The House needs to impeach Trump, as California leads the way

California always plays an outsized role in national politics, and President Trump’s impeachment is no exception.

While the state is a frequent punching bag for the president on Twitter and in numerous embarrassing policy disputes, California lawmakers have either led from the outset in the impeachment process, or attempted to hinder it in such a way that brings shame on House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, and Intelligence Committee ranking minority member Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare.

California Democrats such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Los Angeles, have performed almost heroically in their efforts to protect not their party, but the United States Constitution itself, a document that apparently is only selectively revered by McCarthy and Nunes.

Chairman Schiff, sitting next to Rep. Nunes, endured slander after slander, lie after lie from his Central Valley colleague, who has apparently become some sort of QAnon wannabe. Nunes has even traveled on behalf of the president to dig up dirt in Eastern Europe, while sitting mute as other more courageous government officials outline the president’s obvious malfeasance. Nunes’ performance in the impeachment process is an abject disgrace, and he sullies Congress by his very presence.

Minority Leader McCarthy is a slightly different story, but, in a way, is even more pathetic than Rep. Nunes. McCarthy has become a mouthpiece and not a leader. He showed great promise in the California legislature, was an effective congressman for years, and now, in the moment his nation needs moral leadership, McCarthy has transformed into a handmaiden and automaton. When the country needed moral leadership, Rep. McCarthy set aside his responsibility to the constitution to cheerlead whatever whim President Trump expresses.

That’s not leadership, that’s enabling.

By virtue of the Electoral College, California has massive influence, and yet, in President Trump’s eyes, is a granule, an impediment to his agenda: the personal aggrandizement of Donald Trump. Trump routinely speaks of California as if he regards it as a foreign nation. The president is now discovering that California is indeed part of the United States, and a Californian is running the House of Representatives.

The House Judiciary Committee sends two articles of impeachment to the full House of Representatives Wednesday, and let’s be clear: President Donald Trump has committed impeachable offenses.

First, from the White House’s own transcript of the July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, it is beyond obvious that the president of the United States asked a foreign nation to interfere in a U.S. election.

In President Trump’s words, it was a “perfect” call, but the only thing perfect about it was the obviousness of the naked attempt to enlist Ukraine’s help in investigating former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter for his role on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian oil and gas company. Biden’s son has committed no crime, and every single person familiar with his role has said that.

It is also perfectly clear, to borrow a phrase from a Republican president from California, in fact, who had to resign in disgrace for flouting the constitution, that President Trump has obstructed efforts by congress to investigate this patently blatant quid pro quo.

President Trump’s “personal lawyer,” the formerly respected Mayor Rudy Giuliani, has been happily traipsing throughout Ukraine as recently as last week in his ongoing efforts to find political dirt.

If this effort weren’t so reprehensible, it would be comical. It is not.

It is, however, impeachable.

President Trump has not only overreached, he has committed impeachable acts in broad daylight on national television, and invited not only Ukraine, but China to interfere in our elections. In 2016, he invited Russia to do so on national television as well. But he wasn’t president then. He is now.

This impeachment isn’t about “overturning the 2016 election,” it isn’t about a “coup” by the “deep state,” and other GOP talking-point radio call-in show fevered fantasies. It is not about hating President Trump’s personal style, or his mostly objectionable political policies.

It is about flagrant disregard for the president’s constitutional oath. Period. President Trump’s call was not perfect — it was a crime. However, the U.S. Constitution is very nearly perfect, and should be held above all people who are given the great responsibility to serve it and protect it, from the lowliest federal employee to the president himself.

The House of Representatives should vote to impeach President Trump.

This story was originally published December 18, 2019 at 9:43 AM.