The removal of Donald Trump from office requires that Democrats take the House of Representatives in November. And that Robert Mueller eventually issues a sufficiently incriminating report as a result of his special counsel investigation.
Both are good bets to happen, but will also only be the beginning of a process for which there is little precedent or much in the way of guidelines.
Impeachment is a legal process, but one justified largely by political rather than legal considerations because "high crimes and misdemeanors" has never been precisely defined. Evidence of criminal conduct need not lead to impeachment, let alone conviction, and impeachment and conviction can occur without evidence of criminal conduct.
That said, the widespread (and thus politically tenable) assumption is that at least some kind of criminal malfeasance should have occurred to justify resort to the Constitution's ultimate safeguard. Rank incompetence, habitual lying, low character, and emotional immaturity probably aren't enough.
Thus, the likelihood of Trump being successfully impeached boils down to two variables: the willingness of a House likely controlled by Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats come January to issue articles of impeachment, and the willingness of a sufficient number of members of Trump's own party to join Democrats and vote for his removal after trial in the Senate.
The first hurdle will be easier to clear, as it is highly unlikely that the Democratic leadership in the House will be able to resist the impeachment demands of the enraged Democratic base that put them in power.
Whether the Mueller report will actually produce what would normally be considered sufficient evidence of criminal conduct to justify such a step will matter less than the fact that the "resistance" has been essentially demanding abrogation of the 2016 election since the day after it was held, and been "resisting" before there was even anything to resist (before Trump assumed office).
For the resistance, Trump's failure to leave a big enough tip for his golf caddy or wearing white after Labor Day would be sufficient grounds. They will fasten on to any pretext, however trivial, to demand removal (and for Trump it is likely to be more than trivial).
The Democratic effort to retake the House depends upon mobilizing the party base against the despot; to not do everything within their power to remove that despot after having acquired such power would amount to a betrayal. If Trump is as bad as the resistance claims, then there is no argument for not impeaching him when they get the opportunity.
Prediction: Soon after Mueller issues his report, Trump will become the third U.S. president to be impeached.
But that is when things will get especially dicey for Trump, because his fate will be decided by members of his own party in the Senate, where about a third of the Republican contingent would have to go along to get to the magic number of 67 for impeachment (assuming that all Democrats vote for it and a less than dramatic shift in the chamber's composition come January).
Although that might seem far-fetched from the current vantage point, it becomes far less so if (a) the Republicans receive an even bigger shellacking than expected in November; (b) they blame (as would seem reasonable) that shellacking squarely on Trump; and (c) Mueller's report contains truly damning evidence of Trump malfeasance.
Under such circumstances, the unthinkable will become increasingly thinkable for Republicans tired of having to grudgingly support and apologize on a daily basis for Trump, and as they turn from the debris of November 2018 toward the possibility of a bigger disaster in November 2020.
Within this context, there is likely to be a growing number with the GOP that believe their party should free itself of the Trump yoke sooner rather than later so as to minimize the damage into the next election cycle.
Those Republicans will also realize that a 2020 ticket headed by Marco Rubio, Nikki Haley, or Ben Sasse would be favored to defeat a Democratic ticket headed by Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, or Cory "Spartacus" Booker, while Trump would probably lose badly to just about anyone the Democrats nominated, taking still more Republicans down with him.
As such, it is hardly implausible that a sufficient number of Republican senators, with their party already reeling, would decide to jettison the baggage, particularly if the Democrats in the House got it started and Mueller provided something resembling a pretext. They could even pat themselves on the back for putting country and the integrity of the office of the presidency above partisanship.
For those who claim that impeaching Trump would amount to annulling the results of a democratic election, so, too, would have removing Bill Clinton in 1998 or removing Richard Nixon if he had refused to step down in 1974.
Because that's what the founders intended impeachment for: to correct, in extreme circumstances, if absolutely necessary, the bad decisions of the people.
A couple years back a shrewd friend of mine offered up an intriguing solution to the problem of the historically appalling choice of Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton--impeach the winner.
And I thought he was joking.
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Freelance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.
Editorial on 09/24/2018