An open letter signed by 522 law professors states that Trump committed bribery, and Congress would be within its constitutional rights to impeach and remove him.
Law professors say Trump committed impeachable offenses
In the letter, the professors wrote:
Overwhelming evidence made public to date forces us to conclude that President Trump engaged in impeachable conduct. To mention only a few of those facts: William B. Taylor, who leads the U.S. embassy in Ukraine, testified that President Trump directed the withholding of hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid for Ukraine in its struggle against Russia — aid that Congress determined to be in the U.S. national security interest — until Ukraine announced investigations that would aid the President’s re-election campaign.
Ambassador Gordon Sondland testified that the President made a White House visit for the Ukrainian president conditional on public announcement of those investigations. In a phone call with the Ukrainian president, President Trump asked for a “favor” in the form of a foreign government investigation of a U.S. citizen who is his political rival.
President Trump and his Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney made public statements confirming this use of governmental power to solicit investigations that would aid the President’s personal political interests. The President made clear that his private attorney, Rudy Giuliani, was central to efforts to spur Ukrainian investigations, and Mr. Giuliani confirmed that his efforts were in service of President Trump’s private interests.
Ultimately, whether to impeach the President and remove him from office depends on judgments that the Constitution leaves to Congress. But if the House of Representatives impeached the President for the conduct described here and the Senate voted to remove him, they would be acting well within their constitutional powers. Whether President Trump’s conduct is classified as bribery, as a high crime or misdemeanor, or as both, it is clearly impeachable under our Constitution.
The House doesn’t need more evidence. They have enough to impeach Donald Trump right now. Republicans can babble on about “fact witnesses,” direct evidence, or any other smokescreen that they can gin up, but Democrats have direct evidence in Trump’s phone call with Ukraine. They have the president acting as a fact witness through the transcript of the call.
Democrats have dozens of witnesses that have testified and laid out the bribery plot.
The White House’s claim that Congress is violating the Constitution by impeaching Trump is gibberish. The House has the constitutional authority, and the evidence required to impeach Trump, which is why it makes no sense to drag this process out for months deep into the 2020 election.
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Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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