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The Immediate Calls to Remove Trump Were Irresponsible
In the wake of the rioting at the Capitol on Wednesday, there have been many calls for President Trump to be either removed pursuant to the 25th Amendment, or impeached by the House and removed by the Senate.
I find these suggestions to be well past unwarranted, and beyond irresponsible. I find them to be deranged.
I am not surprised that many Democrats — apparently including Speaker Pelosi and Minority Leader Schumer — have made such demands. I don’t actually consider them to be deranged. I think that they are scheming, dishonest politicians, which is no surprise.
I am surprised to see such deranged hysteria from Republicans.
Here is a partial list of Republicans or conservatives who have called for President Trump’s immediate removal from office following the reprehensible rioting on January 6, either through the 25th Amendment or by impeachment and conviction. I would appreciate any additions to this list.
- David French (here). Dated January 6.
- The Dispatch Staff (here). Dated January 7. I assume that this includes Jonah Goldberg and Steve Hayes.
- Jim Geraghty (here). Dated January 7.
- Kyle Smith (of National Review, here). Dated January 7.
- Most sadly, our own editor Jon Gabriel (here). Dated January 6.
- Erick Erickson (here). Dated January 8.
One would hope that thoughtful, respected, professional commentators would refrain from proposing anything so drastic for, say, at least 2-3 days. One might want to see how events unfolded. One might want to gather additional information. One might want to, well, act like a responsible adult.
Sadly, though he does not approve on prudential grounds, even Andy McCarthy has opined that the President’s actions are impeachable (here, dated January 7).
I am also disappointed in Sen. Ben Sasse who stated (here): “The House, if they come together and have a process, I will definitely consider whatever articles they might move . . . I believe the president has disregarded his oath of office…what he did was wicked.”
I don’t know whether I feel like Jeremiah, or like Cassandra, or like a lowly broken record. Over and over again, in times of crisis as events unfold, I have urged people to stay calm and reserve judgment. In this case, order was restored within about 6 hours, and Congress proceeded to confirm President-Elect Biden’s victory.
I have previously, and unequivocally, condemned the lawless and barbarous storming of the Capitol by rioting miscreants. Nothing that I write should be construed to justify such criminality. I have also criticized some of the President’s claim, such as his insistence that he won in a “landslide.” I also criticize his negative tweet about Vice President Pence Trump. I do not condone such rhetorical excess. I simply object to the deranged overreaction, too.
Of those that I’ve seen thus far, David French takes the derangement gold medal. Not only does he want the President removed from office, but yesterday (January 7), he tweeted: “Expel Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz.” (Here.)
What is the proper response to such derangement? Generally, I think that we should simply stop reading, or listening to, anything said by these commentators who have demonstrated such poor judgment. At least until and unless they issue an apology. We should always be prepared to extend forgiveness to those who act intemperately, in the heat of a moment.
Published in Politics
They are all virtue signalling, but it should be no surprise. While I like them normally, they are dead wrong in their insane hatred of the best President we’ve had since Reagan. In fact, Trump has been better than Reagan in that he go more things done. You may not like Trump’s personality, but he opened a nerve on the left that, interestingly, also opened nerves to some on the right.
Jerry, your counsel has not been for naught—I try very hard now to think “ah…Jerry would counsel patience and the gathering of more information before offering an opinion…” It’s excellent advice.
I don’t think the 25th Amendment applies, but I do think it’s fair to at least consider impeachment. Even if there had been no riot, the president was attempting to bully the vice president, and the congress for that matter, into doing something they had no legal right to do – toss the certified electoral votes aside. Toss the choices of the states aside and go for some kind of extra-legal do-over. There’s absolutely no legal basis for that.
Congress has gotten involved in the presidential election before, of course, but only when allowed to under the law – when there was no electoral college majority or when there were more than one set of electors sent by a state with some claim to legitimacy. Nothing like that happened here.
It may be too harsh to call it a coup attempt, but it’s close. It was an attempt to remain in power by setting aside the law, setting aside the Constitution. Despite having no legal remedies left, he promised the crowd he would never concede, never give up. What did he mean by that? It’s apparent what some in the crowd thought he meant by that. I won’t assume he intended what they did, but he was certainly reckless, and had been for weeks.
I think all of that warrants impeachment. The only reason not to is the short time frame remaining.
There was also a serious failure of security at the Capitol. The rioting miscreants didn’t look to have much in the way of force that a reasonable effort would have contained. You meant Vice-President Pence.
I’m not sure what other options there would be. I have to tell you, from my conversations these last few days with some pretty hard core Republicans, these pundits are not alone. Trump’s support has cratered, as I guess it should.
About the highlighted portion — you are incorrect about this, as to Congress. There is a specific statute on point, 3 USC 15. For further explanation, you can see my comment #41 at Lois Lane’s post earlier today (here).
If sufficient electoral votes had been rejected to prevent anyone from gaining a majority, there would not have been an “extra-legal do-over.” The House would have selected the President, from among the 3 with the most electoral votes, voting on a state-by-state basis (i.e. each state delegation having one vote). This is in accordance with the 12th Amendment. (Note that in 2020, only two people received electoral votes for President — Biden and Trump — so the House would have had to choose between them).
So there is nothing “extra-legal” about it. Rejection of the electoral votes of one or more states, had the House and Senate both (separately) agreed to do so, would have been in accordance with existing law. Selection of the President by the House would have been in accordance with the Constitution. (The House has selected the President twice, in 1800 and 1824, though the 1800 election occurred before the passage of the 12th Amendment.)
You are correct about the Vice President not having authority to decline to count votes, and I think that the President’s tweet about him was improper. Not an impeachable offense, though, just an intemperate tweet.
Thanks for catching the typo. I fixed it.
I find nothing amiss in your legal reasoning. I think there are serious questions regarding the certifying of electors in states that adopted new election procedures unconstitutionally in the sense of not having gone through legally required steps to make those changes. This would ordinarily only affect the election of those connected to those states but here we have affected the two offices POTUS and VP that represent all Americans. It just seems as if something is amiss that is begging to be corrected.
I love it when you speak the truth with force.
Hopefully these ridiculous calls based on hatred and revenge will tar those making them for a good long time.
Or, better still, they will realize that they were intemperate, and make a correction. I do not expect this from the folks at the Dispatch, sadly, nor from most of the National Review guys. I do have hope for Jon and Andy McCarthy.
I know that there have been a few times, here at Ricochet, when I made a factual mistake. I corrected it and apologized. I have also made some intemperate comments. Again, I have apologized, sometimes after intervention by one or two of you. This is a good thing. Nobody’s perfect (except Jesus, of course).
My default posture always has been that a lot of these individuals are writing for what they perceive to be their legacy–especially since it’s just so easy to pile on. “Look what I wrote about Trump the Barbarian on Jan.7.”
So it’s incumbent, of sorts, to preserve an alternative legacy for them.
As an aside, I checked the Geraghty link and found this alleged incitement to riot by Trump:
At least this is specific–if completely unpersuasive as to incitement. I keep reading, and reading, and reading about “incitement,” and looking, and looking, and looking for what Trump actually said. I’m still looking.
“Showing strength” is now “incitement.”
I think that statute is pretty clear, though, that the only basis for rejection is if the electoral vote was not certified, or if a state sent more than one slate and someone has to decide which one to count. Otherwise, there is no lawful basis for rejection. All the votes were certified under state law, and all states sent only one slate. That’s it. A congressman can object all they want, but the vote cannot be rejected.
Wouldn’t it be much easier, with far less drama, and unnecessary moving parts to simply wait the 12 days until Biden is inaugurated on January 20, 2021.
After a couple months of Trump weak court challenge clusterfoolery, culminating in Wednesday’s entirely avoidable, embarrassing, and then turned tragic ransacking of the Congress, it appears Trump is ready to play nice and commit to a smooth transition of power.
Quit trying to out speech-a-fy the last guy with a more dastardly Trump disposal proposal which is never going to happen.
Just let the transition play out as scheduled.
You mean unpersuasive for incitement to riot?
I have been to the Capitol several times. Each time I went through a metal detector as did everyone else. The people have the right to go to their capitol and to seek redress of their grievances. During the enactment of Obamacare, concerned patriots surrounded the Capitol and made noise, but there was no attempt to breach the building. On Wednesday, the Capitol was breached by a mob for the first time since the War of 1812.
In England members of parliaments had been harassed by the King as they would come and go to parliament. Accordingly, Section 6 of Article I of the Constitution states that Senators and Representatives “shall in all cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their attendance at their Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same.” In other words, protecting members of congress from the executive and courts is a matter of constitutional importance.
Here, a mob breached the Capitol of the United States at the instigation of the President. Five people died, including a Capitol Police Officer. The Senate Chambers were defiled by this mob, as well as the Speaker’s own office. The mob tried to break into the House, while House Members were still present there. This is a prima facie case for the abuse of power by the President. Trump should be impeached. His term of office will expire before there can be a trial in the Senate. However, impeachment is proper for two reasons. First, if Trump tries such a stunt in the future, the Senate could simply vote on the Articles of Impeachment in a matter of minutes. Second, the other remedy in addition to removal from office is that the offending President can no longer hold any office. If Trump did what it appears that he did, he should be disqualified from ever holding any office in the future.
Here is a quick footnote on the clause giving members of congress legislative immunity in their coming and going to congress. Arizona has a similar provision for legislative immunity in the coming and going from the Legislature. In 2016, an Arizona Legislator was clocked going 140 mph on his way home from the legislature. He claimed legislative immunity. He did not receive a traffic ticket.
I don’t find that bothersome. I do find calls to “punish” him by kicking him to the curb with twelve days left reprehensible.
IANAL, but unqualified statements like this give me pause. It seems to me a state legal system is a web with laws having an interconnected aspect that might cause a defect in the certification if the underlying voting was done through means adopted unconstitutionally. Is my reasoning process defective here?
By the time all the members of Congress had time to do their make up, puff up their pompadours, get briefed by their staff, give their soundbite to MSNBC, the inauguration of Biden will have already have taken place.
Why waste the time and energy on superfluous nonsense(ie: impeachment, and “other remedies”) only Gary would appreciate, when you end up in the same place(ie: Trump gone) either way.
I guess there are some people who simply enjoy the entertainment value of a good hanging.
Something to be learned here as we look at the narrow legal interpretations used to evaluate constitutional issues related to election law in the battleground states compared to the broad license taken when accusing the President’s speech as inciting rioting at the Capitol.
They started talking impeachment before he took office, they won’t stop simply because he leaves office.
I could take seriously an argument that a President who is merely associated with the storming of Congress should be impeached, regardless of his not having called for it and instead calling on his supporters to go home peacefully.
I could take it seriously, that is, if there were a consistent standard.
Real questions about election-rigging, with real evidence–and we’re supposed to presume that there was no assault on democracy there? The only assaults on democracy come from the President when some of his supporters do something stupid?
Storming Congress is anathema if you like Trump, but endless violence is an understandable mistake if you’re Antifa/BLM?
Yes, they have had to stick to the very specific wording of the script on this in order to pretend not to see anything here.
The lack of intellectual consistency from this bunch is telling. Makes you think twice about presuming they are participating in good faith.
Yes, my reasoning is defective?
Even beyond that, if they are deluding themselves about good faith without self-awareness, they are in that mode of unthinking about their positions on issues that was recently used to describe Adolph Eichmann’s approach.
I live in Coconino County, which is next door to Navajo County. On the issue of the entertainment value of a good public hanging, we have the following from Arizona history. https://tribunenewsnow.com/new-marker-recognizes-smileys-place-in-navajo-county-history/
“Employed as a trackwalker for the Santa Fe Railway in 1899, [George] Smiley was having difficulty getting payment for work he had done between a new and previous foreman. On March 28, Smiley went to Winslow to seek out his former foreman, a man by the name of T.J. McSweeney, and confronted him about his missing pay. The argument escalated and ended with Smiley shooting McSweeney in the back, causing his death.
“Judge Richard Sloan found Smiley guilty of murder on Oct. 14, 1899, and sentenced him to death by hanging on Dec. 8, 1899. As part of the legal notification, the Arizona Territorial Sheriff of Navajo County, Frank Wattron, sent an invitation to the necessary parties who would need to witness the execution. The invitation noted, ‘The latest improved methods in the art of scientific strangulation will be employed and everything possible will be done to make the surroundings cheerful and the execution a success.’
“A letter condemning the invitation was quickly dispatched from President William McKinley to Governor Nathan Oakes Murphy of the Territory of Arizona. The governor severely rebuked Sheriff Wattron and issued a 30-day stay of execution so that a proper notification could be made.
“It’s likely that the sheriff didn’t take kindly to the rebuke, as he issued a somewhat sarcastic second invitation to the hanging, rescheduled to Jan. 8, 1900, that stated, ‘With feelings of profound sorrow and regret, I hereby invite you to attend and witness the private, decent and humane execution of a human being.’ This invitation also noted that attendees were expected to deport themselves in a respectful manner, and any ‘flippant or unseemly’ language or conduct would not be allowed.“
Gary, my friend, you are suffering the same derangement as the people listed in the OP on the issue of incitement. I don’t think that anything that I say can convince you.
On the claim that “[f]ive people died,” this is really careless. It appears that there were a total of five deaths, but it’s not clear that they were related to the riot in a meaningful way.
One clearly was — the woman, Ashli Babbitt, who was shot while trying to break in to the Speaker’s Lobby.
There is a report of a police officer who was injured, and later died. The facts are a bit vague here, as the report that I read indicated that he returned to his office/precinct, then collapsed, was taken to the hospital, and died. It is quite possible that he died as a result of his injuries, but I’m withholding judgment pending further information.
The other three reported deaths do not have any obvious connection to the rioting, and the details are sketchy. From what little I’ve seen, they are reportedly from “medical emergencies” of an unspecified nature, with the family of one of the men who died reportedly stating that it was a heart attack.
Wait another 30 to 50 years and it will be a mass murder.
One must remember that those bent on revenge against Trump were making judgements yesterday with hardly any information. Mr. Robbins is showing admirable restraint by being wrong today with hardly any information.