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Even though only months into the Trump administration, it is clear that an election has been hijacked and a political sociopath is now in the most important job in the world. The Russian connection will drive this man from office, I believe, within three years. Our Constitution gives us three chances to live on before four dreadful years allow us to be rid of this catastrophe. They are the impeachment clause, the 25th Amendment, and the clause providing for a trial for treason.
In 1787 when the Constitution was struck in Philadelphia, our English forebears' were debating in Parliament the impeachment of Warren Hastings, governor-general of India. In colonial times their precedents went back through the Stuarts, who pretended to be tough, to the Tudors, who really were. In English law, impeachment was a criminal process, and while we kept the English criminal language, we stripped from the English law all criminal punishments. The only penalty was removal from office and, perhaps not allowing the convicted defendants to ever again run for office or vote. Of course crimes were often impeachable but so were civil wrongs of the right "wrong" nature. "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" remains our constitutional language.
Probes by the FBI, CIA and NSA and both houses of Congress, and other agencies within the Justice Department, of conversations with the leadership of the Trump campaign and now administration will unmask the traitors and see justice done. Of less importance than other articles of impeachment, but vitally important: Donald Trump won't release his tax returns for very good reason to his survival in office. I believe Russian money by the millions will be found in offshore accounts into Donald Trump and his associates' pockets.
Treason as determined by John Marshall in the infamous case of Aaron Burr, the man who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, is defined as waging war against the United States of America. This very narrow definition led to Burr's acquittal and thousands of burnings of John Marshall's effigy throughout our nation. We now, for better or for worse, define treason more broadly. If and when the evidence is made public, we will, I believe, find acts of treason. Trump, like every dictator before him, is now attempting to destroy the free press that we have enjoyed since 1787, with full knowledge of his cooperation with the successors of the KGB.
In the Nixon impeachment there were several articles, including subverting the coercive agencies of government; attempting to manipulate the CIA, FBI and NSA; lying to the American people and the Senate and House; blaming the media; and the CIA, NSA and FBI and other clandestine agencies of government for what his henchmen had done. It is as if Donald Trump is communicating with his dead predecessor, Richard Nixon, and following exactly his course into impeachment.The sad, perhaps catastrophic, circumstance is, with one caveat, like Tudor England: that the perpetrator-in-chief must first bleed to death before impeachment would work. Impeachment now would be a catastrophe. Half the population would likely take up arms against the other half. It is only when the Republicans, as in the Nixon impeachment, take the walk from Capitol Hill to the White House, and we're not even close to that time. When John McCain, Lindsey Graham and their colleagues of the right are ready, will we be ready for impeachment. Before that, a special prosecutor should be named in that Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, is among the suspects in this sad story.
The caveat is treason: only if in fact, as I believe, this president and his henchmen have colluded with the Kremlin would time be shortened from years to months. If in fact his people — like Michael Flynn, then Senator and now Attorney General Sessions (who lied under oath regarding speaking at least twice to Russian representatives), Paul Manafort, Carter Page and Steve Bannon — did in fact collude with the Russians during the time that Obama was president; at that time when Congress and the president were imposing sanctions upon Russia, this would constitute not only grounds for impeachment but treason.
While impeachment will require years of bleeding the president and his aides to political death, treason would rather quickly bring about Republican senators and congressmen to demand the president's resignation, or face instant impeachment and a trial for treason. Working secretly with the enemy on sanctions for aggression in Ukraine and hijacking an election for the presidency of the United States of America is indeed waging war against our great country.
The 25th Amendment to the Constitution, dealing with an impaired president, offers a seemingly easier and quite appropriate way to the same end. A colleague, Larry Tribe, is touting this amendment as a much faster and cleaner way to remove this national embarrassment and threat to the world. The problem as I see it is that we must respect the Republican Party just as much by the invocation of the 25th Amendment as we do if impeachment were the basis for removal. Perhaps Tribe is right in that McCain and his colleagues might find Trump's mental problems less damaging a reason for his removal from office. That is, it is Trump and his associates, and not the entire Republican Party, that are to blame. Trump wonderfully qualifies for all three routes to a sane presidency.
In Tudor times, when the king could do no wrong, England worked its way to a rule-of-law community, defined as the supremacy of Commons, as ours is by powers separated and in check.
These people, when convicted of impeachment, would be disemboweled with their vital organs pulled by long pliers out their bottom while still living. Then their various body parts would be severed and sent to all quarters of the kingdom so that upon resurrection day, one part could not find the other parts.
The Tudors were not subtle folk. Stay tuned.
Ed Firmage is Samuel D. Thurman Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Utah.