No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.
—ABRAHAM LINCOLN
AS THIS BOOK GOES TO PRINT, THE FUTURE OF THE Trump presidency remains uncertain.
Trump himself remains delusional. He is the same person we describe in the Introduction to this book—a narcissist on a scale not seen since King George III and the Roman emperor Nero. Trump is the American Nero.
Trump not only thinks he can finish his term but that he can win a second term. He has not been indicted for obstruction of justice because his hand-picked attorney general believes in two constitutional law theories that put the president above the law. Robert Mueller, in his report, laid out a clear path for impeachment and conviction. The Ukraine scandal makes the case for impeachment that much more compelling.
And thus Trump goes about what he has done since the beginning of his term—he shows no respect for the rule of law.
Nobody high up in the executive branch itself is willing to stand up to Trump. Trump’s cabinet and senior White House staff are mostly egging him on rather than pointing out to him the perilous situation that he has created for himself and the country. Those who dared to stand up to him—including a secretary of state, an attorney general, a defense secretary, two chiefs of staff, a White House counsel—all were forced to leave within the first two years. Trump started in 2017 with a team of yes-men and yes-women. Through frequent purges and “resignations,” he has been able to make his team even more loyal to him—if not loyal to the United States.
Hopes of invoking the Twenty-Fifth Amendment and removing the president for mental incapacity have dimmed as the cabinet—the body responsible for initiating such proceedings—becomes ever more personally loyal to Trump. Anyone who questions Trump’s mental capacities—as Secretary of State Tillerson was once reported to have done—is gone.
The rule of law set forth in our Constitution provides for checks and balances that are supposed to prevent a man like King George III, or Nero, or Trump from using the presidency to exercise the powers of an autocrat.
The founders believed the checks and balances in the Constitution to be sufficient to prevent this eventuality because they thought that if they gave other branches of government the power to keep the presidency in check, those other branches of government would do their job.
The most powerful branch is Congress. Congress not only has the power of the purse strings, but also the power to investigate, impeach, and remove the president for treason or for high crimes or misdemeanors.
The 2018 election brought a sea change in the House of Representatives.
The Democrats gained forty seats in the House and took over control of that body. As a result, Nancy Pelosi once again is the Speaker of the House, and the House Intelligence Committee, having tossed out Trump devotee Devin Nunes, suddenly had California’s Adam Schiff, a Democrat, in charge. Representative Jerry Nadler of New York took over the House Judiciary Committee.
Schiff commenced hearings on Trump and Russia, and he has tried to use his subpoena power to make sure the evidence from Robert Mueller’s investigation would see the light of day through his committee. But so far not even members of Congress with security clearances have seen the unredacted Mueller Report. Subpoenas are simply ignored. The attorney general is in contempt of Congress but doesn’t care.
Would the Democrats prioritize picking up where Mueller left off, taking up Mueller’s clear signal that the House should impeach Trump? Or would Democrats complain about Trump’s corruption, and try to investigate it, but focus mostly on policy issues that appeal to the Democratic base such as immigration, healthcare, abortion and other social issues, and climate change?
The Democrats control the House. They have the power to impeach Trump. After the Ukraine scandal, they finally did so.
On December 18, 2019 the House of Representative by a vote of 230 to 197 voted to impeach President Trump. Not a single Republican voted for impeachment. Justin Amash (I-MI), who had been a Republican but became an Independent earlier in 2019, voted for impeachment. Every single Democrat except two voted in favor of impeachment. Jeff Van Drew (D-NJ) voted against impeachment and quickly switched parties to become a Republican. Collin Peterson (D-MN) a reactionary Democrat from northwestern Minnesota voted against impeachment, claiming to represent the views of his district. One Democrat, Jared Golden (D-ME) voted for the first article of impeachment but not the second.
In order to achieve near unanimity in the Democratic caucus, the House leaders did not include charges against Trump for obstruction of justice in the Mueller investigation, violations of the emoluments clause of the Constitution, or other high crimes and misdemeanors that would have been supported by the evidence had the House chosen to impeach him for them.
The Articles of Impeachment in their entirety read as follows:
Resolved, That Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:
Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of the people of the United States of America, against Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against him for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Article I: Abuse of power
The Constitution provides that the House of Representatives “shall have the sole Power of Impeachment and that the President shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”. In his conduct of the office of President of the United States—and in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed—Donald J. Trump has abused the powers of the Presidency, in that:
Using the powers of his high office, President Trump solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, in the 2020 United States Presidential election. He did so through a scheme or course of conduct that included soliciting the Government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations that would benefit his reelection, harm the election prospects of a political opponent, and influence the 2020 United States Presidential election to his advantage. President Trump also sought to pressure the Government of Ukraine to take these steps by conditioning official United States Government acts of significant value to Ukraine on its public announcement of the investigations. President Trump engaged in this scheme or course of conduct for corrupt purposes in pursuit of personal political benefit. In so doing, President Trump used the powers of the Presidency in a manner that compromised the national security of the United States and undermined the integrity of the United States democratic process. He thus ignored and injured the interests of the Nation.
President Trump engaged in this scheme or course of conduct through the following means:
(1) President Trump—acting both directly and through his agents Within and Outside the United States Government—corruptly solicited the Government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations into—
(A) a political opponent, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.; and
(B) a discredited theory promoted by Russia alleging that Ukraine—rather than Russia—interfered in the 2016 United States Presidential election.
(2) With the same corrupt motives, President Trump—acting both directly and through his agents within and outside the United States Government–conditioned two official acts on the public announcements that he had requested—
(A) the release of $391 million of United 5 States taxpayer funds that Congress had appropriated on a bipartisan basis for the purpose of providing vital military and security assistance to Ukraine to oppose Russian aggression and which President Trump had ordered suspended; and
(B) a head of state meeting at the White House, which the President of Ukraine sought to demonstrate continued United States support for the Government of Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.
(3) Faced with the public revelation of his actions, President Trump ultimately released the military and security assistance to the Government of Ukraine, but has persisted in openly and corruptly urging and soliciting Ukraine to undertake investigations for his personal political benefit.
These actions were consistent with President Trump’s previous invitations of foreign interference in United States elections.
In all this, President Trump abused the powers of the Presidency by ignoring and injuring national security and other vital national interests to obtain an improper personal political benefit. He has also betrayed the Nation by abusing his high office to enlist a foreign power in corrupting democratic elections.
Wherefore President Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law. President Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.
Article II: Obstruction of Congress
The Constitution provides that the House of Representatives “shall have the sole Power of Impeachment” and that the President “shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”. In his conduct of the office of President of the United States—and in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed—
Donald J. Trump has directed the unprecedented, categorical, and indiscriminate defiance of subpoenas issued by the House of Representatives pursuant to its sole Power of Impeachment. President Trump has abused the powers of the Presidency in a manner offensive to, and subversive of, the Constitution, in that:
The House of Representatives has engaged in an impeachment inquiry focused on President Trump’s corrupt solicitation of the Government of Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 United States Presidential election. As part of this impeachment inquiry, the Committees undertaking the investigation served subpoenas seeking documents and testimony deemed vital to the inquiry from various Executive Branch agencies and offices, and current and former officials.
In response, without lawful cause or excuse, President Trump directed Executive Branch agencies, offices, and officials not to comply with those subpoenas. President Trump thus interposed the powers of the Presidency against the lawful subpoenas of the House of Representatives, and assumed to himself functions and judgments necessary to the exercise of the “sole Power of Impeachment” vested by the Constitution in the House of Representatives. President Trump abused the powers of his high office through the following means:
(1) Directing the White House to defy a lawful subpoena by withholding the production of documents sought therein by the Committees.
(2) Directing other Executive Branch agencies and offices to defy lawful subpoenas and withhold the production of documents and records from the Committees—in response to which the Department of State, Office of Management and Budget, Department of Energy, and Department of Defense refused to produce a single document or record.
(3) Directing current and former Executive Branch officials not to cooperate with the Committees—in response to which nine Administration officials defied subpoenas for testimony, namely John Michael “Mick” Mulvaney, Robert B. Blair, John A. Eisenberg, Michael Ellis, Preston Wells Griffith, Russell T. Vought, Michael Duffey, Brian McCormack, and T. Ulrich Brechbuhl.
These actions were consistent with President Trump’s previous efforts to undermine United States Government investigations into foreign interference in United States elections.
Through these actions, President Trump sought to arrogate to himself the right to determine the propriety, scope, and nature of an impeachment inquiry into his own conduct, as well as the unilateral prerogative to deny any and all information to the House of Representatives in the exercise of its “sole Power of Impeachment”. In the history of the Republic, no President has ever ordered the complete defiance of an impeachment inquiry or sought to obstruct and impede so comprehensively the ability of the House of Representatives to investigate “high Crimes and Misdemeanors”. This abuse of office served to cover up the President’s own repeated misconduct and to seize and control the power of impeachment and thus to nullify a vital constitutional safeguard vested solely in the House of Representatives.
In all of this, President Trump has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore, President Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law. President Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as of January 2020, had not yet delivered these articles of impeachment to the Senate and implied that she would not do so until the Senate agreed to procedures for a fair impeachment trial. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made clear his intention to hold an abbreviated trial with few if any witnesses, or simply have a vote to dismiss the articles of impeachment. It will take a handful of Republican senators to join Senate Democrats to achieve the fifty-one votes needed to approve procedures required for a fair impeachment trial, and, as this book goes to press, it is not certain that will happen. Sixty-seven votes will be needed to convict Trump.
Not impeaching Trump would have been a moral disaster for House Democrats and could have been a political disaster. The sandbagged 2020 Democratic nominee for president would have had to defend the indefensible House decision not to impeach Trump or repudiate it.
By impeaching Trump, the House did the right thing.
What about the Republicans?
Secretly many of them despise Trump.
One Republican congressman, who insisted on anonymity, in April 2018 gave this appraisal of the president during a meeting at a Safeway store in Washington, DC, with conservative blogger and TV host Erick Erickson. As they walked past the cereal and the dairy aisle, the congressman, who on Fox News often praised the president, told Erickson exactly what he thought of Trump in a profanity-laced diatribe.
“He may be an idiot,” said the congressman, “but he’s still the president and leader of my party and he is capable of doing some things right. But dammit, he’s taking us all down with him. We are well and truly fucked in November.” (He was right. In November 2018 the Republicans lost forty seats in the House and lost control of the chamber.) “I say a lot of shit on TV defending him, even over this. But honestly, I wish the motherfucker would just go away. We’re going to lose the House, lose the Senate, and lose a bunch of states because of him. All his supporters will blame us for what we have or have not done, but he hasn’t led. He wakes up in the morning, shits all over Twitter, shits all over us, shits all over his staff, then hits golf balls. Fuck him. Of course, I can’t say that in public or I’d get run out of town.”
So why won’t any of these Republicans do anything about Trump? Why not send the message that if the House impeaches Trump, powerful GOP senators will go over to the White House and tell Trump to resign? That’s what happened with Nixon. Why not do the same with Trump?
The bottom line is that the Republicans are scared of Trump.
Trump will wreak maximum havoc if the Republicans try to remove him from office or take the 2020 nomination away from him. If he didn’t get the nomination, he could run as a third-party candidate and peel off a portion of the Republican base, assuring Republican defeat in the general election. Trump, if he goes down in a Senate impeachment trial, would take the entire GOP ship down with him. If he survived the “coup” (as he calls it), he would purge from the GOP anybody who participated.
The second problem for Republicans is how to deal with Trump’s political base were he to leave office, particularly if his departure were to be ugly. Mike Pence could likely motivate Catholic and evangelical conservatives. But the more secular white working-class base that was so critical in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin—true swing voters who have supported Democrats in the past—owe their allegiance to Trump because of his harsh stance on immigration, his vocal advocacy for older industries (steel and coal), and to some extent his hostility to minority ethnic groups. Trump brought these people into the Republican fold, and another Republican, even Pence, might not be able to keep them in.
And then there are the Russians. Do they have damaging information on Republican leaders in Congress? If so, the Russians could shut down any movement in the GOP to remove and replace Trump through blackmail or providing damaging information about key Republican leaders.
We have no idea what dirt the Russians have on top Republicans. What we do know is that the Russians have been hacking computers for a long time, and that many Americans, including members of Congress, do many stupid things on their computers.
Several key Republican leaders are acting so irrationally that it isn’t hard to conclude that Russia might have something on them, as detailed in an article written by one of your authors (Painter) and clinical psychologist Leanne Watt:
Although former Republican National Conference (RNC) chairman, Reince Priebus, repeatedly denied that the RNC emails were violated, it has been established by the FBI that the Russians successfully hacked the RNC’s emails, possibly exposing weaknesses within the Republican leadership. In fact, it appears that the Russians now possess approximately ten years’ worth of GOP emails, through 2015, when SMARTech, an email- and web-hosting firm, stopped hosting the Republican Party’s email accounts. (Tom Del Beccaro, the ex-chairman of the California Republican Party, reported to The Smoking Gun that SMARTech has “admitted being hacked.”) …
It would be naïve to ignore that Vladimir Putin likes to leverage “secrets.” If the Russians discovered any hidden scandals within the Republican hacked emails, then this is exactly what Putin would attempt to do. It is well-known within the intelligence community that Russian intelligence officers are highly skilled at exploiting people’s weaknesses with the goal of securing their cooperation. Putin, a former KGB operative and former FSB head, is Russia’s most masterful “behaviorist,” especially adept at identifying vulnerabilities in targets, skillfully manipulating and cultivating cooperation from his victims.
…
We begin our exploration by looking at the irrational behavior exhibited by House Intelligence Committee (HIC) Chairman Devin Nunes, in relationship to the president and the HIC probe into Russian election interference There is no logical reason for Nunes to go so far in trying to obstruct the Russian investigation unless he has something personal at stake. Why else would Nunes use up his own political capital to attack the Mueller investigation and interfere with the House’s investigation of Russian interference in the election?
[Senator] Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is also on our roster of Congress members behaving in an unreasonable fashion. Most striking is the senator’s dramatic reversal in tone and words regarding the president, coupled with his unprecedented shift of character. Graham’s remarkable pivot is especially noteworthy, because the senator has been long known for his predictable, principled, and independent character style; these traits were all on display in his May 2016 remarks, when he stated that he would not be voting for Trump in the general election, asserting that the Republican Party had been “conned.” For many years, Graham was one of Donald Trump’s harshest critics. In 2015, he described Donald Trump as a “race-baiting xenophobic bigot.” In 2016, Graham said of Trump: “I think he’s a kook. I think he’s crazy. I think he’s unfit for office.” During the first eight months of Trump’s presidency, Graham continued to criticize Trump …
Graham’s striking U-turn took place later in 2017, when he suddenly, almost overnight, became one of the president’s staunchest allies. In October of 2017, Graham played golf with Trump for the first time—and twice in the same week. During their week of golf dates, the LA Times reports that “… other senators have said Trump and Graham now talk so frequently it’s as if they are on speed-dial with one another.” Based upon the timing of his dramatic shift and their golf games, we assume that the conversations Senator Graham had with Trump on the golf course played a role in his sharp reversal.
Following their October 2017 tête-à-tête, Graham began to contradict himself in a way that was totally out of character for him. In November of 2017, the senator repudiated his earlier remarks on Trump’s character, stating: “What concerns me about the American press is this endless, endless attempt to label [Trump] as some kind of kook, not fit to be president.” And Graham now claims that he has “never heard him (Trump) make a single racist statement.” And in August of 2018, Senator Graham defended Trump’s desire to fire Jeff Sessions, insisting that the president is “entitled to an attorney general he has faith in.”
…
We know that Senator Graham’s emails were stolen by the Russians, based upon his own admission in a December of 2016 interview. Most of Graham’s hacked emails have not been released, so it is reasonable to consider the possibility that many of his emails are still in play …
And alarmingly, [these men] continue to be willing to protect Trump, even though their association with him will undermine their future political careers, and in spite of the fact that he is a danger to our nation.
As this book is going to press, it appears that, for various reasons, almost all of the Republicans in Congress will not undertake their constitutional duty to remove Trump’s “cancer on the presidency.” Nonetheless, developments in 2019, including the Ukraine scandal, Trump allowing Turkey to invade Syria and slaughter our Kurdish allies, all while enjoying profits and benefits (emoluments) from Trump Tower Istanbul, and Trump’s incredibly brazen attempt to solicit yet more foreign emoluments by offering to host the 2020 G7 meeting at his Doral golf resort, may lead some Republicans to finally say that they are fed up. At some point, the calculus shifts in favor of doing what the Republican leaders did in 1974 when they asked the president to resign. This would mean installing Pence in the presidency with the benefits and difficulties of running with him in 2020 instead of Trump. As of the printing of this book we are apparently not at this point yet, but we could be close. If it happens, it will likely happen quite suddenly as twenty or more Republican senators together come out and say “ENOUGH. DONALD TRUMP, YOU’RE FIRED!”
But what if the opposite happens and Trump is not convicted by the Senate?
If Trump is reelected, we may have to deal with the very real possibility that he will not want to leave office when his second term expires. The Constitution only allows a president two terms, but the Constitution also says a president may not receive emoluments from foreign governments and that the freedom of the press is protected. The Constitution has been ignored thus far in the Trump presidency and may be ignored again.
What about prosecution of Trump, and perhaps others, for crimes committed during his presidency? Will justice ever be done?
A federal prosecution of the president while he is in office is, we believe, constitutional, but Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, has foreclosed that. Mueller had no choice but not to indict and instead to send his report to Congress to consider for impeachment. The state of New York could try to indict Trump, and test his immunity from prosecution in the courts, but thus far that has not happened.
It could be a different story after Trump leaves office. He would no longer be a sitting president, removing the first constitutional argument against his indictment. A new attorney general could also repudiate the second constitutional argument—the extreme version of the unitary executive theory that purports to allow a president to obstruct a Justice Department investigation while he is in office.
Such a prosecution of Trump, as a former president, should of course be handled by an independent prosecutor, not by political appointees of a new president.
Democratic candidates for president, and a future Democratic president, should never revert to the “lock him up” mentality that helped create this constitutional debacle. A prosecution of Trump for his crimes in office should be carried out in accordance with the rule of law—and should not be a rallying cry for Democratic presidential candidates or at the Democratic National Convention—but it should take place.
The rule of law requires it.
But do Americans care? We should, but do we?
Too many Americans are numb to Trump’s behavior and rhetoric. They don’t seem to be aware of how Trump’s actions and words threaten the rule of law and our democracy.
Moreover, besides the rule of law, there are political issues that Americans care about. For the vast majority of voters, particularly swing voters in the middle of the political spectrum, those issues are economic. Democrats may not have learned their lesson from the 2016 election—particularly the need to focus on economic issues and the declining middle class.
Democrats also need a realistic platform on immigration, the issue that may have won Trump the 2016 election.
Trump’s “wall” is a narcissistic ego trip, not a solution, but denying that illegal immigration is a problem is also foolhardy. It remains to be seen whether Democrats will articulate workable solutions such as cracking down on employers of undocumented workers (like the Trump Organization) with strict enforcement and heavy fines.
Democrats also could run too far to the left on social issues—or more likely talk too much about social issues that appeal to partisan voters who have already made up their minds, and not talk enough about economic issues that appeal to swing voters. This would allow Trump once again to paint a picture of Democrats abandoning the middle class.
Russian trolls—pretending to be “Democrats”—are all too happy to help with stirring the identity-politics pot. The Russians, we can be certain, will still be up to their game in 2020.
Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, in February 2019 told reporters at a White House briefing that Russia was behind “a pervasive messaging campaign” to undermine the November 2018 congressional elections as well as the 2020 presidential election.
Said Coats, “We also know the Russians tried to hack into and steal information from candidates and government officials alike.”
Coats said that the Russians’ intention was to suppress voting, provide illegal campaign financing, and make cyberattacks against our voting mechanism along with computer hacks that target elected officials and others.
By late July 2019, Coats resigned his position after a tenure marked by tension with the White House.
FBI Director Christopher Wray has reached similar conclusions about Russia, and thus far remains in his job.
It remains to be seen whether our intelligence agencies can play defense effectively or whether future elections will be compromised by Russian hacking. We know whose side Trump is on. He would be happy to have the Russians compromise the coming elections and keep him in office.
On January 3, 2020 Trump found another way to distract from his impending impeachment trial in the Senate. He authorized a military strike that killed Iran’s top security and intelligence commander Major General Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike at Baghdad International Airport in Iraq. The reasons Soleimani had been in Iraq were unclear, but it may have been to help coordinate Iranian and Iraqi efforts to combat ISIS. Trump claimed that Soleimani had also been responsible for Iran’s sponsorship of terrorist attacks on Americans and that killing him saved countless lives. The immediate response to the killing was outrage in Iran, and almost as much outrage in Iraq, where the Parliament days later voted to expel all foreign soldiers—including Americans—from Iraqi territory. Trump responded with threats to impose sanctions on Iraq and also exchanged belligerent military threats with top officials in Iran. Trump even threatened—on Twitter of course—to destroy major cultural sites in Iran, which would be a clear violation of international treaty obligations and a war crime under the War Crimes Act. Trump doesn’t care.
America’s relationship with Iraq, which was hosting Soleimani when he was attacked, is now in shambles, despite the United States having invested trillions of dollars—and losing thousands of soldiers’ lives—stabilizing Iraq over the past seventeen years. Trump doesn’t care.
As this book goes to print, Iran is threatening retaliatory military action against the United States and Trump is very much hoping that Iran will do just that. Getting into a war with Iran on the eve of his Senate impeachment trial is for him a dream come true, even if it could mean the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iranians, and perhaps millions killed if nuclear weapons are used.
Going back to President Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War and eighty years later the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, war has inevitably brought an expansion of presidential power. War is a “hall pass” for presidents. Trump, on the eve of impeachment badly needs a hall pass. And Iran, by retaliating against the United States, may very well give it to him.
Today, we have to ask ourselves: How much do we care about preserving the Union and the rule of law set forth in the Constitution that governs it? Do we care at least as much about the country as a whole as its separate parts? Will we learn to love our fellow Americans enough that we are not more afraid of neighbors of a different race, religion, or political ideology than we are afraid of a foreign adversary that wants to destabilize our government and undermine the rule of law in the United States?
The founders gave us a Constitution that, as we have amended it over the years, continues to guide the United States on the path of being a large and prosperous representative democracy. We will never stop arguing with each other (that is part of democracy), but we also need to recognize our common goals. We need to recognize the fact that our adversaries in the world—Russia among them—are not always wishing us success and, if they have a chance, will take advantage of our divisions to undermine us. To assure the future of the rule of law in our country, we have to recognize that what we share as Americans is far more important than anything that can divide us.
Abraham Lincoln urged the country to unite after the horrific Civil War. We could have lost everything the founders envisioned. At Gettysburg, Lincoln said to the nation:
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Today our country and the rule of law are under attack from both homegrown nativism and from powerful Russian forces that appear determined to keep Donald Trump in office. Our Senate has thus far abandoned its constitutional duty to remove a narcissistic, criminal, and authoritarian president—an American Nero—from office.
It is now up to us, the people, to make sure that our government, in Lincoln’s words, does not perish from the earth.