I've Changed My Mind On Impeaching Trump

I have now begun to accept the harsh political reality that impeachment proceedings against the president are not a good idea.

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by Ben Cohen

After watching former Trump fixer Michael Cohen’s testimony in front of Congress this week, I have now begun to accept the harsh political reality that impeachment proceedings against the president are not a good idea. I have argued previously that impeachment proceedings against the president are vital to the long term health of American democracy, but as recent events have shown, there are short term issues that are far more serious.

Cohen’s Testimony

Cohen’s testimony was, well, extraordinary. He implicated Trump in a number of clearly impeachable offenses from lying about his business interests in Russia, lying about stolen Democratic emails, and committing serious campaign finance violations. Cohen described Trump as a vile, racist opportunist who had no respect for his country and was using politics solely to further his brand and financial interests. Cohen produced evidence of Trump’s crimes (checks for reimbursing him for payments to porn star Stormy Daniels) and weathered Republican questioning extremely well despite their concerted efforts to paint him as a liar. He detailed Trump’s history of tax fraud, his affairs, the joy he derived from cheating small contractors out of money, and his extreme selfishness.

"The bad far outweighs the good, and since taking office, he has become the worst version of himself," Cohen told Congress.

"He is capable of behaving kindly, but he is not kind. He is capable of committing acts of generosity, but he is not generous. He is capable of being loyal, but he is fundamentally disloyal."

Cohen also challenged Trump loyalists to see the writing on the wall and bail out before it is too late.

“I'm responsible for your silliness because I did the same thing that you are doing now for ten years,” Cohen said. “I protected Mr. Trump for ten years, and the fact that you pull up a news article that has no value to it and you want to use that as the premise for discrediting me that I'm not the person that people called at 3:00 in the morning would make you inaccurate. In actuality, it would make a liar which would put you into the same position that I am in, and I can only warn people the more people that follow Mr. Trump as I did blindly are going to suffer the same consequences that I'm suffering.”

This was a pivotal moment in the testimony. Cohen is not a particularly credible witness, and he was almost certainly using the hearing to do as much damage to Trump as possible. But his point contained an undeniable truth: those still protecting Trump are only staving off the inevitable. At some point, the house of cards is going to come crashing down, and everyone staking their careers on defending Trump will go down with him. Because Trump does not just ruin careers, he destroys them. There is a wasteland of ex-Trump staffers and employees who are now unemployable because of their attachment to the president, and the longer they remain with him, the more toxic their brand becomes. Michael Cohen lied and cheated to protect Trump, and has ended up with nothing. He was not speaking hypothetically to the Republicans in Congress, but from a great deal of experience. The fate of those who continue to support the president may well be far more serious.

The Evidence For Impeachment Is Clear

Overall, it was a devastating account of the president’s criminal behavior, and regardless of Cohen’s history, substantive enough to warrant multiple investigations and immediate impeachment proceedings. As New York Times columnist Charles Blow tweeted recently:

“I used to agree that an impeachment in the House, knowing that the Senate wouldn’t vote to remove, was folly.”

”Now, I think it must be done ANYWAY. The political question is also a moral one: We can’t have a criminal prez [sic] who goes unchecked.”

But that would be in an ideal world, and one very far from where America is today.

The Republican Response

The Republican response to Cohen’s testimony was depressing beyond belief, and it is what has led me to the opposite conclusion: that impeachment proceedings will lead absolutely nowhere. Every Republican who questioned Cohen refused to discuss the substance of his allegations, seeking instead to smear Cohen for being a liar. They even put up a large, childish poster with the words “Liar liar pants on fire,” with a picture of Cohen on it (no doubt to appeal to Trump’s not-so-bright base). Cohen could not be a credible witness because he was, as many Republicans pointed out, a “convicted felon.”

“If it was not already obvious, there are members here with the singular goal in Congress to impeach President Trump,” Rep. Carol Miller (R-W.Va.) said.

“We are supposed to take what you say, Mr. Cohen, at this time about President Trump as the truth,” she continued. “But you’re about to go to prison for lying. How can we believe anything you say? The answer is we can’t.” 

Given Cohen was convicted of lying about Donald Trump’s criminal behavior, it was an extraordinarily line of questioning, but one they stuck to nevertheless.

After a few hours of this, Cohen himself began to catch on to what was happening. “Not one question so far has been asked about Mr. Trump,” he said.

Why was this the case? Because they knew everything Cohen was saying was almost certainly true.

The Republican response to Cohen’s testimony revealed one thing and one thing only: that the party is willing to incinerate itself for Donald Trump. The party understands that Trump is now the face of the GOP and still wildly popular with their base. That means they cannot undermine Trump for fear of losing his support, and will go to almost any length to normalize him and distract the public from his madness. They are collectively protecting the president to protect themselves from their voters — a strategy that may work in the short term but is destroying their party from the inside out.

To impeach Trump, the Democrats need both houses of Congress to sign off on it. Furthermore, they need a super majority in the Republican controlled Senate (two-thirds) to vote on the president’s guilt, which they simply will not get. The Republicans have shown absolutely no sign that they are willing to take on the president for the sake of their country, and it would be a counterproductive strategy to believe they will at some point do the right thing. They won’t, and their behavior during Michael Cohen’s testimony proved it.

For those who take democracy and the rule of law seriously, this is not a pleasant pill to swallow. But the fact remains that we have one party committed to upholding the Constitution and following the rule of law, and one that seeks power and little else. If Trump cannot be removed from office by the law, he must be removed by the American people themselves. And that means voting him out of office in 2020 by an overwhelming majority.

Trump needs to face justice for the crimes he has committed, but that can only when Democrats control the White House.

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