Bill to create panel that could remove Trump from office quietly picks up Democratic support

[DonViejo]

Source: Yahoo News




Michael Isikoff
Chief Investigative Correspondent
Yahoo NewsJune 30, 2017

For months, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders have privately counseled their more militant members to forswear talk of impeaching President Trump, telling them the political support for such a step simply doesn’t exist in the GOP-controlled Congress.

But 21 House Democrats, including the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, are now pushing an equally radical alternative: They are backing a bill that would create a congressional “oversight” commission that could declare the president incapacitated, leading to his removal from office under the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

At 12:56 p.m. Thursday, barely four hours after Trump tweeted attacks against MSNBC cable host Mika Brzezinski in crude, personal terms, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the chief sponsor of the bill, sent out an email to his colleagues, urging them to get behind the measure, writing it was of “enduring importance to the security of our nation.”

“In case of emergency, break glass,” Raskin told Yahoo News in an interview. “If you look at the record of things that have happened since January, it is truly a bizarre litany of events and outbursts.” Asked if Trump’s latest tweets attacking Brzezinski and her co-host Joe Scarborough — which were roundly condemned by members of both parties as beneath the dignity of his office — strengthened the grounds for invoking the 25th Amendment, Raskin replied: “I assume every human being is allowed one or two errant and seemingly deranged tweets. The question is whether you have a sustained pattern of behavior that indicates something is seriously wrong.” (Brzezinski and her Scarborough’s response to Trump’s tweets ran in today’s Washington Post under the headline, “The President is not well.” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended Trump’s tweets Thursday, saying he “fights fire with fire.”)



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[exboyfil]

1. I wish the Democrats would stop wasting their time

There is no upside to doing this. Trump is the GOP's problem. They have a ready out to remove him (impeachment or forced resignation). It has to come from them and be their idea.

[Scoopster]

4. I totally disagree.

He and his administration are the problem of every citizen of this country now.

[exboyfil]

6. Even if the Congressional committe agrees

and the VP agrees, Trump can petition every 90 days or so to be reinstated to office. Each time it requires a 2/3rds vote from both Houses of Congress to keep him from resuming his office.

It would be a different situation if the Democrats controlled at least one House of Congress.

[Turn CO Blue]

18. Trump could petition, but I believe he would also have to provide objective assessments

(medical and psychiatric) to prove his case with each petition to the Vice-President and the Speaker of the House.

If Pence and Ryan actually decide to make the power-play and do the 25th Amendment thing - then they going to send Trump to an independent objective group of doctors at Bethesda and not allow Trump to go to his own doctor.

[exboyfil]

22. I see nothing in the Amendment compelling the President

to seek any medical evaluation.

Anyway anything short of drooling in the corner, they are not going to get 2/3rds of both Houses.

[Turn CO Blue]

38. Section 4

This is the analysis from Time magazine on that:

...snip
a little-known provision in Section 4 empowers Congress to form its own body to evaluate the President’s fitness for office, eliminating the need for the Cabinet’s involvement in the process (emphasis ours):

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

But what constitutional constraints are put on this power? Remarkably, there aren’t any. The framers of the 25th Amendment left the provision purposely vague, allowing Congress flexibility to decide on its specifics at a later date. It should come as no surprise to those who bemoan Congress’s frequent inactivity to find out that in the 50 years since the Amendment passed, it has never made such a decision.

However, there are two ways that Congress could still act on this provision.

The first approach would be to appoint a panel of independent medical practitioners to judge the health of American presidents.

...end snip
http://time.com/4692507/congress-remove-donald-trump-impeachment/

It goes on to say that the second approach or the Section 4 provision is for Congress would appoint a body without medical expertise to evaluate the President's fitness.

Either way, Trump gets evaluated by a panel.

[Jim__]

21. If Trump were declared incapacitated and removed, I doubt anyone would ever reinstate him.

When he was removed, he’d be howling at the moon mad, and no one would be able to deny the obvious.

[exboyfil]

23. He maintains the right to petition every 21 days or so

He is still President until he resigns, dies, or is impeached.

Basically the Republicans have to go to him in private and threaten him with going after his cash (full support of any investigation - using every Legislative tool, leaking like a sieve). This will get him to resign.

Only the Republicans can do it, and they really should do it in the most private way possible (at least for their party's sake).

[Danmel]

14. Every citizen of the world

And all the critters unfortunate enough to have to share this planet with us.

[Zoonart]

26. I agree totally.

It is their duty to the nation to pursue this...Republican obstruction be damned. History will judge and don't be fooled by the tabloid nature of Trump's distractions. This is a historic fight for the soul of this Republic.

[DBoon]

28. Wrong

He and his administration are the problem of every person on this planet, not just US Citizens.

[ananda]

31. And I totally agree with your "disagree"!

[meadowlander]

57. Democrats need to be seen to be fighting for what is right.

There's a reasonably big demographic of people who would have voted for Democrats 40 years ago because it is in their blatant self-interest to do so, but they don't because 40 years of the right wing media echo chamber has convinced them that Democrats always roll over and will never stand up for them or get anything done.

Democrats need to be out there every single day making noise and raising hell. If it were the Republicans in the same situation they would be introducing articles of impeachment weekly regardless of whether they had any hope of passing or not just to keep the word buzzing in the news.

[livetohike]

2. Finally! Let's hope the pressure to do something increases.

I have repeatedly contacted my Senators and Rep on this subject.

[BigmanPigman]

46. So have I. I am glad I have more names from the article to write more emails.

Keith Olbermann has been all over this for months too.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. It has come to this pass. Every day fresh signs of Republican Trump's mental deterioration.

Additionally he willfully refuses to study briefings. It seems he is incapable of studying.

[Ligyron]

5. Trump has a learning disorder of some type.

That's what I think anyway...

[maddiemom]

11. Probably dyslexia.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. republican tRump probably thinks that is dylsexia & thinks that is "strong sex drive". . . nt

[Auntie Bush]

54. Definitely dyslexia! I noticed when he was giving a roast of Clinton at the Corridpondence dinner

That he was pointing his finger on the speech text as he was reading. That's a symptom of dyslexia. He's also poor at using the TelePrompTer because he can't read fast enough to look back and forth smoothly. He looks at one prompter and stands there reading. Then he turns and reads on the other one. There is no smooth transition between using the two. What a difference between how Obama uses it and TRump who looks like a third grader trying to read.

[patricia92243]

7. We must be careful about setting a precedence. It would be

used to remove every Democratic president forever.

Imagine how much fun (sarcasm) The Republicans would have had with Hillary if something like this were in place.

We already have processes in place to remove a president. It is just a matter of THe Republicans using them.

[George II]

12. I don't think any candidate we've seen in the last few decades has stooped to the level...

...that this one has. Republicans wouldn't have even one tenth the case that could be assembled against trump.

[David__77]

8. It would be politically advantageous to talk much of the 25th amendment.

...

[leanforward]

9. It's in the open

We need this organization of thought. The man is deranged.

Six months ago I sent emails to my Senators and Representative, that pRezident dRumpf needed to be impeached.

No response.

My reason then and now remains his relationship with the parukuskies. And, business and financial anecdotal journalist reporting from here and there. There are excepted sources. His business empire has been propped up the the russian backers for the last 15 years (give or take).

Likewise, civil fines for money laundering, etc.

The man needs to go. Let's organize, prepare a rough draft and circulate it.

[mopinko]

10. i gotta think

that they are having private conversations w their r colleagues that they are concerned.
they cant be stupid enough to put that out there if they dont think at least some on the other side would go along.

[Lonestarblue]

13. Dangerous precedent?

As someone else commented, removal by this method should be approached cautiously. It would be far better for the House to impeach him on the emoluments clause. There is ample evidence there. And, no, Republicans are not ready to do anything. Perhaps if they start hearing about it constantly from their constituents, as they have heard the objections to their healthcare bill, they would be too busy to get their dirty work done and would have to do something about Trump just to stop the calls!

[woundedkarma]

15. doesn't help...

Removing Trump from the presidency just puts us in a slightly less horrible position and eliminates the chance we could clear out a whole lot of despicable people.

I'm not suggesting we keep trump, only that we won't be much better off.

There's every possibility that Pence was Putin's goal all along.

Pence wasn't electable but Trump was and so they ran with Trump, pushed Pence into the VP knowing Trump would eventually with or without help (wonder if someone is dosing him with something to make him unstable or if he's just unstable naturally) would implode. Maybe Russia even pushed the story along. Oh and yah I'm serious, Trump seemed much more stable (still insane lying jerk but more stable) than he has in the WH.

Anyway, if Mueller is allowed to continue, we might get rid of all kinds of republicans.

If Pence gets presidency, will he pardon trump? Will Mueller's investigation continue?

Which is worse: insane evil person or a sane evil person?

[exboyfil]

20. D&D has a description for this

Chaotic Evil - Trump
Lawful Evil - Pence

Leaving Trump in is kind of like whistling past the graveyard. I think he slows the Republican agenda domestically, and he may be less of a hawk than Pence (not that that really matters given he has outsourced the CinC role).

My greatest fear is if we get into a Cuban Missile Crisis type situation. I think Pence, in spite of his many flaws, would stand a better chance of guiding us through. With Trump/Mattis you get the Curtis LeMay response.

I really wish Kasich had taken Trump up on the offer.

[Juliusseizure]

49. If Trump goes, so go Trumptards

The GOP are doing whatever they can to keep Trump in power.

The primary reason is he still has an very large, passionate, loyal base of support, which will become angry and disenchanted.

The base will see it as a loss to "libtards" - forget about the country's good its all about infantile bragging wars. To see democrats rejoice and shove it in their face after all the hyper-inflated GOP manufacturered partisan bitterness - lordy nothing more deflating than that.

Pence isn't an actor or mass marketing snake oil salesman. It takes a special "talent" for psychological manipulation to persuade 300 million people to vote for you when you have no political experience, were a democrat most of your life, are a gut wrenching piece of shit in all actions, love Russia, etc etc.

Also, the GOP are no better off with Pence legislatively. They just want to ram through huge tax cuts. They prefer a malicious attack dog inflating partisanship as much as possible.

[longship]

17. Only the cabinet officers have the constitutional authority to invoke the 25th.

The House only gets involved with the 25th amendment only once it is triggered by the cabinet officers and the president denies imparement.

The House has sole impeachment power. That's what they can do now.

AFAIK There is no break the glass path, I am afraid.

[William Seger]

19. No

Section 4 begins: "Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide ..."

However, there seems to be an ambiguity in the "... and ... or ..." syntax. Should it be interpreted as &quot VP and Cabinet) or other body" or "VP and (Cabinet or other body)?" In the syntax of most programming languages, "and" has precedence (just as multiplication is typically performed before addition), so it would be taken as &quot VP and Cabinet) or other body" but I don't know if there is any established convention for the language of laws. It seems odd, however, that such an ambiguity would exist in an Amendment.

[longship]

25. The only way congress can change the procedure is to change the law.

Which the 25th amendment seems to imply. Otherwise, the power rests with the cabinet officers. The deal is, how is any bill going to get through congress and be signed into law to allow this?

The words "or of such other body as congress by law may provide" are important here.

There's very little chance of passing such a bill. There's zero chance Drumpf signs such a bill into law. I will stand by my post.

My best to you.

[jberryhill]

29. The point being....

"or of such other body as Congress may by law provide" empowers Congress to create such a body.

Seems to be something that fell off the Congressional to-do list when the 25th was enacted.

[longship]

35. You may very well be correct.

But House Dems certainly aren't going to be able to pass anything through their side at this late stage. Then, there's the Senate. Good luck there. And who's going to get Drumpf to sign it into law?

Sadly, it looks like it's up to the cabinet officers. Then, things can get interesting if Drumpf fights. A 2/3 majority is then required by both houses.

Thanks for your contribution, my friend.

[jberryhill]

36. The OP does not suggest it is going to pass

Can such a thing be done? Sure.

Has it been done or will it be done in the future? No, for obvious reasons.

[longship]

39. Smarter than the average berryhill!

[kst]

30. I don't see an ambiguity -- but there is a loophole

I don't think there's any ambiguity.

The two alternatives are clearly delimited by the words either and or.

. Whenever (the Vice President) and
.. a majority of either
... (the principal officers of the executive departments)
.... or
...(such other body as Congress may by law provide) ...

(It would be ambiguous without the word "either".)

So no action can be taken under this clause without the Vice President.

Which opens an interesting loophole: what if there is no Vice President?

Spiro Agnew resigned the Vice Presidency in October, 1973. Nixon appointed Gerald Ford to replace him; Ford took office as VP in December.

What if Nixon had become incapacitated while the office of the VP was vacant, and unable to acknowledge it himself? There would have been no VP to invoke the 25th Amendment.

One could argue that the Speaker of the House, as the next person in line, would have that authority, but that doesn't necessarily hold up. This particular power is granted specifically to the Vice President, not to the next person in line. Similarly, when the Vice Presidency is vacant, the Speaker of the House doesn't inherit the authority to cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate.

[William Seger]

33. Yeah, you're right

... so Pence has to be Brutus in either case.

[tiredtoo]

24. Removing Trump would do nothing to benefit Democrats

Having him in there gives us a political advantage. The Republicans will remove him as soon as he proves to be a detriment to their future.

[jberryhill]

37. Having a crazy man with authority to launch nukes is not good for anyone

I am so tired of this "But we get Pence" thing.

There is an unstable idiot who can launch nukes. Pence is a lot of things, but does not represent anywhere near the threat to humanity that Trump does.

[totodeinhere]

40. I'm not sure of that. I forgot who said this but somebody at DU said that anyone who

supports gay conversion therapy as Pence does must be a psychopath. I think we would be exchanging one psychopath for another.

[tiredtoo]

43. Prior to Nixon's leaving office

People in the whitehouse contacted DOD with instructions to check with them before launching nukes or starting a war.
There has to be someone in D.C. that has done the same.
This sicko may get us into another war but any one of them is capable of doing that.
PS. my original post was just looking at political perspective. This dude can do no more damage than what the Republicans allow him to do.

[jberryhill]

44. "check with them before launching nukes"

That's not how it works.

There is nothing which can prevent the president from launching nukes.

[tiredtoo]

47. yes there is! eom

[Hieronymus]

56. Encouraging, thanks.

[cheyanne]

27. No, we must get rid of all Trump cronies at the same time: Impeach.

Soon some republicans will realize that Trump is a liability for them and be ready for impeachment. The threat of impeachment by a bipartisan group could give Democrats some leverage to remove his cabinet, family, plus what congresscritters knew about the Russian/Trump collusion.

As I understand it Pence is impeachable.

[totodeinhere]

41. Yes Pence is also impeachable but it would require an entirely separate process.

And even if that succeeded we would get Paul Ryan.

[Hekate]

32. Good for them. They are doing the work of persuading fellow Congressmen. The talk is now in the air.

I trust Nancy Pelosi, though -- I think she'll know to the vote when it's time to spring this. In the meantime -- they are getting the message out.

"In case of fire, break glass."

[B2G]

34. "Quietly"? Lol.

There would be nothing "quiet" about it.

[SpankMe]

42. If the shoe was on the other foot, then Republicans would be all over impeachment

If everything was opposite - Democratic house and Senate, Hillary POTUS, Dem SCOTUS - and Hillary had all this "smoke" swirling around her, Republicans would be screaming impeachment at the top of their lungs from Jan. 21st. They'd have articles drafted and would be pushing hard to have them put in play. They would probably not succeed. But, the Republicans wouldn't be holding back. You wouldn't hear Republicans saying:

"There's no upside to this. Hillary is the Democrats' problem"
or
"GOP must be careful about setting a precedent - it would be used to remove every Democratic president forever"
or
"It would be far better for the House to impeach her on the emoluments clause."
or
"Removing Hillary from the presidency just puts us in a slightly less horrible position and eliminates the chance we could clear out a whole lot of despicable people."
or
"Removing Hillary would do nothing to benefit Republicans..."

Republicans are attack dogs. We need to start doing a little of this on our side as well.

[Nitram]

45. This president is beyond impeachment. I say, go for it! Trump is mentally unfit for office.

[ThoughtCriminal]

48. There is an easy way to force Trump to resign

and it will take just a handful of Republicans to make this happen.

Five republicans go to the White House and tell him if he does not resign by the end of the week they will join with Democrats and vote to obtain and release his tax returns. He will take the deal if they promise to keep his returns secret.

[Juliusseizure]

50. He's not Incapacitated (probably)

"Incapacity" is a legal term. You're unable to distinguish reality.

We'd know if Trump was legally incapacitated. He'd stay out of public view. His staff, under medical authority, would monitor his behavior and forcibly restrain him from tweeting.

Ted Bundy was diagnosed with anti-social personality disorder, which is very similar to Narcissistic personality disorder, and was his own lawyer at his trial. He wasn't "incapacitated."

There's no chance here without medical evidence.

[elleng]

51. 'Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the chief sponsor of the bill, sent out an email to his colleagues,

urging them to get behind the measure, writing it was of “enduring importance to the security of our nation.”'



MY guy!

[mdbl]

52. if the GOP doesn't join in on this effort, they are not fulfilling ther responsibility to the USA

so what else is new?

[WhoWoodaKnew]

53. Having Pence in charge is worse. He's not crazy. He could get a LOT done.

[Hieronymus]

55. Congress 1-844-USA-0234