Though it may be a difficult and time-consuming process, a Democratic lawmaker warned his colleagues and other enemies of President Donald Trump against the "terrible idea" of abandoning threats to impeach him for his conduct, stressing that the opposition must retain every constitutional tool that it has.
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin sat for an interview in Slate with lawyer and vocal Trump critic Dahlia Lithwick, where they discussed the various methods available to opponents of the president for reining in his rogue administration. The two biggest options pushed for so far have been impeachment and removal via the 25th Amendment, with Raskin conceding that both are difficult processes, though one is likely impossible under the current circumstances.
"We just don’t have the tools to address this in real time, the way we all experience the crisis," Raskin explained. "Impeachment is a remedy if and when it works, and that takes months to put into play, right? So traditionally, it’s gone through the Judiciary Committee, it’s gone to the House floor. Then there’s time for the Senate to set its calendar, and then the Senate, assuming there’s been an impeachment in the House, conducts a trial."
Raskin also noted that Trump's second impeachment trial in the Senate was the most bipartisan in history, with 57-to-43 voting in favor of convicting and removing him from office, but it still was not enough to meet the two-thirds requirement, rendering impeachment overall a "tall order." It is still, however, a more attainable goal than the 25th Amendment, given that it would require the willing participation of Vice President JD Vance.
"It still requires the action of the vice president, so that in this context, that means that J.D. Vance is a necessary partner in any action to determine that there’s an inability of the president to conduct the duties of office," Raskin continued. "During this crisis, he was over in Hungary campaigning for Viktor Orbán’s reelection, and didn’t show much interest in what was going on back here, and he has been morally invertebrate since he’s been vice president."
Raskin voiced support for setting up a "body" made up of a majority of members of Congress that can make the same 25th Amendment determination as the Vice President about the president's fitness for office.
He ultimately concluded that "plan C has was always plan A," referring to the ultimate check on Trump's power: voters sending Republicans packing in the next election, but he ultimately stressed that the Democrats must keep all options available to them on the table, no matter how tenuous.
"I certainly believe that impeachment and the 25th Amendment cannot be a fetish for us, because neither of them, as we’ve seen, is a panacea for what ails us," Raskin said. "On the other hand, they should be no kind of constitutional, or political, taboo. They are part of the tool kit that exists, and we’ve got to think of them in terms of our strategy and tactics going forward. And we would never take anything off of the table."
