Here & Now

UW Professor Weighs in on Impeachment Proceedings

Frederica Freyberg:

President Donald Trump is very likely on his way to being impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives. What lies ahead and what does it mean for the electorate now less than a year from the 2020 election. We turn to UW-Madison Political Professor David Canon. Thanks very much for being here.

David Canon:

Good to be with you.

Frederica Freyberg:

What is your reaction to Speaker Pelosi’s announcement that House Democrats will proceed in drawing up Articles of Impeachment?

David Canon:

Well, I think there was no doubt almost since the day she announced the inquiry this was the way we were headed. But the surprise was in terms of the timing because especially after the Constitutional experts testified on Wednesday with one of them arguing quite strongly that you need to slow down, get the testimony from Pompeo and from Bolton and Mulvaney and some of the other key witnesses, make this as strong a case as you can, there was some discussion within the Democratic Party about trying to get testimony from those witnesses and that would mean slowing things down a lot because you’d have to get the court decision that would basically order those people to follow the subpoenas. And so you’re looking at probably late spring at the earliest if they did that. So I think the speaker probably has made the calculation that there’s a danger that the clock would just run out. You’d get into the summer. And so I think the decision was, ok, we want to do this right away. And so we’re probably looking at a vote before Christmas.

Frederica Freyberg:

Which Articles of Impeachment or charges do you think are most likely?

David Canon:

Now this is the one place where there still is internal debate. The speaker met with their caucus on Monday. They were talking about this issue. And there’s still a difference of opinion about do we just stick with Ukraine and have one article would be abuse of power, perhaps even narrowly defined as bribery. The second would be on obstruction of justice, the reluctance of the White House or the refusal of the White House to go along with cooperating on many of the witnesses as we already talked about. So those would be most narrowly, the two articles. And then if they decide to make it broader, they could bring in potentially obstruction from the Mueller Report as well. That’s where some people are arguing to make it broader.

Frederica Freyberg:

In terms of that expert who testified that this was being rushed along, do you agree in any way with that?

David Canon:

Not really. That was Jonathan Turley, the expert that was called by the Republicans. He said that, yeah, they just need to slow down to try to get the strongest possible case. In an ideal world, I agree with that. Absolutely. It would be wonderful to have the testimony from those key witnesses. But when you compare it to other impeachments we’ve had. This is only the fourth attempt at impeachment of a president. Andrew Johnson’s, the first back right after the Civil War, that whole process was one week long from the beginning of the inquiry to the impeachment vote. One week total. So that one was like a speed record compared to what we have right now, which is going to be about three months from the beginning of Speaker Pelosi announcing the inquiry to the vote, anticipated vote on probably December 20th. So it’s at least slower than that one. Now it isn’t as long as either the Watergate process or the Clinton impeachment, which both lasted quite a bit longer.

Frederica Freyberg:

But meanwhile, Turley’s counterparts who were testifying said that this was an incredibly clear case. Do you agree with them?

David Canon:

Well, yeah. So I think especially if you keep the focus on what happened with Ukraine, I think that it is a clear case of abuse of power. And if you look at the Republicans’ Minority Report that was issued on Monday from the House Intelligence Committee, they tried to argue that — they definitely tried to argue this was not a clear case and that it doesn’t merit impeachment. And one of the key things that they focused on was that President Trump was justified in asking for the investigation of Biden and of Ukraine’s involvement in the 2016 election because these were legitimate concerns about corruption. That was kind of the general framework they were trying to present this in. But I think those arguments don’t really stand up to a couple of kind of common sense reactions to what we know are the facts on the ground. Like, for example, if that’s true and it was just a general concern with corruption, then why release the military aid in early September after this is revealed? Why not stick to your guns and say, no, we’re trying to pursue corruption here. So why back down? Why deny there’s a quid pro quo when in fact, if this is a legitimate aim of American foreign policy, then quid pro quos are done all the time. Why not say yeah, it’s a quid pro quo, the way Mick Mulvaney attempted to do in that ill-fated press conference.

Frederica Freyberg:

Republicans are also saying that this really is just the embodiment of Democrats’ hatred for Donald Trump. What about that?

David Canon:

Well, right. This is a line they picked up in their minority report as well. Where they went back and they had quotes from people from like the day after the election that we want to impeach President Trump. So clearly, in the Democratic Caucus, there’s plenty of hatred for the president. But Nancy Pelosi reacted very strongly against that yesterday and said that no, it’s not about hatred at all. It’s their Constitutional duty to do this. And that’s something that she was very clear early on that she had no desire to impeach the president. It was only after the phone call with Zelensky that she felt like they had to go ahead with this.

Frederica Freyberg:

Meanwhile, you came into our studio today with a quote from the Federalist Papers and we have that up on our screen. Describe why you brought it in and then read it for us.

David Canon:

Right, so this is from Federalist Paper 65, written by Alexander Hamilton. This is the famous Federalist Paper that defines for the founders what they meant by impeachment. They defined it as a political act that would be defined by Congress, not a legal one, and as an abuse of public power by the, by an office holder. But the part that is not really talked about as much — so everyone’s been quoting that, those lines from Hamilton. But what hasn’t been quoted in the last week or so that I’ve seen anyway was where he connects this to politics today and how divisive politics could lead to undermining the duty of senators who are serving as the jurors in the trial. So this is what he says. In many cases, it, meaning the impeachment process, will connect itself with the pre-existing factions and will enlist all of the animosities, partialities, influence and interest on one side or the other. And in such cases, there will also be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of the parties than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt. So Hamilton is warning us. Be careful about the factions, about parties and don’t get stuck in your partisan side of this debate, but be really compelled by the evidence of innocence or guilt. I think that’s a strong reminder not just to the senators who’ll be serving as jurors in this case, but to the American public as well. It seems to be so locked in to their partisan views on this and just really don’t seem to be necessarily paying attention to the evidence before them.

Frederica Freyberg:

We need to leave it there. Professor Canon, thanks very much.

David Canon:

Thank you.