The Economist - USA (2019-09-28)

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Leaders 11

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mericaalmostdidn’thavea president.Themenwhoar-
rived at the constitutional convention in 1787 brought with
them a horror of monarchy. Absent a figure of George Washing-
ton’s stature, the young country might have adopted a parlia-
mentary system of government. Yet having created the office, the
founders had to devise a way to remove presidents who abuse
their positions—not all people are Washingtons. They defined
the mechanism: an impeachment vote in the House, followed by
a trial in the Senate. The question of what exactly a president
should be impeached for—“treason, bribery or other high crimes
and misdemeanours”—was deliberately left to Congress.
Hence, though impeachment is a constitutional provision, it
is also a political campaign. That campaign began in earnest this
week when Nancy Pelosi directed her Democratic colleagues in
the House to begin impeachment hearings into President Do-
nald Trump. This will not necessarily lead to impeachment. In
the past, though, impeachment hearings have generated a mo-
mentum of their own. The process is fraught with risks on both
sides. One thing seems certain: the process will further divide a
country that is already set against itself.
Ms Pelosi has taken such a momentous step because she be-
lieves the president’s behaviour towards Ukraine’s government
crossed a line. If that seems an obscure reason to contemplate
unseating a president, remember that impeach-
ment proceedings against Richard Nixon had
their origins in an office burglary and the ones
against Bill Clinton began with an affair with an
intern. Mr Trump appears to have let Ukraine’s
government know that relations with America,
including the supply of aid, depended on it pur-
suing an investigation into the family of a politi-
cal rival—that would be more serious than a
break-in or a fling. It would mean the president had subverted
the national interest to pursue a political vendetta.
The federal government often gives foreign powers promises
of aid in exchange for doing something that America wants them
to do. The Ukraine case is different (see Briefing). America has an
interest in ensuring that Ukraine is able to defend itself against
Russian aggression, which is why Congress came up with a pack-
age of $391m in military aid for its newly elected government. Mr
Trump acted against the national interest in putting that aid on
hold, while pressing Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president,
to investigate Hunter Biden, who had business dealings in Uk-
raine and is the son of the Democratic front-runner, Joe Biden. If
that were not clear enough, Mr Trump also sent his personal law-
yer to meet an adviser to Mr Zelensky and repeat the message.
In a country as corrupt and vulnerable as Ukraine the link be-
tween American support and investigating the Bidens—you give
us dirt on Joe and we’ll give you weapons and money—did not
need to be explicit to be understood. “I also want to ensure you
that we will be very serious about the case and will work on the
investigation,” Mr Zelensky told Mr Trump in a call on July 25th.
You might have thought the Mueller investigation into his
campaign’s dealings with Russia would have made Mr Trump
wary of dallying with foreign governments. It seems not. His


conductlooksa lotlikebriberyorextortion.Andtousetaxpayer
funds and the might of the American state to pursue a political
enemy would count as an abuse of power.
The founders wanted impeachment to be a practical option,
not just a theoretical one. Otherwise the president would be
above the law, a monarch sitting on a throne for four or eight
years. Declining to impeach Mr Trump would set a precedent for
future presidents: anything up to and including what the 45th
president has done to date would be fair game. Republican parti-
sans should consider to what depths a future Democratic presi-
dent, thus emboldened, could stoop.
It would also signal to America’s allies and foes that snooping
on Americans who are influential or might become so was a fine
way to curry favour with a president. There would be no need for
the dirt even to be true. Russia and China, are you listening?
Such are the risks of ducking impeachment. Yet the risks on
the other side—of pressing forward—are great, too. Voters expect
impeachment to be a last resort, not a trick by one party to re-
move a president from the other, or a means for the losers of an
election to frustrate its result. House Democrats risk looking
self-indulgent as, rather than getting on with fixing infrastruc-
ture or health care, they obsess over the minutiae of internal
White House communications. The hearings may spin out of
control and make Democratic politicians seem
ineffectual and obsessive, as the stonewalling
testimony of a former Trump aide, Corey Lewan-
dowski, did last week. The hearings may also be
too confusing and rancorous for the public to
follow.
Even if the House did decide to impeach Mr
Trump, it is highly unlikely that he would be
found guilty by the two-thirds majority needed
in the Senate, where Republicans hold 53 of 100 seats. Legally, Mr
Biden junior’s sleazy dealings in Ukraine have no bearing on
whether Mr Trump abused his office. Politically, though, the two
are linked because they give Republican senators minded to de-
fend Mr Trump a handy set of talking points.
A failed impeachment that leaves Mr Trump in office might
not be much of a deterrent to this president or to a future one. In
fact it might even help Mr Trump, who could argue that he had
been found innocent after a partisan witch-hunt by loser-Demo-
crats. Until this week that was the calculus of Ms Pelosi and
House Democrats from competitive districts. It is not clear that
public opinion has yet shifted enough to change the equation.
Though it may be bravado, Mr Trump’s campaign team has al-
ways insisted that the more Democrats talk about impeachment
the better it is for the president’s chances of re-election in 2020.

Cast the die
Faced with such a daunting choice, Ms Pelosi had until now held
back. But Mr Trump appears to be becoming more brazen as re-
election draws near. The president’s behaviour needs investigat-
ing, with the extra authority that the impeachment process con-
fers. Better, therefore, to lean towards principle than pragma-
tism. But it is a risky and perilous path. 7

The promise and the perils of impeachment


On September 24th, the day they met in New York, the American president and the British prime minister, two
exponents of the new populism, both fell foul of their country’s institutions. First Donald Trump

Leaders

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