The Perpetual Impeachment Proceedings

In was wake of a special council being named to investigate connections between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, local Representative Joyce Beatty called for impeachment proceedings to begin. Keep in mind that to date, no one has identified an actual crime beyond someone hacking the DNC email server and the Gmail account of John Podesta. It still hasn't been proven that thee hacks were directed by the Russian government (and a whole new wrinkle was thrown in when a private investigator claimed that a member of the DNC was the real source of the Wikileaks material). While there was incidental contact between people associated with the Trump campaign, it has not been proved that this was anything but innocent. If there was a quid pro quo agreement between the Russians and the Trump campaign, so far there is no trace of it. And, since there is no evidence of an agreement, there is no evidence that Trump was party to it.

In other words, at this point all we have is a circumstantial case that the Russians tried to affect the election and a deduction that Trump must have been involved.

Without a lot more concrete evidence, there can be no impeachment. And investigations like this take a long time. We may not have the results in until after Trump is reelected.

So why is Beatty talking about impeachment right now? Sheer partisan hatred.

This is poisonous to our democracy. Trump won the election fair and square according to the rules in place at the time, The Democrats spent the months leading up to Trump's inauguration trying to change the rules. Not that that failed, they are looking for pretexts to remove him from office.

But the Democrats are so blinded by partisan rage that they don't see what till happen next. The Republicans spent the Obama years being fairly quiet. True, Congress obstructed as much of Obama's agenda as they could but that's what opposition parties do. What they did not do was vow start talking publicly about removing him from office before he was even sworn in. But if the Democrats keep trying to remove Trump then they can count on their next president getting a similar reception.

Let's save time and start the impeachment proceedings for the next Democrat president now. Beatty has already shown that we don't need an actual cause.