On Sept. 24, the United States Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi filed a formal impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump. This was done after a whistleblower complaint was lodged in July regarding a phone call between Trump and President Zelensky of the Ukraine.
Ukraine is a country that is in the underlyings of a war with Russia, which makes U.S. involvement with them so important. The United States government was supposed to send $250 million to the Ukraine government for funding of military weapons to protect themselves against the Russian power. Trump froze that advance of money because he wanted something from the Ukranian government.
Trump wanted them to “expose” dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and his business dealings in Ukraine. The problem is that the Ukraine government told Trump that they didn’t have anything. They had seen no corruption in Biden’s business dealings and had no reason to investigate further.
Trump wasn’t satisfied. He continuously asked them to investigate and when they repeatedly told him there is nothing there, he asked them to lie. The president of our country was asking a foreign nation to fabricate a scandal focused around Biden and his family.
In more recent news, Trump was speaking in the oval office about how the “House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff should be looked at for ‘treason,’” according to CNN Politics. This is the president of our country saying that Schiff, the person who has evidence to indict him, should be sentenced to death or face imprisonment and fines, the options of punishment for treason by the word of the Constitution.
This country has only seen a presidential impeachment happen twice before.
“The Clinton impeachment in 1988-89 was pretty clearly politically motivated…there is considerably more evidence against President Trump now,” Dr. John Holder, an adjunct professor in Winthrop’s political science department, said.
If Clinton could be impeached over lying about consensual sexual relations that didn’t affect the presidency directly, why is it so hard to indict Trump for using his presidential power to break a more serious law?
This isn’t about what party you support anymore, or if you hate Trump or love him. It is about the president of our country using his political power to further his personal agenda. By making a scandal that involves Joe Biden, the current frontrunning candidate for the Democratic party, he is able to follow the same tactics he used in the 2016 election with Hillary Clinton.
Many people are wondering if he will actually be convicted for the plethora of crimes that the House of Representatives may try him for, but that isn’t really what is important. The significance of this ordeal is the impeachment itself.
In reality, with a majority Republican Senate, it would be very hard for him to be convicted, but the majority Democratic House of Representatives can still make sure that he is impeached. The people we have elected to represent us in government will be holding our executive officer accountable for risking the security of our nation for his own personal gain.
Since his time in office and even beforehand, with the steps he took to secure his place in office, Trump has not been held accountable for many of his actions. No one has done anything to pressure him on a national level and he has begun to feel invincible. He has turned tyrannical. He is counting on the blind support of his followers to make this story blow over just like so many more. As United States citizens, we have to make sure that that does not happen. We must take action against his corrupt politics.
By impeaching Trump, this country truly has nothing to lose, and everything to win.
“Unless there is overwhelming evidence of a crime, his supporters aren’t going to turn against him, and the people who already hate him aren’t going to like him any more because of an unsuccessful impeachment,” Holder said.
Throughout this process of impeachment inquiry, Trump will inevitably attempt to discredit the accusations, as he has demonstrated previously anytime someone has tried to defy his power. Our president thinks it is more appropriate to take to Twitter in attempts to defend himself instead of following the laws in place to hold every US citizen, whether they be the powerful or the weak, accountable.
This country has a long history of being lenient on those in power—rich, white males who can rear their racist, homophobic thoughts and spend their millions of dollars.
But no more. We cannot let this continue when it is the future of our country, the one that represents us in this world.
So call your senators, call your representatives, and urge them to hold our president accountable. Urge them to impeach this man who has run free of conviction for so long. Because if we don’t hold him accountable, then who will?
Graphic: Elizabeth Talbert/ The Johnsonian
