INTRODUCTION: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
Enough is enough.
We can’t take it any longer.
The country can’t absorb any more.
Chaos and corruption have become our new normal.
Trump must go.
Somehow, we’ve managed to endure almost two years of Donald Trump’s disastrous presidency. The fact that we’ve survived at all is no credit to him. It’s a testimony to the stability, solidity, and strength of the American people that we can still maintain a steady course, despite having a total buffoon in the White House.
But this madness cannot continue. Trump has already done so much damage, at home and abroad, that it will take us decades to recover. Every day he’s in office brings another tear in the fabric that makes up the American republic. We cannot risk another two years. We cannot risk another year. We cannot risk another six months.
His poll numbers reflect that. Trump started out with a low approval rating of 45 percent, and it hasn’t fluctuated much since. He ended 2017 with only 35 percent of Americans approving his performance in office, the lowest level recorded since the dawn of modern polling. At the end of their first year in office, George W. Bush enjoyed an 86 percent approval rating; John F. Kennedy, 77 percent; Dwight Eisenhower, 69 percent. Not only did his overall approval ratings scrape bottom, but according to a September 2017 ABC News / Washington Post poll, 66 percent of Americans say Donald Trump is doing more to divide the country than unite it.1
The majority of Americans agree: Trump must go. And he must go now.
How that happens is yet to be determined. There are several ways to get him out of office. Each of them is plausible and, to some degree, already under way.
For one, he might well be found guilty of criminal conduct by special counsel Robert Mueller. The special counsel’s investigation has been under way for almost two years and has clearly penetrated all the way to the Oval Office, despite the relentless efforts by Donald Trump and congressional Republicans to undermine and discredit Mueller, the FBI, and the Justice Department.
Alternatively, he could, and should, be impeached. By the end of 2017, seven Democratic members of Congress—Al Green (TX), Brad Sherman (CA), Steve Cohen (TN), Luis Gutiérrez (IL), Marcia Fudge (OH), John Yarmuth (KY), and Adriano Espaillat (NY)—had independently introduced articles of impeachment in the House of Representatives, which ended up being supported by roughly sixty House Democrats. And by the end of May 2018, California billionaire Democratic activist Tom Steyer had collected over 5.4 million signatures on an online petition to impeach the president.2
Impeachment, in fact, may be easier than it appears. Because, while Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution says that “the President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” it never actually lays out what constitutes an “impeachable offense.” As we learned from the Monica Lewinsky imbroglio in 1998, that’s up to Congress to decide.
In other words, to be impeached, Donald Trump doesn’t have to be accused by special counsel Robert Mueller of having actually committed a crime. He could be impeached for whatever Congress decides is worth impeaching him for—from actual crimes to dereliction of duty to offensive words and behavior. The definition of impeachable offense is wide open. It’s ultimately up to Congress to decide what’s an impeachable offense and what’s not, which is not good news for Donald Trump, especially as his allies abandon the sinking ship.
If history is any judge, Congress would certainly consider obstruction of justice an impeachable offense. That was, in fact, the first article of impeachment directed against President Richard Nixon—that he had “prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice”—and one of two articles set forth by the House of Representatives against President Bill Clinton, using that identical phrase. And as we’ll discuss later on, Trump has already admitted to obstruction of justice several times over.
Before resigning, Nixon faced the near certainty of impeachment for what Congress deemed having “made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States.” It would be hard to find any rational American who could not find Donald Trump guilty of the same offense. Indeed, he does it daily.
Evidence of how wide open the definition of impeachable offense really is came from none other than former special counsel Ken Starr, a hero to most Republicans for his aggressive leadership of the investigation that resulted in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton two decades ago. Appearing on ABC’s This Week on January 28, 2018, Starr noted the gravity of reports that Trump had actually ordered White House counsel Don McGahn to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, even though he’d denied doing so on several occasions. “You’re now talking about something called lying to the American people,” warned Starr, “and I think that is something that Bob Mueller should look at.”3
If not indicted or impeached, Trump could instead be, and he well deserves the dubious honor, the first president removed from office by procedures laid out in the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. That amendment, added to the Constitution in 1967 to clear up the presidential succession after the Kennedy assassination, declares that the president can be removed and replaced with the vice president if the veep and a majority of the cabinet believe the president is “unable to discharge the power and duties of his office.”4
On August 15, 2017, after Trump made his outrageous comments defending white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, and killed thirty-two-year-old Heather Heyer, California congresswoman Jackie Speier tweeted: “POTUS is showing signs of erratic behavior and mental instability that place the country in grave danger. Time to invoke the 25th Amendment.”5
Or Trump could be forced or shamed into resigning, especially if his top aides or family members are convicted of crimes as a result of the FBI investigation. Offering to resign in exchange for a lighter prison sentence for sons Donald Jr. and Eric, daughter Ivanka, or son-in-law, Jared Kushner, could strike Trump as a fair deal, especially if he himself is miserable in the job. And some of the above are clearly targets of Mueller’s investigation.
Or Trump could be removed from office by any combination of the above.
If how he goes is not yet resolved, why Trump must go is woefully clear. There are thousands of reasons for ending the Trump presidency as soon as legally possible, of which only the top one hundred are documented here.
Donald Trump is no student of American history. He doesn’t know much of anything other than that he is the greatest businessman, greatest politician, greatest candidate, and greatest president this country has ever known. Too bad. Because with even the slimmest knowledge of history, Trump might realize that the American people do not take kindly to leaders who abuse their power as brazenly and willfully as he has.
In fact, in many ways, we now face the same challenge our Founding Fathers and Mothers faced over 240 years ago: a despotic leader who knew nothing of world affairs, ignored the advice of his closest advisors, created political instability, despised the people, often shocked the world with his bizarre personal behavior, and in his early seventies was widely believed to be clinically insane.
The only difference is that colonial leaders then were dealing with a mad king; we are dealing with a mad president. Nonetheless, our responsibility is the same: to rise up, cast off the yoke, and free ourselves from a corrupt and tyrannical autocrat, as expressed in Thomas Jefferson’s powerful preamble to the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.6
Yes, but how do we do that? The first step is by doing exactly what Jefferson laid out in 1776: Tell the American people the truth. As the Declaration of Independence continues:
The history of the present [and this president!] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.7
And such is the purpose of this book. As Jefferson dictated, so we comply; before we move forward to restore our nation, let’s lay out the reasons for dumping Donald Trump.
These reasons cover many aspects of the Trump presidency, starting with his own bizarre personal behavior (anything but presidential) and moving on to disastrous acts committed as president, both at home and abroad: brazenly defying the law, fanning the flames of racism, declaring war on the environment, playing footsie with Russia, turning the government over to special interests, alienating our allies, and sowing discord, not unity.
Taken together, the one hundred reasons outlined in this book paint the picture of a man unequipped for the job of president, who should never have been elected in the first place, who’s disgraced the presidency ever since, who’s wreaked havoc at home and abroad, and who must be removed from the office of president as our laws allow before he does any more lasting damage.
Let facts be submitted to a candid world.
Enough is enough.
Trump must go.
Now.
Copyright © 2018 by Bill Press