Article from Reason by Joe Setyon.
Rep. Justin Amash, a libertarian-leaning Republican from Michigan, offered his take last night on the possibility of impeaching President Donald Trump. While impeachment proceedings and a subsequent trial in the Senate are constitutional, he wrote, the process should not be taken lightly.
On Tuesday, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted on eight counts of tax and bank fraud. That same day, Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, admitted in court to coordinating with his boss during the 2016 campaign to pay several women not to talk about their sexual liaisons with Trump. On top of it all, Cohen’s lawyer has said his client is willing to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. Speculation has thus abounded that Trump could be impeached, especially if Democrats take back control of the House in the November midterm elections.
According to Amash, the allegations against the president should be “taken seriously.” But before acting in a way that could affect Trump’s tenure, Congress should wait for Mueller to release the results of his investigation into Russian election meddling:
We should allow Robert Mueller to complete his investigation and issue his report before taking any action potentially affecting the president’s tenure.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) August 23, 2018
Amash then cited Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist No. 69, which suggests that the president cannot be criminally prosecuted while in office. “Before facing ordinary criminal liability, he first would have to be impeached, tried, convicted, and removed from office,” Amash wrote.
Read the entire article at Reason.
Image Credit: By Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America (Justin Amash Uploaded by AlbertHerring) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
wpDiscuz
Michael Cohen did not say Trump told him to pay off Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. What Michael Cohen said was that a candidate for a federal office directed him to pay off two women. Tri reporting the truth instead of reporting what some reporter changed the narrative to.
Paying off someone so they will not divulge information, of ANY kind, is a PERSONAL expense, and therefore, not against campaign finance laws…next case. ‘Collusion’ is not a ‘crime’…next case. Manafort’s tax troubles had nothing to do with President Trump…sorry Loony Libs.
Amid all of the corruption that runs rampant in the DemoccRATic party (Mueller,Comey, Lynch, B & H Clinton, Strzok, et al, it seems almost comical that these same people are shouting the loudest in bringinh down a POTUS who has bucked the system and began to clean house almost from day one. Yet, not one of the aforementioned have had one instance of investigating the most corrupt of all POTUSes (in my opinion) since Slick Willy. I speak of Barack Hussein Obama! Then, there is his former SOS (H. Clinton) who has broken perhaps more political laws than any SOS in history. To add icing on the cake of corruption, there is another former SOC (John Kerry) who has rum amok all over the middle east and Europe, decrying the wickedness of President Trump where none exists. Isn’t it about time that Mr. Mueller is stripped of his “witch hunt” and himself placed under investigation along with his cadre of DemocRATs by someone with enough backbone (Sessions is sorely lacking any backbone), able to withstand the firestorm that will surely accompany any efforts to “weed out the chaff” and toss it into the fire to burn for many months and/or years? I say, let the RATS go down with the ship that is carrying history’s worst corrupted DemocRATs and RINOs!
No doubt about it my friend. We need somebody for AG with the same kind of chomes that the President has. – Somebody that also is totally NOT a PC milquetoast but instead tells it like it is. (like the prez) . Get us a blood and guts prosecutor with a track record of putting crooks in jail and heads will roll.
I am still wondering how a President can be impeached for things done when he was NOT the President! Until he was sworn in on January 20, 2017, Donald Trump was a private citizen. ANYTHING which was done by him before that day is de facto NOT an impeachable offense. Yes, even actions in the campaign are irrelevant to impeachment. The window for getting Trump on those closed after the Inauguration.
There will be no impeachment.