Hiding in the bathroom in the middle of a tornado, do you think people have a sense, just before the roof flies off and the walls around them collapse, that everything is about to cave in?

This week in Washington, there is certainly a sense that the Donald Trump presidency has turned a corner, where that steady rain, coming almost non-stop since Jan. 20, now has a howling wind accompanying it and that wind is threatening to blow the roof off.

And for the first time the “I” word, “impeachment,” is heard in the back hallways of congress whispered by more than democrat voices. Certainly the president, who is more media sensitive than anyone, is aware that the storm is gaining momentum. Speaking at the U.S. Coast Guard graduation ceremonies this week, he said, “Look at the way I have been treated lately, especially by the media. No politician in history – and I say this with great surety – has been treated worse or more unfairly.”

Trump is a president given to verbal excess and outrageous claims and many past presidents might disagree with this claim, like Richard Nixon for his resignation, Clinton for being shadowed for nearly his entire presidency by Ken Starr, or George Bush being publicly savaged for his Iraqi war decision.

But, excess aside, this president has certainly suffered more from self-inflicted wounds than any recent occupant of the White House.

But what justifies impeachment?

Impeachment is the only and final remedy in our constitution for presidential actions that threaten the very fabric of democracy. As Nixon found out, usurping the nations’ legal process to protect oneself from that process, erodes our foundations of government, undermines public trust and positions a president as wholly above the law.

Has Trump been found to have done anything that threatens our institutions and form of government? Has this president done anything so grievous as to overturn the decision of the voters to elect him as president? The clear answer is, with the information we have today, No, he has not.

But what this president has done is to create far more questions than answers about his and his campaign officials’ connections with Russia in the 2016 election and beyond. Gen. Michael Flynn, who is under FBI investigation, was known by the Trump campaign to have questionable financial and political connections with the Russians well before he was named national security advisor. Paul Manafort, one of Trump’s campaign managers, was also known to have deep connections with Russian individuals, including significant financial gains from those connections. Five other Trump campaign officials had contact with Russians who likely were political operatives of the Putin regime.

James Comey, the recently fired director of the FBI, was fired, according to the President, over “the Russian thing,” essentially for the investigation of the Trump campaign and presidency. It has since been discovered that Comey’s notes argue that the president personally, and in total privacy, asked him to stop investigating Flynn.

None of these, and the several other questions about Russia, have linked the president directly to any high crimes or misdemeanors, and therefore impeachment remains an unreasonable course of action.

Should it become known that the President was aware of inappropriate or illegal communications with his campaign and Russia, then Trump’s recent actions, notably the request to Comey to not investigate Flynn, if confirmed, and the firing of Comey for investigating the Trump group will rise to impeachable offenses — for then the presidents’ actions would be construed to have taken place to protect himself from the law.

Until then, the nation must support the special counsel investigation, now under retired FBI Director Robert Mueller, grant the congressional committees time to question those involved, and advance an independent commission to insure an investigation that is unbiased.

If the president has done nothing wrong, he deserves exoneration. If Trump has, in any way, violated American principles, he deserves a light shone upon those actions.

The storm has not yet passed.

 

Jim Crawford is a retired educator and political enthusiast living here in the Tri-State.