Grounds For Impeachment: Why Trump’s Own Party Will Have To Remove Him [Opinion]
Amidst a tide of resignations, scandals, and failed policies, Democratic representatives are calling for the impeachment of President Trump, after just 24 days in office. However, with grounds for the president’s impeachment growing, it will ultimately be Trump’s own party who are forced to remove him from office.
In his first few weeks in office, President Trump has proven that he plans to govern just as he campaigned, using divisive rhetoric and a woefully lacking understanding of the democratic process. However, President Trump may not have all that long to govern. According to the Independent, President Trump is highly likely to be impeached within the first 18 months of his presidency, as questions to continue to circulate around Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election and Trump’s failure to cut off ties to his business in the White House.
Firstly, what is the process of impeaching a president?
Impeachment is the process in which the president is charged with an offense against the nation’s interest, defined by Article II, Section IV of the Constitution as “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” During the impeachment process, the president is charged by the House of Representatives and tried by the Senate. However, given that only two presidents in history have ever been impeached, there’s an awful lot of flexibility awarded to Congress in terms of deciding grounds for impeachment.
The March To Impeachment: There are already plenty of grounds to impeach Donald Trump. The really interesting… https://t.co/VSbyWMq0NF pic.twitter.com/ONHN0PuBtv
— Doyle Industries (@DoyleGlobal) February 6, 2017
So, why might President Trump be impeached?
Donald Trump has seen perhaps the most scandalous start to any presidency in history. With that in mind, there’s already grounds for his impeachment. For a start, the recent resignation of Trump’s national security advisor Michael Flynn provides the strongest inkling yet that Russian involvement put Mr. Trump in the White House. When those claims are inevitably proven to be true, the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s entire presidency will be called into question, which will provide strong grounds for impeachment.
The reasons for impeaching the president don’t end there, however. According to Inverse, despite publicly stepping away from his business, Trump remains very much attached to it. Despite the president turning over control of his business interests to his son Donald Trump Jr, that doesn’t stop him making political decisions in the best interest of his business.
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In fact, according to the New Republic, the grounds for President Trump’s impeachment could already be there. However, with both the House of Representatives and the Senate controlled by the Republican party, why would they want to impeach their own president?
Whilst they may never want to impeach him, there will come a point when they’ll have to.
In a few months time, it’ll become increasingly clear that President Trump has acted against the nation’s interest in some way or another. With Republican representatives facing re-election and a battle to retain control of the house in the 2018 mid-term elections, they’ll have no option but to launch impeachment proceedings against their own president. Perhaps the most desperate representative to retain his position is Republican Speaker Paul Ryan, who will eventually turn against Trump.
Donald Trump is 'leading himself' towards impeachment https://t.co/2KDcYCcl4k pic.twitter.com/mxxTMSBUBy
— The Independent (@Independent) February 8, 2017
Exactly why President Trump will be impeached remains to be seen, but with a platitude of options available, it’s only a matter of time. Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate know that if they want to keep their seats in 2018 or 2020, along with control of those houses, they’ll be the ones who need to launch impeachment proceedings against their own president.
[Featured Image by Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images]
