WebsterMark
Serious Thumper
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The only way I see the end of Trump is if there’s overwhelming evidence he rigged the 2016 election. In which case impeachment isn’t an adequate remedy. His presidency should be annulled.
Let me explain. Many people are convinced we’re already witnessing the beginning of the end of Trump.
In their view, bombshell admissions from Trump insiders with immunity from prosecution, combined with whatever evidence special counsel Robert Mueller might uncover about Trump’s obstruction of justice and his aides' collusion with the Russians, will all tip the scales.
Democrats would take back the House and begin impeachment, and the evidence of impeachable offenses would put enough pressure on Republican senators to send Trump packing
I don’t believe this for a moment.
First, the Senate has never in history convicted a president of impeachment.
Second, even if Democrats flip the House in November, Republicans will almost certainly remain in control of the Senate—and so far they’ve displayed the integrity of lizards.
Third, Fox News and the rest of the right-wing sleaze media will continue to distort and cover up whatever the evidence shows—convincing 35 to 40 percent of Americans, along with most Republicans, that Trump is the innocent victim of a plot to remove him.
Finally, Trump himself will never voluntarily resign, as did Nixon. He’ll lie and claim a conspiracy to unseat him.
He’s proved himself a superb conman, an entertainer-demagogue capable of sowing so much confusion and instigating so much hate and paranoia that he has already survived outrages that would have broken any garden-variety loathsome president—Helsinki, Charlottesville, children locked in cages at the border, firings and cover-ups, racist slurs, clear corruption.
In all likelihood, we’ll have him for another two and a half years.
Don’t bet the house on him losing in 2020, either. A malignant bullying megalomaniac who lies like most people breathe, and who’s able to suck the oxygen out of every news cycle, might pulverize any Democratic opponent.
Even if he loses in 2020, we’ll be fortunate if he concedes without being literally carried out of the Oval Office amid the stirrings of civil insurgency.
Oh, and let me remind you that even if he’s impeached, we’d still have his loathsome administration—Pence on down.
But lest you fall into a miasma of gloom, there’s another scenario—unlikely, but entirely possible.
Suppose, just suppose, Robert Mueller finds overwhelming and indisputable evidence that Trump conspired with Russian President Vladimir Putin to rig the 2016 election, and the rigging determined the election’s outcome.
In other words, Trump’s presidency is not authorized under the United States Constitution.
Suppose these findings are so compelling that even Trump loyalists desert him, the Republican Party decides it has had enough, and Fox News calls for his impeachment.
What then? Impeachment isn’t enough.
Impeachment would remedy Trump’s “high crimes and misdemeanors.” But impeachment would not remedy Trump’s unconstitutional presidency because it would leave in place his vice president, White House staff and Cabinet, as well as all the executive orders he issued and all the legislation he signed, and the official record of his presidency.
The only response to an unconstitutional presidency is to annul it. Annulment would repeal all of an unconstitutional president’s appointments and executive actions, and would eliminate the official record of the presidency.
Annulment would recognize that all such appointments, actions and records were made without constitutional authority.
The Constitution does not specifically provide for annulment of an unconstitutional presidency. But read as a whole, the Constitution leads to the logical conclusion that annulment is the appropriate remedy for one.
After all, the Supreme Court declares legislation that doesn’t comport with the Constitution null and void, as if it had never been passed.
It would logically follow that the Court could declare all legislation and executive actions of a presidency unauthorized by the Constitution to be null and void, as if Trump had never been elected.
The Constitution also gives Congress and the states the power to amend the Constitution, thereby annulling or altering whatever provisions came before. Here, too, it would logically follow that Congress and the states could, through amendment, annul a presidency they determine to be unconstitutional.
The Constitution also gives Congress and the states the power to amend the Constitution, thereby annulling or altering whatever provisions came before. Here, too, it would logically follow that Congress and the states could, through amendment, annul a presidency they determine to be unconstitutional.
As I’ve said, my betting is Trump remains president at least through 2020—absent compelling and indisputable evidence he rigged the 2016 election.
But if such evidence comes forth, impeachment isn’t an adequate remedy because Trump’s presidency would be constitutionally illegitimate.
It should be annulled.
Robert Reich is the chancellor’s professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration
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