Get Out

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

Did I ever mention that I’m a criminal defense lawyer? I know the definition of treason. It’s right there in the United States Code. Title 18, section 2381.

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

Donald Trump owes allegiance to the United States. He swore it on a Bible he’s never read. He sticks to Russia like a pimple on a porn star. He gave our enemy aid and comfort before the election, and he continues to give it. Russia, with his televised encouragement, interfered in the election that elevated him to office he never could have reached on his own, and continues to interfere in our elections because he knows they’re interfering for his benefit so does nothing about it.

I don’t support the death penalty (not even for an exception in his case), but I could support making this guy move his gold toilet to a five-star maximum security prison somewhere. We’ve got a nice one in my home state that would love to have him. His golf game might actually improve: he’d get putting privileges one hour every day. Five years should just about cover it: we’re not vengeful monsters.

If we can’t jail this Manchurian candidate, the least we can do is impeach him. Cass Sunstein is a leading American constitutional law scholar. Last fall, two weeks before the anniversary of Trump’s election, Sunstein published “Impeachment: a Citizen’s Guide.” Without ever mentioning Donald Trump, he describes the historical roots of impeachment (“discussed intensely in the colonies” at least since 1635), its constitutional imperatives, and the kinds of Presidential behavior that may trigger it.

Sunstein describes a number of “easy cases” for impeachment.

• First up, a president who has admiration and sympathy for a foreign nation that wishes to do harm to the United States. Describe anyone you know? This president, while in office, reveals classified information to leaders of that nation. Remember that photo of Trump in the Oval Office with Russia Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russia Ambassador Sergey Kislyak? All of them laughing their heads off as Trump shared Israeli secrets with them. That was a Russian photo, by the way — no U.S. photographers allowed inside. Easy call. High crime or misdemeanor.

• Next, a president orders a federal agency to investigate a political opponent, because he (or just maybe she) is a political opponent. Trump has, many times, pressured both the Justice Department and the FBI to stop investigating him, and instead investigate the political opponent he (and Russia) defeated. “It’s a misdemeanor, in the constitutional sense,” Sunstein writes, “for the president to use his authority to single out political opponents for law enforcement activity.”

• A president decides to spend an inordinate amount of time away from his duties, neglecting the office. This president, barely a year in office, has spent about a quarter of his time at the golf course; you and I have spent about sixty-two million dollars paying for his endless mulligans. His typical day at work: start at 11 a.m., meeting with Chief of Staff John Kelly for a few minutes, with as many visual aids as Kelly can muster; an hour to recuperate from that mental effort; an hour for lunch; an hour and fifteen minutes to digest; forty-five minute meeting with someone with more visual aids; fifteen minute breather; the last exhausting half-hour meeting of the day; day is done at about 4:15 p.m. Actual estimated work time: nearly an impressive three hours. It’s okay, he may be pacing himself for his second term.

• “A president is elected as a result of a secret plan with a nation that is unfriendly to the United States. As part of that plan, the president has worked closely, and personally, with leaders of that nation to disseminate false information about his political opponent.” Wonder what Sunstein is talking about here. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing” — who said that again?

• A president uses his pardon power to pardon in full police officers who have committed federal crimes — not because they have been unfairly accused but because they are supporters and because the president wants to send a signal to others who have committed crimes for him and may be the beneficiaries of future pardons. Where have you gone, Joe Arpaio? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

• In a domestic crisis, the president fails to perform the basic tasks of his job. Russia’s assault on our elections — its continued assault on our elections — not only has prompted an approximately zero response from Donald Trump, but also hasn’t appeared to make the slightest dent in his brain pan. It doesn’t matter whether that’s because he’s too venal to do anything about it, or too mentally ill, or too stupid, or too lazy: he has failed to perform the basic task of defending America against an enemy.

So yes, using his own words, let’s impeach this son of a bitch.

Because this is what I think:

Donald John Trump is a traitor to the United States of America. He — not the news media — is the enemy of the people. He is under the thumb of a foreign government because he took money from them (and laundered much more) when no one else would lend it to him, and probably because he watched a lady go wee on a Moscow hotel bed and they have the video of his stupid grinning face to prove it.

Donald John Trump has conspired to commit, or has committed, the crime of obstruction of justice numerous times during Robert Mueller’s Russia inquiry: when he demanded loyalty of FBI Director James Comey; when he asked Comey to fuggedaboud National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s later confessed crimes; when he asked Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats to put pressure on Comey; when he fired Comey; when he first tried to sweet talk and then fired United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara; when he conspired with others, and still conspires to float the idea of firing Mueller (and speaking of Presidential floaters, when he hints of pardoning others swept up in the Russia probe); when he dictated the lies about his idiot son’s meeting with Russians in Trump Tower; when he conspired with the right honorable toady Devin Nunes to sabotage the House Intelligence investigation; the list goes on and beggars my own attention span and yours.

Donald John Trump is a two-bit con man, and that’s giving him twice the credit he deserves.

Among those he has conned are the evangelicals who forgive him his trespasses because there are just too many to worry their pretty little heads about. Donald John Trump worships not God but gold.

Donald John Trump is an uncharged serial sex offender, and a fully charged sex creep.

Donald John Trump is an unabashed racist authoritarian who’s never met a murdering tyrant he didn’t like and wished he could emulate.

I hesitate to add that Donald John Trump is the greatest liar in the history of the Republic; I hesitate because he so loves superlatives that he’d surely regard that as a compliment, and I come to bury him, not to praise him.

That’s not all that I think about this morally and socially degraded man. But that’s exactly what I think.