Opinion

It’s time to begin an impeachment inquiry

Billionaire investor and Democratic activist Tom Steyer speaks during a “Need to Impeach” town hall event in Agawam, Mass., March 13. Steyer claims that President Trump meets the criteria for impeachment. Billionaire investor and Democratic activist Tom Steyer speaks during a “Need to Impeach” town hall event in Agawam, Mass., March 13. Steyer claims that President Trump meets the criteria for impeachment. Photo: Steven Senne /Associated Press Photo: Steven Senne /Associated Press Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close It’s time to begin an impeachment inquiry 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

President Donald Trump gave Attorney General William Barr — possibly the most dishonest, corrupt and politically motivated AG in history — sweeping powers over American intelligence agencies in order to continue pursuing what is a thoroughly discredited conspiracy theory about the origins of the Russian investigation. That order threatens to undermine the independence of those intel agencies, expose means and methods that could endanger agents in the field, undermine intelligence-sharing arrangements with our closest allies and strengthen our adversaries. It also undercuts barriers between domestic law enforcement and foreign intelligence gathering that have been in place since Watergate and makes the Department of Justice a political weapon in service to the president.

Within hours of that action, Trump made it clear he expects Barr to conclude that he — Trump — was the victim of a “coup” attempt amounting to “treason.” In other words, Barr has his marching orders and, as he made clear when he brazenly lied about the Mueller report, he is willing to echo whatever his boss demands. These are the actions of a would-be despot and tyrant and are themselves reason enough to launch immediate impeachment proceedings, even in the absence of all the established crimes and abuses of power detailed in the Mueller report and played out daily in public. It also came immediately after Trump and his mouthpiece, Rudy Giuliani, retweeted doctored videos of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, intended to make people think that she had suffered some physical or mental disability. Those are actions one would expect to see in the old Soviet Union or some other autocracy or totalitarian country, not the United States of America.

To top it off, the DOJ has announced charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange that, if successfully pursued, would cut the heart out of the First Amendment and freedom of the press. It may well be that those charges are intended to keep Great Britain from extraditing Assange to the U.S., where he could potentially testify about WikiLeaks’ role in the Russians’ distribution of stolen Democratic National Committee emails during the 2016 election. Certainly, Assange is a Russian accessory and an enemy of this country, and he deserves no sympathy. But criminalizing the publication of classified documents would place every national security reporter in this country under jeopardy of arrest. These are all serious abuses of power, dangerous and alarming precedents, and serious threats to the rule of law and the Constitution.

They are also reasons why impeachment proceedings must begin now, without regard to the political calendar. The election is still more than a year away, and that is far too long to allow this assault on American norms, institutions, laws and constitutional protections to continue unchecked. I do not address these concerns from a partisan perspective. I had been, until the nomination of Trump, a lifelong and active Republican and consider myself to be a Reagan-Buckley-Goldwater conservative.

I worked for five years in the Communications Department of the Republican National Committee, including the first two years of the George W. Bush administration. It is past time for our elected representatives to set party and partisan considerations aside and to act in the best interests of this nation against the ongoing assaults on the rule of law and the daily abuses of power of this lawless administration.

Mike Reeder lives in San Antonio.