Lifting The Poisoned Chalice to the Lips

Democrats Have No Choice But to Pursue Trump's Impeachment

From an outsider's perspective an awful lot of time and effort has been expended to find just cause to impeach President Trump.  The mammoth effort has been going on for nigh on two years and it seems as remote a possibility as ever it was.

Doubtless a demand that Trump be impeached sounds important and weighty.  But problems abound.  One is that the process and rules surrounding an impeachment have to be followed.  There are checks and balances in place--deliberately so placed to maintain the separation of powers.

The Democrats now have a big problem on their hands--one of their own making.  Now that they are taking control of the House of Representatives they (theoretically) have the majority power to issue impeachment proceedings against the President.  Then the matter would pass to the Senate, which would then decide whether the President were guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.

Alan Dershowitz, one of the more celebrated Harvard law professors with more than a passing knowledge of impeachment procedures and processes, was once a commentator of record when it came to discussions on impeachment.  Not so now.  He has published a book in which he has argued that if the Democrats continue attempts to impeach Trump, it is likely they will fail.

"You can't impeach on the basis of minor derelictions or even crimes," Dershowitz said at the time. "You need a high crime and misdemeanor, and you know every campaign has violated some technical election law."  Dershowitz in July released the book, "The Case Against Impeaching Trump," which landed on The New York Times best-seller list.  [The Hill]

Liberals don't like what they have been reading in Dershowitz's book.
  They want Trump impeached.  Ironically, Dershowitz identifies himself to be a (Hillary) Clinton supporter.  He says that had Clinton been elected, and the Republicans or anyone else was arguing that she should be impeached, he would be arguing strongly against that course of action.  But, he says, to add irony upon irony, he would be using the exact same arguments he is using now as to why Trump should not be impeached.

In the story, Dershowitz, who backed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, said he was enjoying the criticism.   “It’s a red badge of courage," he said.  Dershowitz told C-SPAN that if Clinton had won the election and he'd written a book on the case against impeaching her, "they’d have built a statue to me on Martha’s Vineyard, but instead, my friends on Martha’s Vineyard need trigger warnings."

"There are many reasons I wish Hillary Clinton had been elected president, one of which is, I would’ve kept many more friends if I had written the book, 'The Case Against Impeaching Hillary Clinton,' but I want to emphasize, it would’ve been essentially the same book," he said.  [Ibid.]

"High crimes and misdemeanors" are as difficult to jump over as a Mexican border wall.  But the Democrats have no choice but to pursue the attempt relentlessly.  As Jack Ross would say, they'll "have no evidence mind you none but its going to be entertaining".