Are Democrats going to take this lying down? Impeach already
Re “Impeachment split echoes in Mass. delegation” by Adrian Walker (Page A1, April 24): As a lifelong Democrat, I am appalled by the leadership’s stubborn refusal to impeach the criminal in chief. Remarkably, after Robert Mueller painted what commentators have aptly described as a “scathing portrait of a lawless president” and a White House that is a “dystopian outpost of [Trump’s] id,” the Democrats shrink from the only conclusion compelled by the Constitution: impeachment.
They have already turned over the keys to the kingdom to the radical right. The Supreme Court (thanks, in part, to Barack Obama) is theirs, the Senate is theirs (thanks to voter suppression), the FBI is theirs (remember when they actually interviewed the principal witnesses in an investigation), and the presidency is too, for the indefinite future, unless the Democrats have the moxie to take Donald Trump head on and wave his high crimes and misdemeanors before the public and history.
That’s what they promised voters in November, in order to get the House majority. Will they now fritter it away? If they do, they should disband the party and find work that doesn’t require abiding by your oath of office.
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Mark S. Brodin
Newton
The writer is a professor at Boston College Law School.
Impeachment focus eclipses the real threat of election meddling
The Mueller report has “divided” Democrats, claims your front-page story (“Investigate, not impeach, Pelosi tells Democrats,” April 23). But given this, from the special counsel’s report — “If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment” — a different angle might be that Democrats are responsibly grappling with this serious conclusion, while Republicans have “gone silent,” as your story puts it, apparently uninterested in working with Democrats to protect the country against such a president.
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Meanwhile, the media’s focus on impeachment is eclipsing the Mueller report’s documentation of how vulnerable the 2016 election was to foreign manipulation. We are still vulnerable, and 2020 is coming. Please provide your readers with a comprehensive look at what lawmakers are doing to address social media disinformation campaigns, hacking and dumping operations, and hacking into election systems and voting. I’d like to hold lawmakers accountable for fixing this.
Jeri Zeder
Lexington
The Democrats agonize over whether to start impeachment proceedings against this overwhelmingly impeachable bad joke of a president. Meanwhile, the most pressing political threat to our nation, besides Donald Trump — the ongoing Russian cyber and other attacks against our country and our election process — seemingly gets short shrift. Isn’t it past time for Congress to form a blue-ribbon, bipartisan (yes, bizarre as that is to contemplate) commission to investigate these issues and recommend appropriate countermeasures as soon as possible?
Jim Fathy
Newton
Let the people, in 2020, be the ones to evict this president
I agree, in a sense, with one of Donald Trump’s latest appointments, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who, during the 2016 campaign, said that he was voting for him as a dutiful Republican but that Trump was in fact a “terrible human being.” Nevertheless, our country still should not go through the political civil war of an impeachment. No, Trump should not be evicted from office by anyone but the people.
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Rather we should have him serve for the rest of his elected time — properly chastised, multiply investigated, and relentlessly lying and ranting, comforted by the Mueller report, which showed definitively that despite his frequent attempts at obstruction, his staff wouldn’t follow his illegal orders. This should be the ultimate example for present and future generations of what you don’t want a president to be.
And then, in the 2020 election, our citizenry should remove this man from office in an emphatic manner, and afterward let the law do what the law has to do.
Norman L. Bender
Woodbridge, Conn.
Impeachment — use it or lose it
It seems to me that impeachment, unpleasant as it may be, is a load-bearing truss of the democracy that keeps the whole thing from tumbling down. Flawed as the process may be, it is the only mechanism we have to restrain the power of the chief law enforcement officer in the land and distinguish ourselves from autocratic rule.
Republicans need to remember that this pendulum swings both ways. If we had the wherewithal to investigate a prior president for his dalliances with an intern and we shun the work of investigating and weighing the lengthy list of very serious allegations that Robert Mueller has outlined, are we not effectively abandoning this provision in our Constitution and, in so doing, are we all ready for a system of government wherein the chief executive, from either party, has unchecked authority during his or her term of office?
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Yes, it’s true that the election is right around the corner, but convenience and election impact must take a back seat to the disempowerment of the legislative branch itself. Given the crimes that have been revealed, we look the other way at our own very great peril.
Larry Lobert
Grosse Pointe Park, Mich.