Impeachment means that Congress thinks the president is no longer fit to serve and should be removed from office. It doesn’t actually remove him from office; the House can vote to impeach the president, and then the Senate holds a trial to determine if he should be removed. This is how impeachment works.
1) Do you think Trump could evoke executive privilege to block access to documents and testimonies? What would be the consequences if he did?
2) What do you think is the likelihood of Trump being impeached? If he did, how likely do you think it would be for him to be removed from office? Justify your answer.
3) What are the consequences, negative and positive, of Trump being impeached? How will our country as a whole be affected?
1. Trump could evoke executive privilege to block access, but similar to Nixon, the issue could go to the Supreme Court, and in US v Nixon, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Congress, making Nixon follow the subpoena. Trump's advisors may tell him to hand over the documents, like he did originally with the transcript of the call between him and the Ukrainian president. If he said executive privilege, it would make him look more guilty.
ReplyDelete3. The impeachment can result in a weak government which leads to political gridlock. It may also set precedent of impeaching every president who obstructs justice. However, if Trump had negotiated illegal deal to help him win the 2016 election, it would be justified to impeach him. Our country as a whole could possibly become unstable or remain just fine. It is difficult to predict what would happen.
ReplyDelete2. I think that the likelihood of Trump being impeached is very high because Democrats constitute the majority of the House of Representatives (53.4%). Although a few moderates will likely defect and oppose impeachment, most House Democrats will likely vote in favor of it, and a recent tally revealing that 165 Democrats firmly support impeachment confirms this. However, I think that the probability of him being convicted and removed from office is nearly 0%. Republicans occupy 53 seats in the Senate, and since most--if not all--will likely veto the articles of impeachment, the Democrats will be unable to get the supermajority needed to convict Trump.
ReplyDelete1. Based on the precedent Nixon set, Trump could technically evoke executive privilege to block access to documents and testimonies, but then the issue could go to the Supreme Court. Just as the court decided in Nixon's case, I think the court would order Trump to release the documents.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is unlikely that Trump gets impeached. He was impeached by the house, but it is unlikely that he will be removed by the Senate. According to 583, no Republicans in the senate are planning to vote to impeach Trump, yet 80% of citizens who are Democrats would vote to impeach him. The things he has done with can be considered impeachable because he has committed bribery,and in a way, treason. But this isn't the worst of what he's done.
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ReplyDelete2. Trump will most likely be impeached by the House of Representatives, but not the Senate. An impeachment from the House is symbolic and won't have any real effect while an impeachment from the Senate would remove Trump from office and convict him. Republicans currently have the majority of 53-45 with 2 independent seats, and Trump has around a 70% approval rating within the Republican Party. It would take 67 senators to impeach, which means 20 Republican senators would have to defect from their party.
ReplyDelete2. I think it is highly likely that Trump will be impeached by the house because it is majority Democrat. However, I do not believe that he will be convicted because the senate is majority Republican and under Majority leader Mitch McConnell, conviction is not a option. I think in the past impeachment would hurt a president's chances at re-election, but with the current state of polarization in America, Trump is able to spin the impeachment into a story that favors him and makes Democrats look bad. As a result, I don't know if Trump's base will be swayed by the impeachment.
ReplyDelete2)The question is: is it possible for Trump to be actually impeached. I think the answer is yes. But he will definitely be tried and convicted Currently, there have been discussions about Trump’s attorney’s and if they will be participating in the impeachment inquiry. There are twenty more days until the government shutdown which means the official impeachment process begins and the government and the Senate do nothing but focus on that for at least a few weeks, to a couple of months. After deciding this, the House Judiciary Committee, which has the authority to draft the impeachment papers starting next week. After the Committee vote, the committee will vote on whether to refer them to the full House. If they're approved, the articles will go to the House floor, where a simple majority is needed to formally impeach Trump. This vote could happen the week of Dec. 16.
ReplyDelete1. Trump could use executive privilege, similarly to Nixon, to try to block access to documents and testimonies. However, Nixon losing his case in the Supreme Court to Congress, set the precedent for Trump who would also most likely have release the documents.
ReplyDelete1. There is always the possibility and option for Trump to use executive privilege to block the access to important documents. Like we have seen in the past in Nixon v. US, the Supreme Court would mostly likely keep the precedent and subpoena Trump for his records. If this happens, Trump would have nothing to but release the documents and testimonies.
ReplyDelete1. Trump is currently, surely, trying to use executive privilege to try and not show documents but I am skeptical to its effectiveness. Trump has now been impeached and I really don't think that the courts are going to hold up Trump's argument that he does not have to turn over his tax returns because of executive privilege. Executive privilege didn't work for Nixon and I am really skeptical of how well it will work for Trump. Drawing on the parallel to Nixon, however, it is less clear what Trump has done illegally and the impact of what he has done illegally, as was different in Nixon's case, so I believe it could be possible that the executive privilege argument could work.
ReplyDeleteI believe it is extremely probable for Trump to be impeached by the House of Representatives but not by the actual senate. The House is democrat dominated which may allow an easy process regarding impeachment. On the other hand, the Senate is majority republican with Mitch McConnel as the Majority leader. With Trump being impeached by the house and not the senate, Trump may continue to serve his term and may even be up for re-election.
ReplyDelete3. The positive consequences of Trump being impeached are that, if he committed offenses that could result in his removal from office, they are more likely to uncovered and proved. The negatives are that this increases party polarization, and makes it much less likely that anything bipartisan will come during this presidency. Also, people who are misinformed on what impeachment is will think Trump is removed from office, which he is not.
ReplyDelete1. Although Trump could try to evoke executive privilege to block access to documents and testimonies, I believe that his execution of executive privilege would be overridden by Congress or the Supreme Court. This is due to the precedent set in U.S. v. Nixon, where the Supreme Court ordered Nixon to deliver tape recordings and other evidence despite Nixon's attempted call for executive privilege to prevent this. With such a strong precedent against executive privilege in a situation like this, it seems unlikely that Trump will be able to use executive privilege to avoid showing evidence.
ReplyDelete2). i think the likelihood of trump being impeached is very high since there have already been early reports documenting trump's abuse of power through his dealings with Ukraine. I believe that trump has a very good chance of being impeached in the house. Due to the gradually compiling evidence and the democratic majority in the house i believe he will be impeached. It is for these same majority reason that I believe he will not be convicted in a trial held by the republican-led senate.
ReplyDelete3)I think that the consequences of trump being impeached are that it will increase partisanship. Democrats will accept the impeachment while republicans will believe the impeachment is partisan. On the other hand the impeachment may signal to others looking to emulate Trump that it is a bad idea.
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