyone in advance that the Republicans weren’t even close to the two-thirds of senators they needed to convict Clinton since the president was very popular and consequently the impeachment effort was viewed as partisan.
Proceedings in the House of Representatives
In October, three congressional committees (Intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs) deposed witnesses. In November, the House Intelligence Committee held a number of public hearings in which witnesses testified publicly; on December 3rd, the committee voted 13–9 along party lines to adopt a final report. A set of impeachment hearings before the House Judiciary Committee began on December 4th; on December 13th, it voted 23–17 along party lines to recommend two articles of impeachment, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The committee released a lengthy report on the impeachment articles on December 16th. Two days later, the entire House approved both articles in a near party-line vote, with all Republicans opposing along with three Democrats. This made Trump the third U.S. president in history to be impeached and marked the first fully partisan impeachment where a U.S. president was impeached without support from the President's own party.
Trial in the Senate
On February 5, the 100-member Senate acquitted Trump on both impeachment articles, as neither article obtained the support of a two-thirds majority of senators. 52 Republican senators voted against the charge of abuse of power, and all 53 voted against the charge of obstruction of Congress. Republican Mitt Romney, the only senator to break party lines, became the first U.S senator to vote to convict a president of his own party in an impeachment trial, as he voted for conviction on abuse of power.
Moving Forward
The impeachment of Donald Trump has been a hot topic of political discussion for a long time and was very unpopular during the same period.
On one hand, this whole caper has blown up in Trump’s face, unifying a formerly divided Democratic Party into launching a formal impeachment inquiry, dividing Republicans, and costing him in the polls.
On the other hand though, you need to squint pretty hard at the polling data thus far to see the impact. His poll numbers sunk a point or two when the Ukraine news initially broke but seem to have rebounded back as the impeachment process carried on. Looking at Trump’s approval as a whole, his two worst moments were the unpopular 2018 Tax Law and the Government Shutdown in early 2019. Nothing that’s come out about Ukraine has been nearly that bad for his approval numbers.
And in a larger sense, to the extent that Trump’s goal was to hurt Joe Biden’s presidential prospects, his strategy is arguably working. Biden’s approval ratings, after all, have declined over the past several months more clearly than Trump’s have. Then again, all the main Democratic presidential candidates have suffered from declining approval numbers during the course of the campaign, so Trump’s actions may have nothing to do with that.
Conclusion
Republicans believe his impeachment has been a fund-raising boon for Trump's presidential campaign, as his supporters rally around their embattled president.
Democrats counter that this vote will be a black mark on the President's name that voters will find impossible to ignore when casting their ballots.
Polls show a sharply divided nation whose opinions about the President, for and against, have not changed much because of the ongoing impeachment drama. The President’s approval numbers have remained in the low to mid 40’s since the start of his Presidency, according to 538’s. It would be hard not to say that the impeachment saga was the culmination of a bitter partisan fight that’s been a backdrop of Trump’s presidency.
The question in the US now, is not whether Trump abused his power or not - it’s which “version” of the truth is aligns more with a pre-existing belief system. In short, the odds that one would shift sides after this saga are meagre at best, which is a dangerous thing to do when you have a President who doesn’t mind playing fast and loose with the rules and a deadlocked Government.
It was assumed that the 2020 election was going to be closer before the whole impeachment process unfurled and if anything, it seems to be an even closer affair after the impeachment drama.
Article written by Srinivasan Velamur and Sarvesh Lanke