So What Was in Those Impeachment Articles against Trump Way Back in 2019?
by Mary Maxwell, LLB

I am sorry to learn that Ron DeSantis has dropped out of the presidential race today. He was one of the few governors to eschew the vax mandates. The New Hampshire presidential primary is only 40 hours away. The Dem candidates include Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips, but not Biden, as he refused to participate. The only two big Repub candidates remaining are Trump and Nikki Haley.

(I, too, am on that ballot but am only mentioning the big names. Us little guys have no possible chance of getting many votes, thanks to the expense of publicity.)

Nikki has spent many millions and yet has another ten months to campaign! I have received 32 of her large postcard mailouts. They don't say much except that she will "stand up to China" (fancy that!) and old people should not hold office. She is a lass of 51 summers.

I do not support Trump. I don't think he's got what it takes. However, I disapprove of Congress's second attempt to impeach him just before he left office in January 2021. I don't believe any of the nonsense about an insurrection. Surely the Jan 6 affair was staged.

And as I have said many times, a president phoning a state official (in this case, Georgia's Sec'y of State Brad Raffensperger) to ask him to "find" some missing votes is perfectly legal. If they were missing, they need to be found. Anyway, a president has no authority to force the matter.

Now for a re-look at the 2019 Impeachment. Note: the only other two presidents who got impeached were Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. They and Trump were "acquitted' by a close margin in the Senate. Nixon resigned in 1974 before any articles of impeachment were filed. (Note: Clinton did far, far worse things than the ones stated in his Articles of Impeachment.)

Today, I went to Google to check on the 2021 "second impeachment of Trump." Mine eyes lingered on the page that directed us to the first impeachment, so I decided to go there instead. Holy smoke! What a scene. Congress is blaming a president for obstructing such things as subpoenas related to the investigation of himself. Is this deja vu or what?

Westminster Comes A-calling

In case anyone has lost track of the action, let me give a crude rundown. Since 1990, or earlier, our Congress has been stealthily westminsterized. That is, it is like the British system at Westminster, broken into two parties, where all party members vote predictably -- according to what the boss of the party (e.g., Pelosi, or Pelosi's hidden boss) wants.

When I lived in Australia, which officially has a Westminster system, I got used to such an intellectually impoverished set-up.

There are two terrible consequences of a Party parliament. One, the individual rep or senator is freed from the burden of having to think. He/she just says "Yes, Sir." Two, each group emphasizes its difference from the other group, then this gets emotional and hence irrational, and juvenile.

In America, Media helps by labelling the states as Red or Blue. And if you are a Red member of Congress, you'd hate to be caught agreeing, on any subject, with the Blues. Childish but true. In fact, if the Blues came up with a good idea, you would block it just so the public would not congratulate the Blues for having provided the nation with something good. Oh mia patria!

So when the first Articles to Impeach Trump came along, persons such as myself took the process to be "the usual." I did not bother to read them. I heard that they were about Russiagate -- that our president had allowed a foreign nation to influence our election (something we do left, right, and center worldwide). It was pitched as an earnest move by Dems to hit Trump simply because he is Republican.

But now I see that the Articles also say that The Executive obstructed The Legislature. This is just the sort of turf war that the Founding Fathers wanted all three branches to engage in. The Constitution's balance of power depends on it.

I am Red and I hereby confess my guilt that I fully downgraded anything in those Blue impeachment Articles because they were Blue. Granted, I was also influenced by information on the Internet that Russiagate was false, did not happen.

Today I do not even know if Russiagate happened. I doubt that such a thing deserves the suffix "gate." I seem to recall Jeff Sessions, or another Trump cabinet member, being grilled as to whether a Russian diplomat was in the room. Diplomats can be in our rooms! Oh please, do we have to be so led by the nose?

Now for That First Impeachment of President Trump

I will now display the two articles of the First impeachment, dated 2019. I have abridged the text about 50%, but only to reduce lengthy formal phrases. Never did I change anything.

Lest you think I am doing this to be anti-Trump (I already am anti-Trump), wait till you see the denouement. The things that the Blues are accusing a Red of are just like what the Reds today should be accusing Blue Biden of -- obstruction of Congress.

Go Red reps! And Blue reps! Get that criminal Biden, and his former NIH man Fauci, and his in-a-trance Mayorkas and Garland, off the field. Don't waste another minute! Help! Help!

I urge all citizens to toss their colors off for a while and get back to what the Constitution says, and see how our presidents do not give a damn. But the Congresspersons are just as bad. They can only see Red/Blue competition. (I give Marjorie Taylor Greene credit. No doubt there are a few others-- of both parties!! -- who should get a medal for trying.)

Here it is. You can see it in full at congress.gov. It is House Resolution 755, from the first session of our One Hundred Sixteenth Congress:

Articles of Impeachment Against Donald John Trump. December 18, 2019
CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, RESOLUTION.

Resolved, That Donald John 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 John 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

... In his conduct of the office of President of the United States—and in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to... the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution... , 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: [he] solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, in the 2020 United States Presidential election.

[This] included soliciting the Government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations that would benefit his reelection, harm the election prospects of a political opponent [Obama's VP, Joe Biden], 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. [He did this] ... for corrupt purposes in pursuit of personal political benefit. In so doing, [he] ... 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 ...

(B) a discredited theory promoted by Russia alleging that Ukraine—rather than Russia—interfered in the 2016 United States

(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 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; ....

ARTICLE II: OBSTRUCTION OF CONGRESS

... 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. [Outrageous, no?]

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.

... 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.

Commentary

Oh, yes, that last bit reminds me that an aim of the Blues was to prevent Red Trump from holding office in the future. This isn't the same as the later effort (Second Impeachment) to lower the 14th Amendment boom on him. But it is worth mentioning -- per two states' rulings to keep TRUMP OFF THE BALLOT.

The 14th Amendment says that a rebel (insurrectionist, whatever) must not again become an officer of the US -- unless Congress okays it. That's enough and plenty to guide the judge to say that Trump should be allowed to be on all 50 ballots. Were the appeals judge to say No, Congress would never arrive at its power, clearly stated in the 14th Amendment, to lift the restriction on the rebel.

So even if Trump has been a rebel on Jan 6 (and I say he was no rebel), the judge should not permit any such nonsense as ballot-blockage.

I don't want to be there if a judge rules otherwise.

Please. Everybody, don't let your colors guide your thoughts on the Consitution. There is nothing in the parchment to support the idea of colors anyway. We do NOT have a Wesminster parliament. We have "We the People" advising our reps and senators.

--Mary Maxwell hopes you will visit her campaign website at www.ConstitutionAndTruth.com