By Robert Reich
The only way I see the end of Trump
is if there’s overwhelming evidence he rigged the 2016 election. In which case
impeachment isn’t an adequate remedy. His presidency should be annulled.
Let me explain. Many people are
convinced we’re already witnessing the beginning of the end of Trump.
In their view, bombshell admissions
from Trump insiders with immunity from prosecution, combined with whatever
evidence Mueller uncovers about Trump’s obstruction of justice and his aide’s
collusion with the Russians, will all tip the scales.
Democrats will take back the House
and begin an impeachment, and the evidence of impeachable offenses will put
enough pressure on Republican senators to send Trump packing.
I don’t believe this for a moment.
Second, even if Democrats flip the
House in November, Republicans will almost certainly remain in control of the
Senate – and so far they’ve displayed the integrity of lizards.
Third, Fox News and the rest of the
right-wing sleaze media will continue to distort and cover up whatever the
evidence shows – convincing 35 to 40 percent of Americans, along with most
Republicans, that Trump is the innocent victim of a plot to remove him.
Finally, Trump himself will never
voluntarily resign, as did Nixon. He’ll lie and claim a conspiracy to unseat
him.
He’s proven himself a superb conman,
an entertainer-demagogue capable of sowing so much confusion and instigating so
much hate and paranoia that he has already survived outrages that would have
broken any garden-variety loathsome president – Helsinki, Charlottesville,
children locked in cages at the border, firings and cover-ups, racist slurs,
clear corruption.
In all likelihood, we’ll have him
for another two and a half years.
Don’t bet the house on him losing in
2020, either. A malignant bullying megalomaniac who lies like most people
breathe, and who’s able to suck the oxygen out of every news cycle, might
pulverize any Democratic opponent.
Even if he loses in 2020, we’ll be
fortunate if he concedes without being literally carried out of the Oval Office
amid the stirrings of civil insurgency.
Oh, and let me remind you that even
if he’s impeached, we’d still have his loathsome administration – Pence on
down.
But lest you fall into a miasma of
gloom, there’s another scenario – unlikely, but entirely possible.
Suppose, just suppose, Robert
Mueller finds overwhelming and indisputable evidence that Trump conspired with
Putin to rig the 2016 election, and the rigging determined the election’s
outcome.
In other words, Trump’s presidency
is not authorized under the United States Constitution.
Suppose these findings are so
compelling that even Trump loyalists desert him, the Republican Party decides
it has had enough, and Fox News calls for his impeachment.
What then? Impeachment isn’t
enough.
Impeachment would remedy Trump’s
“high crimes and misdemeanors.” But impeachment would not remedy Trump’s
unconstitutional presidency because it would leave in place his vice president,
White House staff and Cabinet, as well as all the executive orders he issued
and all the legislation he signed, and the official record of his presidency.
The only response to an
unconstitutional presidency is to annul it. Annulment would repeal all of an
unconstitutional president’s appointments and executive actions, and would
eliminate the official record of the presidency.
Annulment would recognize that all
such appointments, actions, and records were made without constitutional authority.
The Constitution does not
specifically provide for annulment of an unconstitutional presidency. But read
as a whole, the Constitution leads to the logical conclusion that annulment is
the appropriate remedy for one.
After all, the Supreme Court declares
legislation that doesn’t comport with the Constitution null and void, as if it
had never been passed.
It would logically follow that the
Court could declare all legislation and executive actions of a presidency
unauthorized by the Constitution to be null and void, as if Trump had never
been elected.
The Constitution also gives Congress
and the states the power to amend the Constitution, thereby annulling or
altering whatever provisions came before. Here, too, it would logically follow
that Congress and the states could, through amendment, annul a presidency they
determine to be unconstitutional.
As I’ve said, my betting is Trump
remains president at least through 2020 – absent compelling and indisputable
evidence he rigged the 2016 election.
But if such evidence comes forth,
impeachment isn’t an adequate remedy because Trump’s presidency would be
constitutionally illegitimate.
It should be annulled.
Robert B. Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at
the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center
for Developing Economies. He served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton
administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective
cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written fifteen books,
including the best sellers "Aftershock", "The Work of
Nations," and"Beyond Outrage," and, his most recent, "The
Common Good," which is available in bookstores now. He is also a founding
editor of the American Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning
documentary, "Inequality For All." He's co-creator of the Netflix
original documentary "Saving Capitalism," which is streaming now.