Republicans Vow to Commit Treason: Read the Articles of Impeachment

“A Republic if you can keep It!” – Benjamin Franklin

By Glen Reaux

On Tuesday morning, December 10, 2019 the House of Representatives under the leadership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi released to the public its Articles of Impeachment of the 45^th President of the United States, Donald John Trump. Participants in the announcement were Speaker Pelosi, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee which was responsible for drafting the articles that will be presented to the full House for a vote and approval before being passed on to the Senate which by Law is obligated to hold a trial. The Articles of Impeachment in laymen’s terms is an indictment of the president for the commission of high crimes and misdemeanors as provided for in the constitution. The Senate per the constitution must now hold a trial to determine the guilt or innocence of Donald Trump. Only if he is found guilty by the Senate will he be removed from office. However, in service to their fearless leader the self-proclaimed “Big Brain” Donald J. Trump “Republicans Vow to Commit Treason: Read the Articles of Impeachment.”

During the announcement of the Articles of Impeachment Jerry Nadler, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee which drafted the articles, stated the circumstance created by Trump which forced the Democrats to impeach him. According to Nadler, “Trump’s actions were a betrayal of trusts endangers the constitution, endangers our democracy and the national security. He compromised the integrity of our elections… in particular the 2020 elections.” The Articles of Impeachment detail two high crimes and misdemeanors.

Abuse of power
Obstruction of Congress

The abuse of power article lays out the case of the President bribing the Ukrainian President to get him to interfere in our upcoming 2020 presidential election. This act on the part of the President involved, the withholding of bipartisan congressional aide to Ukraine, the subsequent cover-up, the development and implementation of a conspiracy which involved the participation of the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, Vice President Mike Pence and at least a dozen other high level government officials. This incident is now referred to as the Ukrainian Scandal. Testifying before the Intelligence Committee, Ambassador Sondland admitted the elements of the president’s crime.

The obstruction of Congress case outlines the efforts of the President to obstruct the investigation into the Ukrainian Scandal. The president refused to turn over any of the documents subpoenaed by Congress. In addition, he ordered all members of his administration to disobey all subpoenas legally issued by Congress mandating their testimony. He also ordered all Executive Branch departments to disobey all congressional subpoenas. In addition, when witnesses testified before Congress, his administration refused to supply the personal notes taken by those witnesses which would support their testimonies. All of these acts fueled the obstruction of Congress article of impeachment. The official Articles of Impeachment document is provided below in its entirety.

Articles-of-Impeachment_donald J. Trump

During the announcement, Adam Schiff the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee which produced the report used by the House Judiciary Committee as evidence justifying impeachment addressed the Republican proposal to bypass impeachment and let the people judge via the outcome of the 2020 election. According to Schiff:

“The argument, why don’t you just wait amounts to this: Why don’t you just let him cheat in just one more election? Why not let him cheat just one more time? Why not let him have foreign help just one more time? That is what that argument really amounts to. The president’s misconduct goes to the heart of whether we can have a free and fair election in 2020.”

The Democrats argument that Trump’s abuse of power if left unchecked will jeopardize the integrity of the 2020 election and other elections going forward is evidenced by the president’s own words because he has openly called for Ukraine and China to interfere in the 2020 election.

The Democrats referred to the fact that, Trump Believes that he is above the law and can do anything that he wants. The president using his self-proclaimed “Big Brain” in his own words proves the Democrats case and provides evidence of his propensity for abuse of power, the first article of impeachment.

Immediately after the announcement by the Democratic leadership that they were moving forward with voting on the Articles of Impeachment, the President fired off this tweet.

Based upon the content of the tweet, the President seems to think a good economy should excuse him from his criminal behavior. Also, he fails to mention that he inherited the strong economy from former Democratic President Barack Obama who saved the nation from the Great Recession of 2008. That recession was a result of the disastrous economic policies of Republican President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress.

Democrats, in the drafting of the articles of impeachment may not have done enough. They stated that they needed to keep the case as simple as possible for the American people. Doing this would make the impeachment proceedings easy for the people to follow and understand. But, in doing so, they may have done a disservice to the country and left the nation vulnerable to future attacks from other corrupt presidents. At issue are two other possible articles of impeachment.

Bribery is a crime that is explicitly stated in the constitution as an impeachable crime. One of the things that the president did is a clear and simple case of bribery. It is a crime that is widely understood by most people. Even high school students understand what bribery is. Also, bribery has a stigma attached to it that is more readily identifiable than ‘High Crimes and Misdemeanors.” It places the president in the same light with common criminals and mob bosses. Such an image would surely garner more support from the “common man” who does not have a college degree and make-up roughly 69% of the population. The Democrats have chosen to confuse the issue by including ”bribery” as an element of abuse of power which is a totally separate and distinct impeachable crime. In their attempts to make things easier for the American people to follow, they have forgotten to use the KISS principle, Keep It Simple Stupid! Bribery is simple.

The Democrats also left out the important charge of obstruction of justice. The Mueller Report mentioned 10 instances of obstruction of justice by Donald J. Trump. Although Mueller concluded that he could not “beyond a reasonable doubt” present a case of conspiracy to defraud the American people via collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign, he did lay out a road map for impeachment for obstruction of justice in Volume II of the 455 page report. For the Democrats not to include obstruction of justice as the third or fourth article of impeachment could place our democracy in peril in the future. To totally disregard a report that took a year to investigate and complete which provides so much damning evidence against the president for obstruction of justice and evidence of conspiring with a foreign power to steal the 2016 election is an atrocity. It calls into question the legitimacy of the investigation and its resulting evidence.

Now that it is inevitable that Trump will be impeached in the House of Representatives, the next step is a trial in the Senate. Without the benefit of the trial or hearing all of the evidence in the case, the Republican leadership and its entire Senate membership has already stated that the Impeachment of the president is an attempt by Democrats to undo the results of the 2016. Furthermore, the Impeachment Articles are dead upon arrival in the Senate. In other words, the Republican-controlled Senate has decided to deny the American people its due process as mandated by the constitution. They have decided to “offer aid and comfort to the enemy during a time of war” which is the definition of treason. Putin, declared war upon the United Stated when he attacked our 2016 elections. According to our intelligence community and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report, they are continuing their interference campaign and will do so into the foreseeable future. By stating that the Articles of Impeachment are dead on arrival and continuing to promote Putin’s propaganda that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election, they are committing treason. They are essentially refusing to uphold their oaths in favor of offering aid and comfort to Russia. Their oath of office which states:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God”

By refusing to uphold their oaths of office, Republicans have made a conscious decision to act as a group and do five things favor of promoting their treasonous agenda. Each of which threatens our democratic republic. A thorough examination of the elements of their oath of office and the consequences of their refusal to uphold that oath will reveal these five things to be true.

Place party before country
Become complicit in the president’s crimes
Compromise the national security of the country
Deny the American people to the right of free and fair elections
Subject the American people to tyranny

ELEMENT I – Placing party before country

The Republican Senate leadership and all Republicans have been very vocal by declaring in the media that the Articles of Impeachment are dead on arrival. This statement is in direct contradiction to the opening sentence of their oath which states: “that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same…” This means that the individual taking the oath will stay true in faith and allegiance to the constitution. Stating that the articles are “dead on arrival” is actually a refusal to hold a fair and unbiased trial of the president based upon the crimes that he is being charged with in the articles. The Constitution, in Article II Section 4 provides for the protection of the constitution through the impeachment of the president.

ELEMENT II – Become complicit in the president’s crimes

Complicit – involved with others in an illegal activity or wrong doing. By refusing to hold the president accountable by holding a fair and impartial crime, Republicans in the senate are committing the crime of obstruction of justice. The other “wrong doing” is the refusal to uphold their oath of office.

ELEMENTS III & IV – Compromise the national security of the country

The president has compromised the national security of the country by inviting and extorting foreign interference in the upcoming 2020 election. He has also promoted the false narrative that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election and not Russia. This theory is a false narrative debunked by the American intelligence community. By not punishing the president for this crime and also by Republicans promoting this debunked conspiracy theory the national security is jeopardized because they are not fulfilling their oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic”

ELEMENT V – Subject the American people to tyranny and a dictatorship

Through their announcement that the articles of impeachment are dead on arrival, Republicans have owned up to the fact that they are dictating to the American people that the country is no longer subject to the rule of law but to the rule of men. Republicans are saying that the constitution means nothing to them. And, since they are in control of the Executive Branch, The Judiciary and the Senate they rule in spite of the constitution. They have established a tyrannical dictatorship that will deny Americans their rights to free and fair elections and the rule of law.

Considering this set of circumstances, it is time for the average American to start asking the following questions:

Since we are being denied our constitutional rights, are Trump and the Republicans domestic enemies?
Are we living through a coup d’e’ tat?
Why aren’t the Republicans and Trump denying any of the facts?
Since bribery is a crime, why are they saying that Trump did nothing wrong?
Will my vote count in 2020?
Will I even be allowed to vote?