Ron Fein on the Peter B. Collins Show

Free Speech For People Legal Director Ron Fein recently spoke with Peter Collins on his podcast about impeachment:

Fein thumbnails the impeachment process, and we talk about past cases of impeachment of Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon and Andrew Johnson…

We discuss the recalcitrance toward impeachment shown by Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, and by Hillary Clinton in a recent interview with Rachel Maddow. Polls show that almost half of voters support impeachment now, but party leaders follow the polls instead of leading on a matter they say threatens the future of the republic. Fein is even-handed, and criticizes Republicans who place party loyalty and tax cuts over the corruption of their leader.

Listen to the interview below! And listen to more interviews from the Peter B. Collins Show here.

Ivanka Worries About Impeachment for Donald Trump

An article from Bustle reports that even Donald Trump’s children have started to worry about the possible launch of impeachment proceedings against him:

President Donald Trump’s children have tirelessly defended him against any and all criticism since he first launched his bid for office. But the release of Bob Woodward’s White House exposé and the New York Times op-ed about “the resistance inside the Trump administration,” as well as the continuing FBI probe into the Trump campaign, may have them a little rattled. In fact, Ivanka Trump worries about impeachment, a source close to the president’s senior advisor told Vanity Fair.

With the midterm elections quickly approaching, as well as growing negative press, the atmosphere in the White House has increased the concern among Trump’s family and advisors:

But even his daughter is reportedly concerned that the recent barrage of negative press, dwindling approval ratings, and numerous lawsuits could end with her father’s impeachment…

Democrats taking hold of Congress would put President Trump at greater risk of impeachment, and experts predict that they have a shot at flipping both the House and the Senate this year. A Washington Post report last month revealed that White House aides were considering sending Ivanka to Democratic strongholds to help her dad campaign for Republicans in the midterm election.

Read the article here!

The Nation: Donald Trump Is Actively Obstructing Justice

In a recent article in the Nation, John Nichols reports on the most recent instance of obstruction of justice perpetrated by Donald Trump.

As Nichols reports, Donald Trump and his administration are seeking to force the declassification of documents and text messages that are relevant to the inquiry into Russian influence on his campaign and his presidency.

The president has ordered the Justice Department and Office of the Director of National Intelligence to begin the “immediate declassification” of key sections of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act application for Carter Page, who once served as a foreign-policy aide to Trump. The president has also ordered the declassification of “all FBI reports of interviews prepared in connection with all Carter Page FISA applications” and “directed the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to publicly release all text messages relating to the Russia investigation, without redaction, of [former FBI director] James Comey, [former acting director of the FBI] Andrew McCabe, [former chief of the FBI’s Counterespionage Section] Peter Strzok, [former FBI lawyer] Lisa Page, and [former associate deputy Attorney general and former director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force] Bruce Ohr.”

This, as Nichols explains, is obstruction of justice: “Interfering in an ongoing federal investigation with the purpose of subverting the inquiry represents a classic case of obstruction of justice.”

Since taking office, President Trump has repeatedly attempted to interfere with congressional investigations into his conduct and that of his administration. His attempts to obstruct justice are well documented and ongoing, and this most recent example only seeks to strengthen the case for Congress to begin impeachment proceedings.

Nichols compares Trump’s actions to that of Richard Nixon, who resigned before he could be impeached.

In Nixon’s time, Republicans joined Democrats in moving to hold a Republican president to account for obstruction of justice. These are different times. But there can be no excuses for members of Congress, no matter what their partisanship, who fail to recognize that the impeachment power exists to address precisely so lawless a presidency as that of Donald Trump.

John Nichols is right. This is not an issue of partisanship. The impeachment power exists for this very reason and both Democrats and Republicans must stand in support of the Constitution.

Read the article here.

The Nation: Republicans for Impeaching the President

In an article in The Nation, John Nichols discusses support for impeachment investigations by Republican leaders. Citing recent pieces by Representative Jason Villalba and former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman, Nichols points out that Democrats aren’t alone in their call to hold Donald Trump accountable for his many constitutional violations, despite common expectations of party loyalties.

Whitman described Trump as “clearly unfit to remain in office,” while Villalba titled his op-ed, “It’s Time to Impeach the President.” Whitman didn’t directly call for impeachment investigations in her piece, but she did make a plea to her fellow Republican leaders: “We must put aside the GOP label, as hard as that may be, and demonstrate the leadership our country needs by calling on the president to step down.”

Whitman goes on her op-ed to say, “Only bold leadership can put the United States back on a path that values freedom and democracy, and truly puts America first.”

Nichols echoes this sentiment, drawing from history and the Nixon administration to emphasize his point:

Republicans have put America first before, most notably during the Watergate crisis, when a number of Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee supported articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon. Nixon quit after top Republicans—including conservatives such as former Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona—told him that if he remained in office he would be held to account. Nixon was a bad player, to be sure. But Trump is worse, and a new generation of Republicans is called to check and balance him with the remedy that the founders outlined in the Constitution.

Most Republicans will continue to resist the constitutional remedy, for now. But the fact that the discussion of impeachment is beginning to cross partisan and ideological lines represents a slim ray of hope for the republic.

John Nichols and members of the Republican leadership speaking out for impeachment proceedings are right. The nation must come together, regardless of party, to end this constitutional crisis and to begin an impeachment investigation of Donald Trump.

Tom Steyer to Buzzfeed: It’s the Corruption, Stupid

In an interview with Audie Cornish of Buzzfeed News, Tom Steyer discussed the grounds for impeaching Donald Trump. Steyer focused on Trump’s corruption, citing his numerous violations of the emoluments clauses of the Constitution.

“If you step back for one second and think about this president, the most corrupt president in American history — [he’s] somebody who is breaking the law on a daily basis, somebody who is reckless and dangerous and lawless.

In the Constitution, it says that the president cannot take any payment whatsoever from a foreign government — for obvious reasons. I mean, you can’t have the president taking money from a foreign government, which would mean that he might … do what’s right for them instead of what’s right for the American people. He does that on a daily basis.

We don’t need Mr. Mueller to tell us that.”

Steyer emphasized that we have more than enough evidence to call for an impeachment investigation, and that we do not need to wait for the full findings from the Mueller investigation to proceed. Steyer highlighted this point by citing the results of a recent poll conducted by his organization, Need to Impeach:

…Steyer said ‘corruption’ — rather than the Russia investigation or any policy move — provided the strongest rationale for impeachment, according to a previously undisclosed survey of 200,000 people on his expansive Need to Impeach database. The survey found that 30% of respondents said the president should be impeached for corruption, he said.

Tom Steyer is right – Trump’s ongoing corruption and constitutional violations constitute enough evidence to call on Congress to launch an impeachment investigation. We must act now to impeach Donald Trump. Learn more about how you can get involved here.

Read the article from Buzzfeed News here.